Driscoll and Video Venues.. Again...

Mark Driscoll took a couple pokes today on his blog at those who disagree that the video venue is a healthy direction for the church. Thought we could talk a bit about that...

(if you are tired of hearing me talk about Driscoll, feel free to skip this post. I may need to start a "Driscoll" category, or even a separate blog if this keeps up...)

Here's the quote:

The entire concept of video venues is very controversial, particularly with house-church emerging types, who curiously argue against the technological advancement with their blogs and vodcasts. Nonetheless, the trend seems to be catching on and is likely to only grow in the coming years as live-streaming video technology via the internet becomes cheaper and easier. For any church leaders wanting to explore the entire multi-site concept, Larry Osborne is hosting a conference along with Leadership Network at his place in San Diego February 5–6, 2007.
I'm looking forward to speaking about what we are learning at Mars Hill and focusing on what it means to follow Paul's command in 1 Corinthians 9:22–23, "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel." Sadly, with the missional conversation often turning toward authentic community, the focus of using every possible means provided in culture for the gospel to reach as many people as possible is getting lost. It is as if the thought of thousands of people getting saved is a bad thing because it results in a megachurch without enough seats for all the people, as if the goal of ministry was to connect fewer people to Jesus. In saying this I am not defending megachurches in general, but am arguing that it is possible to be urban and evangelical, emerging and mega, authentic and video, evangelistic and reformed because, in the missional world, "by all possible means" is to be taken literally.

And here's what I think...

The entire concept of video venues is very controversial, particularly with house-church emerging types,

Now, who's he talking about??? "House church"? Oh... that's his way of saying "small and insignificant" as opposed to big and important. Well, no house church guys here. Just us emerging types...

But since he's going out of his way to respond to our reactions to his thoughts, I should probably reply to his response to our reactions to his thoughts... uh...

who curiously argue against the technological advancement with their blogs and vodcasts.

Yeah! Ironic, huh? Nonetheless...

Nonetheless, the trend seems to be catching on and is likely to only grow in the coming years as live-streaming video technology via the internet becomes cheaper.

Yes- it is a trend that's catching on, yes the technology is advancing and becoming cheaper... and no, we still shouldn't unthinkingly and uncritically press that technology into service without thinking through the ramifications to the Body of Christ.

I'm looking forward to speaking about what we are learning at Mars Hill and focusing on what it means to follow Paul's command in 1 Corinthians 9:22–23, "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel." Sadly, with the missional conversation often turning toward authentic community, the focus of using every possible means provided in culture for the gospel to reach as many people as possible is getting lost. It is as if the thought of thousands of people getting saved is a bad thing because it results in a megachurch without enough seats for all the people, as if the goal of ministry was to connect fewer people to Jesus.

Ahh, that's it. Mark has succinctly stated the main objection to video venues. We want to connect fewer people to Jesus! Beautiful...

In saying this I am not defending megachurches in general, but am arguing that it is possible to be urban and evangelical, emerging and mega, authentic and video, evangelistic and reformed because, in the missional world, "by all possible means" is to be taken literally.

And to that I say, all things are permissable but not all things are beneficial. The question to me is not how can we reach people- but how do we best connect them and care for them? I'm a firm believer in all things to all people that by all means we may reach some. But among all the models of church community avaliable, are some, in some way, better than others? Could a video venue church be at the bottom of the list? And might those we reach be better served in different kinds of communities?

Let me say it again- The real issue I have with video venues is not that people are getting saved. The issue I have is seeing those people who get saved connected into a community where the teaching pastors/elders actually know them, talk to them, and teach them in the context of knowing them, caring for them and interacting with them.

I love the fact that Mars Hill is seeing people come to Jesus. Awesome.
I love the fact that they have 4000 people there. Very cool.
I'm dumbfounded by the fact that a church that has spent the last ten years building a church planting network is feeling the need to place video screens all across town and invite people to watch video of Mark teach.

Mark has said before that they are just growing too fast and couldn't plant churches fast enough if they wanted.
I just don't buy it.

Let's say Mars Hill decided to be a church of 2000-2500 again. Could they do so? I think they could issue a call and see 20-30 A29 qualified church planters in Seattle in 6 months. Plant each of them with 100 people from Mars Hill and you are there. Would people go? Not without teaching and a call to sacrifice on their part, not without being called to the vision of starting new communities for the sake of those who don't know Jesus and probably not without a good kick in the keister. Hmmm... I wonder if there's anyone at Mars Hill who can deliver all that?

