Multi-Site – Being One Church in Multiple Locations from Zondervan on Vimeo.
What do you think? How about the premise at the beginning that the early church was multi-site?
Multi-Site – Being One Church in Multiple Locations from Zondervan on Vimeo.
What do you think? How about the premise at the beginning that the early church was multi-site?
All of this happened while I sat in our auditorium at the Long Point Campus. This is an amazing time to be alive.
First Bob says that the video venue question is a biblical one. I have searched my handy-dandy Strong's Concordance and I can't find video venues anywhere in there. I don't know Greek or Hebrew, but the Bible seems pretty quiet on what color paper we print the bulletin on, whether we can use an overhead projector to display the words to the hymns or how close the speaker should stand to his audience when he speaks. (Inches? Feet? Miles?)
Paul did not seem to be a major proponent of the supremacy of in-person teaching (a phrase coined in the "seminal text" on multi-site according to Bob) He repeatedly asked that his letters be read (READ?) to different churches in different cities. So if reading Paul's letters (as opposed to Paul coming in person and reading his letters) is acceptable, how far down this slippery slope would Paul be willing to travel? Would it be acceptable, if the technology was available, for the church at Ephesus to photocopy Paul's letter and send a copy to the church at Galatia? If Paul had had a Flip HD is it possible that he would have simply spoken to the Corinthians while Sosthenes held the camera? Would there have been anything inherently sinful if the Thessalonians would have popped in a DVD of Paul on Sunday instead of reading his letter?
If papyrus was an acceptable alternative to live teaching, why would video be forbidden? If video would be ok for Paul, would it have been ok for Timothy? For Silas? What if Luther posted his 95 theses on YouTube rather than defacing the Wittenberg door; would the Reformation have been unbiblical?
Bob's second main point is that the medium is the message. That puts all of us in a world of trouble. When was the last time you read the Ten Commandments in the original granite? Have you ever tried to load the Dead Sea scrolls on your iPhone? Mediums change all of the time. The Guttenberg Press was a huge change in the medium. Xerox changed the medium. The internet changed the medium. Video changes the medium. The medium will ALWAYS change, the message never changes. The message is the Gospel, the medium is merely a vehicle.
Will video teaching have unintended consequences? Yes. Can video teaching be used to inflate already over-inflated egos? Yes. Can video teaching lead to a lack of development of preachers? Yes. These, however, are not medium questions, these are leadership questions. An effective leader does not hesitate at the gates of hell to study all of the possible contingencies before making a move. An effective leader will follow Paul's example and "use all means that I might save some."
This weekend Gary Lamb, one of the more popular pastors in the social networking world, admitted that he has been in an ongoing affair with his assistant. Following the direction of his church Overseers he resigned from the church he planted five years ago effective immediately. The damage his actions caused will continue for many years in the lives of hundreds of people. I do not know Gary personally but I have followed him on Twitter for the past year and have read his blog occasionally. I have no comment on his specific situation other than to say I am praying for his family, his church, the woman he has been involved with and for Gary.
I do, however, want to comment on pastors shipwrecking their lives and the lives of their families. I have been involved in ministry all of my life, the past 27 as a staff member or pastor at three different churches, and I have seen stories like Gary's over and over. The details vary, but the end result is the same; total devastation. The key question is not what happened, but rather how can we avoid the same fate. Here are some random thoughts:
As ministers we are in a marathon. If you do not pay attention to the danger signs along the way you will crash before the finish line. Your crash may be a spectacular moral failure like Gary's, it may be the slow destruction of your marriage, or it may be the rotting of your soul; but Satan will use ministry to destroy you. And God will not say to you in Heaven, "Too bad about your family, but awesome job building a great big church. Fist bump, dude."
Three things every pastor needs to do:
You need someone in your life who knows you inside and out; someone who will ask the hard questions and know when you are ducking the answers. It is difficult as a pastor to find someone you can be truly honest with, but it is essential that you find that person. Another pastor who does not attend your church might be ideal.
Every time you are tempted to break a rule, to cut a corner, togo somewhere you shouldn't go consider what it will cost you when it all comes to light. What is going to happen when your wife finds out? How will she feel? What will it do to your children? What will this do to your church? How will it feel to write a letter like Gary had to write?
You don't wake up one day and decide to shipwreck your life. You do it one stupid decision at a time. As someone who has seen this happen again and again and again I am begging you to take action today because it will happen to you.
What is the best first step for a
church that wants to open a Dream Center?
Geoff - it’s so cool of you to take time to be a part of this tour. I’ve so appreciated your writing and the part you’ve played in making Seacoast such a great church - such a great example for us at HPC as we moved to a multi-site model. Thanks for what you do for the Kingdom.
I think one thing we did right in our journey of starting a Dream Center was to go and learn from those who were already attempting to run Dream Centers. We visited Los Angeles where Matthew Barnett is doing a phenomenal job with the LA Dream Center. We also were on the ground to help at the St. Louis Dream Center as Joyce Meyer launched it. We sent teams for several years to these places to serve and to inject the passion and culture into our family here. You’ve got to go and touch it, see it... let someone sneeze on you so you’ll catch it.
Then we started doing outreaches into the community. We went mobile to begin with and we started where we had favor. We started small and let God guide each step. Put your action behind it first, then as God grows it, the facility will become a reality. Activity precedes facilities. It isn’t about gathering a million dollars and going out to buy a building. Just get busy serving where you have favor and watch where God takes it.
