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Featured One Church, Many Campuses

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by HeDied4U, Apr 18, 2015.

  1. HeDied4U

    HeDied4U Well-Known Member
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    Would like to hear your thoughts on churches that have multiple locations, especially with the preaching coming from the "home" campus and shown on a video screen.

    I'll be visiting the church of a friend tomorrow that is a "satellite" church. My understanding is that they have a "campus" pastor but he doesn't do any preaching.

    Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I would think people would want their own "preaching" pastor at their church, even if he's just preaching the same message as at the "main" campus.

    Thanks for all comments.

    :)
     
  2. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
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    My thoughts exactly!

    A church is a local assembly - a "satellite" church, IMHO is an oxymoron. Hebrews 10:25 tells us "not the forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. Having someone on a big screen is NOT assembling together.

    Again IMHO - I think it is just about the numbers.
    A church can claim they had 18,000 in attendance - but that is with multiple services at one location and/or via satellite.
    (yes, I have the same opinion of churches with multiple services)
    When a church gets big enough to have two or more services - its big enough to start two or three mission churches with the goal of them becoming self-supporting.
     
  3. Reformed

    Reformed Well-Known Member
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    If a church is large enough have a satellite location, that location should become its own local church.
     
  4. padredurand

    padredurand Well-Known Member
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    What he said! :thumbsup:
     
  5. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
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    "We have never sought to hinder the uprising of other Churches from our midst or in our neighborhood. It is with cheerfulness that we dismiss our twelves, our twenties, our fifties, to form other Churches. We encourage our members to leave us to found other Churches; nay, we seek to persuade them to do it." —Charles Spurgeon, "The Waterer Watered"
     
  6. Deacon

    Deacon Well-Known Member
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    Xenos Home Groups (Columbus Oho) has a successful satellite church model.

    In the right area and with the right leadership it can work.

    Rob
     
  7. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    Well, I can tell you our experiences here on Long Island.

    We are a part of a larger church who had a vision of starting other churches on Long Island. My husband stepped up and said that he'd like to start one of the campuses and in time, we did. We are meeting about 25 miles from the home church. We have had independent messages with pastors coming from the home church (at one time we had 11 pastors) along with my husband who was the campus pastor. But then video church came in and we went through a really difficult time. Fortunately, it lasted only 6 weeks after which our senior pastor saw that it just doesn't work around here and we went back to having live pastors at the campuses (we have since started a third campus).

    The benefit of not becoming an independent church are numerous but the biggest is resources. We are small, with only about 50 tops on a Sunday but we have a 2 million dollar budget behind us as well as over 750 people. We moved into a new building that needed work and we had the resources and personnel to help renovate what we needed. Additionally, we have the spiritual and moral support of our home church. We have our own worship team (although we do utilize worship teams from the larger church when we are able to because we still need help in this area), our own preaching 3/4 of the time (my husband, the other 1/4 being some of our other pastors) and our own small groups. We have VBS, special Bible studies and counseling at our own campus but then we have larger studies and groups available at the home campus if people wish to travel.

    I'm not sure this is the best model but it's been working for us so far. I don't personally like the video idea and think that it is not the best we can offer our congregation.
     
  8. Jerome

    Jerome Well-Known Member
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    It seems to work in the Ozarks for SBC President Ronnie Floyd. His Arkansas-based bishopric now extends into Missouri:

    http://crosschurch.com/neosho/

     
  9. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
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    Why couldn't the "home" church and other local churches help out - after becoming independent?
     
  10. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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    [OhQUOTE=Jerome;2212373]It seems to work in the Ozarks for SBC President Ronnie Floyd. His Arkansas-based bishopric now extends into Missouri:

    http://crosschurch.com/neosho/[/QUOTE]

    Oh....how exciting!:rolleyes::rolleyes:
     
  11. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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    Good question.
     
  12. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    They could but I think there would be issues with the finances. We have a finance department that handles all of that stuff and we have no one who could handle that for an independent church. We've been finding a lot of benefits right now to having the larger church family with us and even today, we have a number of people who are coming to our church to visit - and they aren't going to another church but their own but just another campus.

    We may someday become independent but at this time, it makes no sense to do so.
     
  13. HeDied4U

    HeDied4U Well-Known Member
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    Good replies so far everyone. Thanks for your input. :)



    Good post Salty, but I do disagree with one thing you said...

    How is it not assembling together? There is "live" praise and worship music, so the people have come (gathered) together to praise the Lord. I would hope that among the people, there are folks who are encouraging one another. While I'm not comfortable with the thought of the preaching coming via video feed, the saints have gathered together for the service. Does there have to be a preacher actually on site for it to be considered an official gathering of the saints? Would then a home Bible study not qualify as saints meeting / assembling / gathering together?
     
  14. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
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    How is the pastor on the screen able to fellowship with those in "TV land"?

    Why not just use the so called prasie band of the home church?

    NO

    Of course
     
  15. Sapper Woody

    Sapper Woody Well-Known Member

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    As a church starts expanding into campuses, you basically have the same model the catholic church uses. One pastor (pope) in charge of several under pastors. One universal church, many locations.



    While the teaching and doctrine isn't (hopefully) heretical, the practice is not found in the Bible.
     
  16. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    There is no need for it. What churches should be doing is discipling its members to be ready to plant other churches and make them autonomous.
     
  17. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
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    Or more specifically Bishops and Cardinals
     
  18. Robert William

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    Jesus does not need any money to build His church, house to house as scripture teaches is fine.
     
  19. annsni

    annsni Well-Known Member
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    Actually, Scripture teaches house to house and in the synagogue. There is no directive in Scripture to keep the church only in small groups in homes. We see that larger churches existed in Bible times and they exist today and can do things that home churches could never do.
     
  20. HeDied4U

    HeDied4U Well-Known Member
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    Well, somehow I totally misunderstood my friend.

    Turns out that each campus pastor actually does deliver the sermon at his location. It's the same sermon outline used at each location, but delivered in the style of each individual pastor.

    This afternoon, I looked up a couple of the other campuses online to see if their sermon had been posted online. Only one location had it posted. Listened to it and was able to follow the same outline as I heard this morning, but it wasn't an exact word for word delivery that I heard this morning.

    Overall the service was very good. I liked the fact that they had a choir to accompany the "praise band." The music was contemporary, but I didn't feel like I was at a Christian rock concert. The folks were friendly and made me feel welcome. If I was searching for a new church to call home, I could see me giving it strong consideration.



    Thanks for all the replies. I really appreciate all of your input.

    :)
     
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