I'm convinced it would be harder, messier and for various reasons, ultimately better for everyone involved to plant churches all around town rather than go the video route.

I appreciate that Mars Hill remains committed to planting churches. I can't help but think that planting a video venue is a poor second choice to planting an autonomous community with its own elders appointed to care for and teach them. I appreciate the campus pastor idea and the fact that the campus pastor would be allowed to teach 8-12 times a year. I'm distressed that over all, I think this model will lead to fewer competent preachers, not more. And I think it's wrong for Mark to frame this as an either/or- as if the only choices are megachurches without enough seats, people being told "Sorry- no Jesus today! Not enough room!" or video venues.

The Mark Driscoll of 10 years ago would have called bs on that and said something like "Dude- just plant some freakin' churches!"

If your concern if for the lost, then video venues are definitely not the best way to go... I think the logic that applies to huge mega churches applies to them whether they meet in one big church building or in a bunch of medium sized venues with screens...

“Why is it that pastors of large churches are more willing to build bigger buildings than empower a group of forty to fifty people to plant another living body of Christ? If indeed the facts are true that the greatest conversion growth occurs in churches when they grow from fifty to two hundred people, why is it that we insist on building bigger churches after they have reached one thousand? What does it say about our assumptions for church growth when we plant churches that already start with two hundred people? If this is what it means to be the physical body of Christ in North America then the ultimate sign of church success will be “the number of churches you have planted,” not how big your church is in terms of attendance, decisions, or church facilities."

- David Finch, author of The Great Give-Away (ht: dustin)

Comments

[Tony Chimento]

Bob. Great post. I have long wrestled with this concept myself. I think the one concern I have is how important is the main guy to the video venue and what if he dies or gets caught in sin. Video venues seem to be about the person or personality. If the video venue is built up so much around the person and the program, what happens when something goes wrong? Adding to that, seems like the message is, "no one can do this like me so put up a video screen and let me handle it." I vaguely remember Jesus sending out, not uplinked TV sets, but his disciples in groups of two. Odd isn't it?

[David Alexander]

Great post Bob...

Have you read the rest of the Finch book? worth my time?

[carl]

Don't know Driscoll. Never been to Mars Hill. I have a gigachurch about 45 minutes from me. 17k+ people. they have planted churches all over the place around here including the town I am in. Most (not all) people go to these plants because the drive to the main church is too long for them. A couple of months ago they opened a video venue here in the same town they planted a church. Yikes! It grew to 2k+ already.

Do you think that possibly this is a gift gone awry? Here me out. I think it is possible that these men have an increadible ability to plant a thriving church. I think it is a real apostolic gifting. The problem is that planting a video venue is about as unapostolic as can be. They are actively preventing other church plants.

What I think they should do is every couple years pack up and move then start new plants that thrive and send out ministry teams to plant new churches. Doesn't this sound a little more biblical?

[bob]

I haven't read the Finch book, mostly because the book he wrote is one I wanted to write. Had title, outline, had worked on some chaptes... had about 25,000 words.
I'm just jealous :)

Seriously though, it's on my list, and everyone I've talked to that has read it has loved it...

[Stephen]

Bob, I agree with you whole heartedly. My question is, "Why does it matter?" Let other people do what they do, we just have to stay faithful. There is an incredible addictive rush to preaching in front of larger and larger audiences. Men and women are going to build personal empires in the name of God. Demagogues will always search for and find power. Me, I am called to be faithful to what is in front of me right now.

I appreciate calling sin, sin. And I would say the lusting after the mega church is just that. That what this video venue is a result of. It has to be sin. But at the same time, I want to be careful that I don't fall into the same sin trap. Can you imagine the "look good" that Driscoll has to maintain? As Mr T would say, "I pity the man!" I wouldn't want to trade places with him for anything. Creating that kind of environment leads to isolation, and grief. He needs our love and compassion more than our anger.

Where is the fine line, to be angry and sin not? How do we legitmately talk about how much money we could spend ont he poor if the church in America divested of its property and gave it away? How do we point out that Kingdom building looks very different from Empire building? Quite honestly, I don't know. But I do know that people that are looking for authentic vertical and horizontal relationships can feel the difference between the corporate "mega" and the personal "real." We feel the difference in our little Pub. That being the case, I better be darn sure that I am being faithful to the people and the place God has called me.

Let men who build empires answer to God. And lets wait to see what happens when the dross is burnt away. Until then, they've got nothing I want so I don't pay much attention. God is building His Kingdom. I am lucky to be a part of it at all. I don't deserve to be.

S

[bob]

Ah... none of us do. The beauty of the Gospel...

