I won’t assume that you read my blog with any regularity, but I’d encourage you to read through my latest couple of posts about what I see as the counterintuitive nature of the church. It may better explain my perspective than what I’ve written here.

I agree about the early church being organized at the city/region level. But I think we would probably disagree on the definition of “pastor.” I don’t think the first-century Apostles were pastors/shepherds. I think they were just that- apostles. Their job was to initiate, offer initial instruction, point out trouble spots when they saw them, but then to move on. If mega-church pastors wanted to recast their roles and present themselves as apostles, that’d be one thing… but multi-site churches aren’t the same as city churches. City churches would be a fellowship of all the evangelicals (and maybe some non-evangelicals) in a city or region. A multi-site church only includes those churches that share its brand identity.

I believe that the “pitfalls” I mention aren’t just potential problems. I think it’s clear that multi-site, video venue, megachurch, etc. are all solutions to problems that they actually generate. There aren’t any leaders? That’s because the impersonality and pastor-centrism of models actually prevent discipleship and leadership development.

Your reasons for multi-site all seem to be pragmatic. (Let’s borrow/copy what’s “working” and modify it for maximum effect.) I don’t think this is a good place to start, and I think the line of thinking will get us exactly what we’ve got- a leadership vacuum, consumer Christianity, extractional discipleship, and program and event-driven ministries. .

“Pastors” who are not shepherds are not pastors. They should be ministering our of their gifting. The problem is that most of the other gifts don’t translate into a career.

You’re right- the church needs to work in cooperation. We can all learn from one another. But in God’s Church, teachers aren’t so scarce as to necessitate piping them in via satellite every Sunday.

The benefit of multi-site is this: good leadership is hard to find. Let’s be frank. The church in America is dying. More churches die every year. There are, however, churches that continue to grow. Let’s take what they are doing and multiply that, modifying it to fit the local audience.

One final comment, many pastors do not have the gift of teaching. Many pastors are not shepherds. We succeed when we correctly minister as a team.

I guess my question would be- why consider your church a “campus” of another church? What’s the benefit there? You mention partnering in missions and other ministries, but you don’t have to consider yourselves “one church in two locations” in order to do that, do you?

EDIT: Er, my next next post. I just cross-posted “Think Like A Missionary” from Contexting. I thought it did a good job of introducing the “Church that Jesus Planted” post.
Thanks!

It’s interesting to me…all around the world churches are becoming smaller, less professional and more organic and yet in the US we’ve managed to turn them into franchises. Are we missing it again? Are we taking the easy way out? It’s alot easier to run some cable then to disciple and train new leaders.
Camel Rider