Why Multi-Site Churches are Dangerous (and maybe even a bad idea)

          The question has recently been raised in Christian circles regarding multi-site churches. For a while, it seemed, the notion of doubling your church community rather than splitting it in two (as with a church plant) was a novel idea, and we all went along with it. But, as with most things, we started asking questions a little too late. The Cool-Aid’s on our lips and we’re just starting to wonder if it was a good idea or not.

         The central question in the discussion is whether or not multi-site churches are reflective of the Lord’s intentions for the Church as expressed in His Word. There is no doubt that there are many multi-site churches that  are Gospel-centered and see people growing in Jesus and meeting Him for the first time. Rather, the primary question I come away asking is, Why? The question could be asked of many statements made by James MacDonald and Mark Driscoll in the previously posted video conversation between them and Mark Dever. I particularly want to ask, why multi-site? What necessitates it? And what are the benefits and potential downfalls of such an approach to being the Church?

         Though I could rant on and on about the pettiness of Driscoll and MacDonald’s approach to the conversation, their mutual ego-stroking, and their refusal to even let a pastor that has been in ministry since they were in high school finish his sentence, I won’t (okay … so I did…). Instead, I want throw my two cents on the table, and address the question, Why multi-site? 

         Before I do, let me just say, I am far too opinionated for my own good. I am feisty and hotheaded and stubborn. I am blunt and unedited and sometimes offensive. And I take my own opinions far too seriously. It’s all quite terrible, really.

           Okay. Now that I’m properly disclaimed, let’s get on with it, shall we?
           We were asking the question: Why multi-site?

There seems, to me, to be no reasonable answer to the question because it begs the further questions, Why not autonomous church plants, and, Why does the church’s vitality rest on a particular man being in the pulpit? Perhaps a multi-site pastor would respond that he is a more effective a preacher than one that could be raised up locally, or already has a positive reputation which others will respect and listen to ( … I’ll address Christian celebrities in a bit). I would call into question the notion that pastors can be ranked at all, and especially by such measures. Granted, there are preachers that are clearly gifted communicators, and I don’t diminish the natural ability and gifting by God by any means. What I do frown upon is the control that is insisted upon by a pastor who believes that only he can do the preaching, those he has convinced to agree with him, and those who have convinced him of such a prideful stance by their exorbitant praise.

This kind of self-glorification denounces the average preacher, the man who is a faithful preacher of the Word without the flashy stuff of eloquent speech, and robs him of his calling to minister the Word of God to the congregation. It tells him to get out of the way (actually, out of the pulpit for that matter) so that they can set up the big screen on which the big name pastor from the big city will teach the local body.

Thabiti Anyabwile, a pastor in the Cayman Islands and a member with The Gospel Coalition, recently wrote on the topic of multi-site churches, and said the following:

Try as one might, I can’t escape the conclusion that those who take the multi-site option are effectively saying, “My preacher is better than your preacher, so we’re gonna brand him and export him to a theater near you.” 

Christians do not believe in celebrity pastors. We don’t. Or at least we shouldn’t. When we do, we tread the dangerous territory of beginning to see the Church as a marketplace, a place that does not distinguish itself from the fallen world around her. Pastor Anyabwile followed by saying:

Our hearts easily gravitate toward entertainment and celebrity when the preaching event gets broadcast on screen rather than shared in flesh and blood.  The same equations that drive our movie and actor choices now drive our preacher and church choices.

Just like everything else, now preaching can also be outsourced to the “professionals”. We’re building bigger warehouses, setting up bigger screens, and calling it the Church.

I dare to say the most disturbing portion of this conversation is the first 36 seconds:

MacDonald: “So, hey, Mark, how many sights at your church?”

Driscol: “Ten hoping to open 11 this summer.”

M: “Great and how many services?”

D: “24 ish…?”

M: “Yeah, we got 5 sites going to 6, 13 going to 15 weekend services. more than 10,000 people in both of our services. Hundreds and hundreds of decisions for Christ each year…”

Should it not shock us that a conversation about ecclesiology between three well-studied pastors begins with a question such as, “How many”? It’s disturbing, if I can be frank, and wholly inappropriate for believers. We, as Christians, must insist that the Church is not ranked by her numbers, nor should we confuse size with growth. To in some way imply that large churches are good churches is dangerous. I don’t care if you give me a body of water 16 miles wide; I’m still not going diving until you tell me if it’s a pool or a puddle.

         Overall, the current obsession with numbers in general is problematic. The Scriptures tell us that unbelievers will flock to hear what their ears are itching to hear rather than the sound doctrine of the Gospel (2 Tim. 4:3). It seems apparent, then, that when a church has people flocking to it, we need to start asking some serious questions.*

But that is not what we see happening, is it? Instead, we grant churches social status by the number of her attendants. We have programs and pastors that boast, “We have this many” or “We are this big”. We should be significantly disturbed when a conversation about size between pastors closely resembles one you might overhear in the local high school boy’s locker room.