I want to thank Dino for taking time to give us his insight. He will be stopping by the blog today to interact with your questions and comments, so what would you like to ask Dino?
Level One: The do gooder
These are people who see something like 5 Days in May and think, "I have to do something about this." They sign up to drink nothing but water for 5 days and give the money they save to Water Missions International. They are the people who hear an appeal to help tsunami victims and toss a $10 in the collection plate. Sometimes they will sign up to sponsor a child in Africa. Do gooders are a very necessary part of the good doing process.
Level Two: The game changer
When Shawn heard that one in six people don't have access to clean water he thought, "I have to do something about this." He could have mailed a check to Water Missions (do gooder), or he could try to start a movement that raises awareness and spurs hundreds or thousands of people to action (A game changer). A few years ago when my wife visited Christ's Gift Academy, a school for AIDS orphans in a small fishing village on the shore of Lake Victoria, she thought, "I have to do something about this." She could have sponsored a child (she now sponsors three children), or led a team of teachers on a mission trip to the school (which she has done several times). But that wasn't enough. Sherry organized a new board for the school, revamped their fund raising process and continues to lead the American operation. She is definitely a game changer. (And a darn good looking one as well)
Level Three: The world shaker
My friend Joe had no intention of moving to Africa when a buddy talked him into taking a trip to Christ's Gift Academy, but after his first visit he thought, "I have to do something about this." When he returned he spent several weeks in prayer, consulted with trusted friends and sought pastoral guidance on what he should do. Then he quit his dream job as a Division 1 basketball coach, sold everything he owned and moved to Africa. Joe still doesn't see himself as a traditional missionary, he's just a guy who had to make a difference. Joe is a world shaker.
What are you? Are you a do gooder? It seems like if we take up space on earth we should at least be a do gooder. Are you a game changer? Where could you made a significant contribution that would change the status of good in the world? Or are you that rare individual who is a world shaker? One of my favorite scriptures is in Acts 17; "These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also." I hope before I die someone will say that about me. I want to shake the world. How about you?
In the car on the way back I asked Jeanne Radekopf (several of us had traveled together to the campus) if she knew any more about the guy's story. Since Jeanne is a worship pastor at Seacoast I figured she might know more about retired musicians and their complicated lives. Actually she knew his story quite well. It turns out he was a member of a band that everyone in America over the age of 12 has heard of. In fact you probably own at least one of his albums, and you definitely have had his songs stuck in your head for at least a decade. He is a retired musician because when you sell as many albums as he has you don't need to work again, and everyone knows your name.
Everyone but me.
I'm glad I didn't ask him what he retired from.
Poor teaching: If your church has been built on excellent teaching then your offsite campuses will need excellent teaching. The challenge is that great teachers are hard to find. You can find teachers who are effective with groups of 50, 100 or 200, but once you get beyond 200 people it becomes difficult to find teachers who can effectively engage a larger audience. That's one of the reasons Seacoast uses video teaching almost exclusively; we are able to leverage the teaching gifts of our primary communicators and allow our campus pastors to focus on their areas of strength. As my brother Greg often says, many people feel they have the gift of teaching; the question is does anyone have the gift of listening.
Poor music: The second most important leader at most campuses, after the campus pastor, is the worship director. If you put a poor band led by a mediocre singer in front of a skeptical crowd followed by a video preacher; people aren't going to come back. In fact if you choose to use video teaching you will need an extremely effective musical worship experience to capture the people's hearts. I saw this in action at North Coast in San Diego. The best worship band on the campus is in one of video venueus,The Edge, not in the auditorium where Larry Osborne speaks.
Poor children's ministry: This is often an uphill battle. Your original location has children's ministry space that would make Walt Disney envious; 3d characters, state of the art lights, sound and video, and backdrops straight off a Hollywood set. But you ask parents at the new site to drop their kids off in a dingy high school classroom or a dark, empty theater. Often they'll make the sacrifice for a few weeks until the kids beg to go back to WallyWorld. The first key to children's ministry in an offsite campus is to look good until you can be good. We often start with a video curriculum and put as much money and effort as possible into making the space look fun and clean.
Poor technology: We talk a lot at Seacoast about the good enough line; we want our technology to meet the expectations of the audience, but we don't stress about having the best cutting edge equipment available. For example we are still using standard definition video in all but one of our venues. The challenge with a good enough line is that it is very important to stay above the line. I have visited several churches that use video teaching and are either straddling the good enough line or woefully below it. Often they are capturing video that is hard to watch. The lighting is poor, the backdrop is cluttered, and the camera is poorly operated. Asking people to watch video teaching is a leap; you have to help them make that leap with appealing video. The same is true of sound and lights. You don't need Broadway, but you do need better than a Jr. High sock hop.
A friend emailed these to me last week. I probably shouldn't post them, but they are too funny to pass up:
Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologisms, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. The winners are:
1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners:
1. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
2. [You'll have to find this one somewhere else. A little too PG-13 for this blog]
3. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
4. Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
5. Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
6. Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
7. Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.
8. Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease.
9. Karmageddon (n): Its like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
10. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
11. Glibido (v): All talk and no action.
12. Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
13. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
14. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
15. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.
And the pick of the literature:
16. Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an a******.