Comments on: Multi-Site Churches

By: Ian Hall

Ian Hall — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 04:42:16 +0000

A very helpful discussion. Always good to hear from the Reformed Forum’s more senior people.

By: Tim H.

Tim H. — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 12:24:14 +0000

“Multi-site” has become one of those things that’s hard to pin down as to what exactly it means.

Sometimes it’s mainly about getting that one guys face to multiple locations via video (i.e. John Piper).

Sometimes it’s multiple meeting locations where the same pastor drives around town and preaches multiple times.

Sometimes (in the PCA, at least) its a means of church planting where the congregations function as a “multi-site” church with the ultimate intention of each congregation being particularized ultimately (or at least have it’s own officers and pastors). (See Tim Keller’s post http://redeemercitytocity.com/blog/view.jsp?Blog_param=99)

I’m not a fan (for biblical and pragmatic reasons) of the prospect of trying to share a preacher around different meeting locations, but I actually find Tim Keller’s desire for a “collegiate” church where “Though still under one unified board of elders, each church will have its own pastoral team, elder team, and set of lay leaders.” I find it disheartening for there to be multiple reformed churches in a town that don’t ever talk to one another much less do things together. I think this “collegiate” (or as y’all alluded to “Dutch”) model has a lot of wisdom.

By: Kenneth Kang-Hui

Kenneth Kang-Hui — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Jim and Jeff,

I know RF sometimes records at “Studio B” in Glenside, did you record this episode at “Studio C” in Ringoes?

Thank you for a stimulating and helpful discussion on the multi-site church model. You may be interested to know that Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC has Dr. Tim Keller as her primary preacher, but does not broadcast/simulcast him to every site. Instead each site is located within 15 minutes of each other by taxi cab and they simply stagger the start time of their Sunday worship. Dr. Keller then cabs from service to service just in time to preach while an associate pastor opens and closes the service.

In terms of a intelligent critique of Redeemer’s multi-site model and it close cousin, the collegiate model, I suggest reading a post on the Heidelblog, back in February, at http://bit.ly/9bhf0m. For a less intelligent critique, you can read my blog post at http://bit.ly/cJdFXl.

By: Chris E

Chris E — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:12:06 +0000

I’d disagree slightly with the argument that they are just importing in a consistory based system by the backdoor.

As you allude to later in your podcast, the prime driver for this is to ‘scale’ teaching – usually one name to multipel sites.

By: Mark Denning

Mark Denning — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:26:17 +0000

Here are two helpful articles from a 2003 Leadership Journal article and a 2005 Christianity Today article to give folks background on multi-site churches. I first encountered it in Atlanta via North Point Community Church (Andy Stanley). For an idea that began ten years ago it seems to be spreading like wildfire. If you guys and the folks at Southern are talking about it then it really has spread out through multiple ecclesiastical unions. It’s also interesting to note that churches that were really into planting new distinct congregations ten years ago are now adopting this “franchising” method where they have a known and marketable commodity (translation:popular preacher) that they import to a new location via local movie theater or school with high tech equipment. They hire a “campus pastor” to do all the congregational care grunt work but that person does not teach on Sunday. That is reserved for the seasoned and innovative communicator who knows how to “deliver”. It would appear that marketing is the primary philosophy fueling this and that it feeds the pastor as celebrity mentality.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2003/spring/20.76.html?start=1

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/september/24.60.html?start=1

By: junior

junior — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:55:21 +0000

I appreciated what you said about the SBC trying to reinvent the P&R wheel. Good point (though I am against the Max Headroom “Pastor”).

I would add however, that even thought the PCA has a BCO, there congregations are not clones (I’m speaking of their worship service not ecclesiology). I’ve been to 4 of the 5 PCA churches in my County and they were all very different from each another.

On a personal note, if I move or go on vacation and can’t find a Covenantal Baptist congregation, I’m going to the OPC (i visited the one in the County and found them most like my congregaton : )