I won't call it sin at this point. I think I've seen sin pushing some "bigger and bigger" stuff, but I don't know that that's the case here, so, I would feel wrong in labeling it such with any certanity. We should be careful, probably- Mark is a good guy, as far as I know above reproach (at least since he apologized to Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt!)

My concern is on a bigger level than Mark and Mars Hill. He's their pastor- if he wants to be responsible before God for THAT MANY people, that's his business. I wouldn't take the job for anything.

But beyond Mark and Mars Hill, I'm talking about the larger landscape of church in the west. I see this as a negative direction by and large for a lot of reasons.
So when I pick on Mars Hill, I do so by example, not to say that they themselves are the ones I have the issue with. It's the larger trend of de-personalizing church, celebrity preachers, and corporate models of community.

As Rick McKinley, friend of Mark and former A29 board member says often: "The celebrity church must die."

Amen, Rick.

[Matt]

Why even go to a central location for a "video-cast"... why not just stay home and download it at your leisure...

.m

[chris g]

very interesting. i appreciate your perspective and agree with most of what you say. a couple of months ago i posted on this very subject................
http://geppapa.blogspot.com/2006/07/why-satellite-churches.html
my biggest beef with the whole thing is, we should be reproducing ourseleves. many men have been called by God to pastor, many are in our congregations. we should be equiping and sending.

Hey guys,
I posted something similar to this a few months ago on another blog. I updated my current work and our community’s situation and some other thoughts as an offering to further the discussion. Forgive me ahead of time for the length, Bob.

I love small, neighborhood churches and have given my life (my other full-time job) to assessing, training and coaching guys who will plant smaller, missional churches that will rock their part of the world with the gospel. I work formally with 2 denominations as well as Acts 29. My heart bleeds for church planting! I believe that the key to city-wide cultural, physical and spiritual renewal is through the planting of new, indigenous, neighborhood churches. Period.

But, I would like to throw out our situation as a church that is staring down the barrel of the whole video venue deal. And, I only lay the numbers out to help you understand the tension of our situation. I am not trying to be super-planter and convince you guys that I am great. I firmly believe our church plant was in the right place at the right time. Glory to God, not to me or the elders of The Journey, St Louis.

Our church is almost 4 years old and 1300 people are attending the services. Me and my wife Amie’s plan when we parachuted into our city was to plant a neighborhood church and then plant other neighborhood churches. We would get to 250 or so and then give 50 people to a planter (that we hopefully raised up) and “rinse repeat step one.” This was a great plan except it didn't work.

One reason it didn’t work was that we couldn’t find enough planters with a heart for our area who could plant a self-governing, self-supporting self-reproducing church. I have participated in assessing hundreds of guys over the last few years and have seen many that we recommended to plant and a few that we didn’t (hey Bob!) succeed in pioneering some incredible churches. But, I have also watched painfully as church plant after church plant ceased to exist and what happens to the planter, the family of the planter and the community of the failed church is devastating to say the least. The biggest reason why churches fail (check with the experts to confirm) is the planter.

I believe that there are few guys with the calling and requisite skill set to plant a reproducing incarnational/attractional church. This is evidenced by the 70% failure rate in church plants. I saw this in our own context as we simply couldn’t find the guys with the calling and skill- set to give people to. Now, this has not stopped us from planting locally as we just sent out an elder and people to plant about 45 minutes out in the burbs. We have another intern who hopefully will plant in the next two years. My point is that if your church is experiencing growth like ours, you cannot plant fast enough, chiefly because of the lack of called, qualified, church planters.

Now, if you are talking about planting a house church, that is an entirely different matter. Mark D and I worked with Neal Cole in a group with Leadership Network who published Jonathan Stewart Campbell’s dissertation on his baton network of house churches. We are not against house churches who are reaching people who are far from God. We just feel called to plant churches that are not just incarnational, but also attractional as we see people coming to Christ and being equipped in large groups as well as smaller ones. I love Neil and rejoice with what he and others are doing, but we just have a different eccesiology as we work in same kingdom.

Another issue that hinders church-planting is a difficult, but true reality. Whether we like it or not believers and un-believers are attracted to those with " 5 or 10 talent" teaching gifts and are drawn to attend churches with that level of teaching. I am not implying that pastors who only have "2 talent" teaching gifts aren't as important or godly. I am saying what is the obvious: The larger the church the more "talents" the pastor is likely to have in the area of teaching.

