The Empty Pulpit...

(I was actually working on this post this morning and put it in "marinate" mode for finishing later... now I see Slice has posted on the same thing... Man I hate it when we have similar ideas. Few things disturb me more...Ugh... Anyway...)

Drew Goodmanson had some good thoughts on Five Trends for Future Church Planting... you can check them out here.

All good stuff, though I wanted to say a word or two about number 5...

More churches will be planted without the role of a preaching pastor. Many church plant organizations will promote the use of 'best of' or license videos from top preachers across America. Already there have been churches who have licensed Willow Creek material for tens of thousands (I heard $50k) a year. Others will simply pick series that they believe will draw the biggest crowd. There already is one church plant that has grown to over 600 within a couple months using this method. (Someone could probably make some good money by contacting all the 'big name' pastors and create a company that licenses their work to churches.)

The first thing I'd like to say is "Please God, no!" :)

It's hard for me to imagine anything more injurious to the church in America than if more and more churches begin to neglect those within their body who have the gift of teaching and instead opt to sit and watch superstars who do not know them as a people and cannot be responded to, asked questions of, interacted with... because they are not really there.

I've written a lot on what I see as the problems with this video venue approach to church, so I won't rehash it, but I will say this: If we want to see the skill of preaching God's Word die out within a generation, encouraging more and more video venues would be the way to get that done. If we want to make sure no one in the next generation knows how to teach a whole, diverse community of people, how to walk a whole community through God's Word, prayerfully, convictingly, personally... then let's do everything we can to train them how (in bible college and seminary) and then never give them the opportunity because all the churches have opted for "best of" series from the big guns. And let's certainly never allow elders of churches who must be "able to teach" as a qualification to be an elder to speak to the whole congregation. Why would we? We've got Hybels and Warren (or Piper and Sproul) on tap whenever we want them.

My fear is that the road that is being walked down with these video venue churches will relegate the vast majority of teachers among our churches to teaching the odd Sunday School class here and there, and we'll reserve the prime time for those ready for prime time... the big names with the big churches.

Someone made the suggestion at one point that we should just have a big Preach-Off. We'll figure out who's the best, the absolute most gifted communicator of the Gospel in the world. And then we'll all listen to him (and yeah, it would have to be a man because so many churches won't listen to a woman). Think about cool it would be- by the magic of technology, every Christian church in the world (who could afford to license it), would be hearing the same message, would be learning the same lessons and be on the same page! Awesome, right?

Welllll...

I'm sorry if I sound sarcastic, but man... I hate this idea...

Now hold on a second while I get my Church Lady on...
Ahem...

Second, shame. Shame I say! 50k??? Willow Creek actually charged another church 50 THOUSAND DOLLARS to watch their pastor preach? Is this insanity???
"Licensing" the preaching of God's Word... Oh, for pete's sake, people. If you are a huge megachuch, and for some reason, some small church plant wants to use your videos, you darn well better give, give generously, give gladly and give freely. Period.

I know a lot of people could come up with a lot of justifications why this is okay- why one church should actually be making money off another, but here's the bottom line: Whoever is preaching that sermon has already been paid by his or her community. We pay pastors so they are free to do ministry. We don't get paid by the sermon- we get paid so we're free to preach. We don't get paid per member of our community that we counsel... we get paid so we're free to counsel those in our communities.

So, if the church charges a couple of bucks for a CD or DVD of a sermon to cover costs, that's one thing. But 50 THOUSAND DOLLARS?

What do you all think? Is there ANY way to justify that?

Any at all?

Go ahead... give it your best shot...

Comments

[ianmcn]

Like you, I'm not sure what I find most disturbing... The story, or the fact that for once I'm in complete agreement with Slice!

[John]

Any way to justify it? Um...no. But try not to get so worked up, Bob. There is a day coming (soon, I hope), when the all the church growth conferences will discover that some folks don't wanna drive half an hour to watch TV church with 2000 of their closest friends. Especially when they could just watch TV church from the privacy of their own home. And then a new fad will take hold.

Wanna know what I think it will be? PREACHING FROM REAL LIVE PEOPLE. It's the next big thing. Really. I'm telling you, this thing is gonna take off.

Maybe you want to get in on the ground floor of this thing? I'm putting together a video program on how to implement this brand new, cutting edge concept. $50K sounds fair. You in?

[sean michael murphy]

no joke
amen
hear hear
right on
bravo
I couldn't agree more

[david]

yeah, uh...
i've typically been an apologist for video venues, but...
50K?
tough to defend.

[Jon]

Charging another church for the privledge of watching your sermon is definately a bad idea, but I disagree that video venues as a whole are a bad idea. If all of the venues are emanations of one church body, and there are other ways for them to connect as a body besides Sunday sermons (Bible studies, BBQs, mid-week classes, etc) I don't think the Video Venues would be as fractous as you tend to think they will.

[bob]

Well... fractuous isn't so much my worry... It has more to do with the roll of pastor/teacher in a community and what happens to the community when that gets outsourced... when the pastor never comes in contact with those he/she is teaching and shepherding.
This happens in mega churches anyway (which is why I'm not real hip on that particular model), but why do something that only exacerbates the problem?

yeah, i have to agree with you all; $50K -- com'on, totally wrong.

[Johnny Brooks]

There is always a way to “justify” sin, but in the end sin is sin. I will say with assurance that if you charge me money for a message God gave you for me, well then that is a sin. The problem with this idea is the money. Anytime someone is making money off of God things will go bad, it is just a matter of when. I cannot even imagine sitting in a building and watching a pastor on a screen. I could just sit on my couch at home and do the same thing. Then I could drink a beer and watch him/her.