This is again evidenced by MacDonald’s statement concerning the raising up of new preachers. A preacher that is just starting can have the church with two or three hundred, and the guy that has developed can have the church with two or three thousand. Is that how we quantify? It is fundamentally inappropriate to speak of a bigger church as the reward for those who get A’s in preaching class, leaving the “lesser” churches for those who got B’s and C’s.

         A primary issue that is not included in this conversation is the embodied nature of pastoring (I would go so far as to say preaching is essentially embodied, but I don’t want to risk loosing your ear at this venture. So, instead, let’s paint broad strokes…). The role of pastor is, broadly, to be involved in the lives of the congregants in such a way as to lead them into holiness by word and deed. While this looks differently for different local bodies, this generally takes form through interpersonal conversations, administering the sacraments, and preaching.

         But now move the preaching onto the big screen, and all is muddied. The one who is to be shepherding you is pixilated and recorded. There is nobody (literally, no body) in the pulpit, and if you have questions about his sermon you must see the guy assigned to your site.

         The Church, in good form, is once again following culture in an attempt to be relevant. However, we have also neglected to ask good questions of the culture we are following. In a culture that is slipping more and more into an online world, we have adopted the “as if” language of our generation (We buy online and it’s “as if” we went shopping. We have facebook friends that we chat with “as if” we were friends and “as if” we were having a conversation, etc). The man on the screen is a man we may have never neither met, nor seen in person, nor lived in the same city as us. But it’s “as if” he is our pastor. (You can even take communion and baptism online now. Seriously. Google it.)

         In a recent email conversation with one of my professions, she made this stunning assessment:

I'm concerned that as evangelicals, we do not have an adequate theology of the body, and that we are going to need to acquire one as our culture moves increasingly into cyberspace.  We are in danger of vanishing down the rabbit hole, as it were, if we don't remember that a key part of our humanity is that we are embodied beings.

It is a key part of our humanity, as well as a key part of the ministry of preaching. Take, for instance, McDonald’s reasoning for church planting:

The reason I’m planting a church in Kansas City and in North Carolina and Miami and Minneapolis and wherever is because I don’t have a thing there. I don’t have any influence….and where I have a lot of influence, if I can, in my lifetime, cash that influence, and I believe people will come here me where I’ve built up a reputation…

         Now, to be fair, here MacDonald is talking about church planting rather than multi-site churches, and from what I gather of his practice of church planting, I don’t disagree (in that it’s the mission of the Church and it is an evangelistic act). It’s the underlying narcissism that is improper for the Church. Listen again to what he’s saying here: “The reason I’m planning a church [there] is because I don’t have a thing there.” A thing? What I believe he means is there is not, in those locations, a local body of believers that are under his influence (and that is a gracious interpretation, if I may). This language is beginning to pervade the Church in a strikingly unholy way. The gathering of believers to hear a sermon has, in this conversation, been boiled down to one man’s gig and how he can literally cash in his influence.

         The reason he doesn’t have “a thing” there is because he doesn’t live there. He doesn’t know the names and faces and sins and struggles and relationships and babies of the people who are a part of “his” church. And, in my opinion, he shouldn’t have a thing where he doesn’t have a life. Or, to put it more bluntly, he shouldn’t have a “ministry” where he doesn’t have a ministry.

While MacDonald and Driscoll continue to pat each other on the back, the topic of consumerism is brought up. Dever asks Driscoll if part of what he is doing as a preacher is responding to the audience. Though I must comment on his poor choice of the word “audience”, his question is a fair one, and Driscoll’s answer couldn’t be farther from disappointing. His response: No. He’s a total introvert. When he’s preaching, all he’s trying to do is enjoy the Scriptures and say what God puts on his heart.

And perhaps we’ve hit the root of the discussion: what is preaching? Is preaching an isolated act? And can it be considered an introverted practice? I dare to say that that is absolutely contrary to what is inherent in the act of preaching. When we stop responding to the congregation, we stop asking the question of what fruit a sermon bears in the life of believers. When we stop asking what fruit a sermon bears in the life of believers, we allow for a great distance to be put between the sermon and the hearer. And if we grant permission to the preacher to not consider the hearer, we grant permission to the hearer to not consider the preacher.

And this is fundamentally anti-church. I know its strong language, but think about it. What is the Church? What is she for? What does she do? Is not preaching a central piece of it all – the Word of God expounded and the believer’s receiving, believing, and accepting? As soon as we start isolating the pastor from the people, all seams begin to rend, and the Church is no longer able to live like the Church. When we put someone on the big screen we are making a statement about what it means to have a “good Church”, and we fall in line with the rest of society that sets a hierarchy in place based on popularity.

Let me end. (Gosh, if only I was paid to blog or made a grade doing it or something.) I think multi-site churches are self-centered and self-glorifying. They strip the Church of her primary embodied nature, and fall all to readily into the “as if” culture that surrounds her. I believe that we should, instead, be raising up pastors in the local body, training young men and women for ministry, and planting autonomous churches where they are needed. This seems to be the way of the Gospel to me.   

*I am in no way indicating that Driscoll or MacDonald’s churches do not preach the Gospel. On the contrary, I believe they do. I am simply making a broad theological statement that applies to the consumerist focused churches at large.