I am absolutely committed to church planting as is Mark (we serve together on the board of Acts 29 that has planted a ton of churches in the U.S. and beyond). The problem in a growing church is that as soon as you give 50 or 100 away, the seats are filled back up in a month. The truth is that certain churches grow because God blesses them so that they can be a blessing. I think this is the "right" reason for mega-churches who can be a resource center (training, funding, etc) to the city, region and perhaps the world. There are a lot of jacked up mega-churches that function more like a mall for consumers rather than a mission and resource center. But, that is another discussion.

We have three guys on our teaching team, although I preach about 70 percent of the time. Truthfully, I most enjoy personal evangelism and shepherding our great staff and leaders, but I teach the vast majority of the time because it is my best gift to the church.

We were at three services in a smaller building so we moved our morning service to a high school with twice as many seats and moved back to two services. Then only 4 months later we had to go back to 3 services. We bought a cool, old Catholic church complex but have maxed it out. We are moving to five services this fall (one of those is a Spanish speaking service). We just planted a church and hope to send people to another church that is launching in early 07.

The elders believe that a large majority of people who attend come to hear me preach. I hear it all the time from unbelievers who prefer it when I preach. I hate it, but it is the truth. I don't want to set myself up as master teacher and I loathe the reality of the whole situation. It reeks of celebrity-worship, plays into consumerism and messes with my already far-too-large head. But, it also reeks of reality. Down through church history God has seemed pleased to use the teaching gift to draw large crowds and many of those people to himself. This is not a new thing, though it is weird for me to be in this position. I was a godless rebellious teen whom God saved from small rural town in Illinois. Nobody who knew me “then” can believe that I am the pastor of this church. Our elders and wife know my heart and how uncomfortable I am with all of this.

We have a great church and my teaching gift is certainly not our only "draw". But, I am coming to grips with the reality that this gift is significant and I don't need to apologize for it. Stay accountable to God, my wife and elders for it... not think of myself too highly for it... not think that gifting equals character for it...but also not apologize for it.

I hate the thought of my ugly mug on some video screen and I share the ALL the concerns that were posted here. But, I gotta tell you that the thought of preaching 4 and 5 times a Sunday doesn't look very appealing either. Some of you would say, "Just let the other guys teach more." The problem is that they are both working 50-60 hours a week on other important matters for our community. When they preach they have to take 15-20 or so hours away from their important work. We are a young church (26 is average age) and so we don't have a ton of money to hire staff. You get my drift? Right now, and maybe for a while, the elders say I need to be in the pulpit the majority of the time using the gift God has given me.

Here are the questions our elders are wrestling with:
Do I just burn out to stay authentic with the people? Or, is this video thing a way to maximize my gift? Which is more authentic, using video or slipping out of the service early to drive to the other location we meet at in order to be with them live? Can I physically and emotionally handle preaching 4 and 5 times a Sunday? Will we be able to afford to hire more staff so I can teach less? What happens if I get in a car wreck? How can we lead our people to value other teaching gifts, even if it is not as edifying to them?
How can we train more and better church planters?

Sorry this got so long. Thanks for reading.
I’ll check back in periodically to see if I can further the discussion
Peace, brothers and sisters,
Darrin patrick

[eric]

It is nice to read a blog that doesn't think Driscoll is the best thing for the Church since the Holy Spirit. I have stopped even reading his stuff.

I don't like being considered a second-class Christian because I am not Reformed. Oh, and because I think for myself!

[Mike]

I love Jesus, I go to Mars Hill. I think Mark runs after Jesus. I want to run in the same direction. Grace and Peace

[Mike]

The previous comment was my first blog ever.

[ryan]

Bob,
Would like to hear your thoughts to Driscoll's follow up comments to this whole toopic that he posted in the comments section on his blog.

[Eugene Cho]

mars hill is about .5 miles from the church where i pastor called quest church in seattle. mark is clearly gifted; mars hill is clearly thriving. many folks either see him as a mentor and others have very strong theological and ecclesiological differences. as for the video church, let's be honest. everyone, including me, and you, can easily justify with words what we choose to do. in my case, i just hope i'm not bs'ing. as for mars hill and mark, this is clearly the direction they MUST take since they've pubicly come out and said they believe God has ordained the church to grow to 20,000 people.

more power to them. i'm trying my best to pastor to 200.

eugene
eugenecho.wordpess.com

[bob]

Thanks Eugene...

I got an email from someone who had had a lot of discussions with Mark and other A29 leaders back in the day when they were violently AGAINST this idea.

Not to say that people don't change their minds and their reasoning, but I would feel more comfortable with this were it born out of theological reasoning and then necessitated by the situation on the ground rather than seemingly the other way around.