I recently received an email from my dear friend and pastor of Providence Community Church in Plano, TX, Mark Moore. Mark and I typically speak about trends in planting and what seems wise and healthy for Christ’s Church, and what trends seem unwise and potentially damaging. In my email was contained a link to an article about Ed Young and Fellowship Church in the Dallas Morning News. After reading this article and changing my diaper, I thought I would offer some thoughts on this recent trend and its potential impact.

First, let me say that I don’t think it is inherently wicked to have video venues. Through the centuries the church has found creative ways to spread the gospel. The Church should be liquid when it comes to methodology, yet should remain a solid when handling the doctrinal content of our message. In other words; in essentials, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; and in all things, charity. It is important that we view this trend with such a lens or one day we’ll end up in our undies on the top of a building with a sniper rifle on our shoulder. Let’s not drive ourselves crazy trying to call something a sin that is not a sin. I don’t view this as obligatory niceties, it must be the line of the gospel we walk and not that of our personal preferences.

With that said, I thought the observations and questions from the author of this article were quite fair and raised some interesting questions to consider when we talk about multi-site planting or video venues.

“How will sites reflect different populations? Grapevine is not downtown Dallas, much less the multiethnic stew of South Florida.”

This is a very profound question to consider. How in the world are we going to affectively represent the people that make up the church in these various cultural groups? This is a challenge we are facing at Kaleo Church with our multi-site planting efforts. We recently launched a site at San Diego State where we are needing to rethink how the church expresses itself in this context. If we are to be like water, we’ll need to ensure that first and foremost we are speaking the language of those attending. Overly pious babble won’t reach many more than the typical Christian population which will find an interest in this plant because they are already Christians. There are 34,000 students on campus and we’re not looking for the 6% of evangelicals alone. If we want to reach this campus, or any specific population or place, we’re going to need to be skilled exegetes of the culture. From conducting interviews on campus, reading the school paper, visiting the myspace pages for SDSU, understanding the diversity and mix of worldviews represented, and engaging in relationships that are deeper than the shallow “see you at church” mentality that shapes how we view friendships. We need to be intentional in our efforts to listen and learn about the issues that are most pressing emotionally and intellectually.

Also, it’s important that we view leadership as a collective indigenous effort and not limit the leadership to the team sent to lauch the site. This means that we have to be skilled in spotting those who love Christ and are sold out to Him in all ways and desire to lead and serve the church and campus. This is not always easy because most of us are not skilled scouts. We have to see beyond the exterior in many ways and look for diamonds in the rough. Developing these local leaders, shaping their theology, helping them to lead and serve, and giving them the tools that will make their leadership and service effective.

It’s not impossible to keep our values and vision intact in another location, but it is challenging. Our values and vision have been forged in the context of community, this means we must think of our values and vision as the foundation for each site to be built upon. The same materials and planning must be used when laying a solid foundation regardless of its shape or size when you build a home. So it must be that we shave down our values and vision to those components that are easily transferable and not overly locally conditioned.

The answer to this question from Fellowship seems to be that they are planning to cut out overt sports and local references specific to Dallas. They are also planning to use specific aesthetics and musical styling that is more culturally diverse. Though these elements certainly shape how a church looks and feels, they are not the core of what shapes a church- the people are. Leadership then must reflect the local context more so than even the visible styling. You can have a multi-racial church with a mono-cultural feel. Most churches that are seeking a truly diverse ethnicity are not seeking a diverse culture or they would be schizophrenic. An African American and Caucasian can skate, rave, and listen to the exact same music and wear the same style of clothing. This doesn’t make them multi-cultural it makes them mono-cultural and multi-racial. They are racially different, but not culturally. This is really important to remember because we can’t just drop a church in Florida which has many races represented and assume if we pick a particular race to serve, that we are tapping into the culture itself. We might go to a Hispanic area of San Diego and launch a church, but this doesn’t mean that we bring out a Mariachi band when most of the 18-30 year olds listen to hip-hop. Their culture is not necessarily a pure reflection of the traditions of their race. This is also the case for us at SDSU. It might be racially diverse, yet the prevailing culture is more Death Cab for Cutie than it is Rascal Flats. So, planting a church which works well in Dallas in a place like South Miami will typically result in a kind of culture that is similar in Dallas, but this doesn’t make it a Dallas culture anymore than it does a South Miami culture. It is a small piece of the overall culture, and we can always find a group that enjoys the food, music, movies, art, and clothing we do. America is more alike than it use to be. Fashion and music in San Diego (though diversified by climate) can be as vast as that in New York. We just pick a style and live in it until we change or grow out of it. Let’s not fool ourselves we aren’t going to attract every culture, every race, and every socio-economic group that makes up our city with one church. This is why we plant many sites in a city. This will allow each site to have its own flavor with its own spices, even if the stew starts with meat and potatoes as the base. The people will dictate that more than even our targeted audience. If we’re targeting 18-30 year olds with an educated upper-class background, and God brings in 30-40 year olds that are lower to middle-class blue collar laborers, we represent them, not our mother-ship. They need to feel that we are for them by demonstrating our willingness to let particular cultural preferences of our own leadership die for the sake of what will best reach the people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

“Will Mr. Young need to homogenize his message? A Dallas Cowboys reference that would wow the crowd in North Texas would not go over so big in Dolphins country.”

To me, this sounds a little trite. Editing out Cowboy references doesn’t make you culturally lucid. You’re not reaching a new culture through the deletion of your own local references, you do so by learning theirs.

This is perhaps the strongest case against video venues across state, county, or city lines than any other. To speak to your culture means that you are learning their story and rearticulating it with the one true narrative of the gospel. It is as much listening and learning as it is speaking and teaching. Without an understanding of their multitudes of guiding stories, we are not going to speak very effectively to them. We must understand what stories are unique to South Miami, what stories guide and shape the thinking and identity of the people, before we can speak clearly the redemptive story. This doesn’t mean we can’t speak in a different culture without a history of their stories, it simply means that we won’t be as clear and reach as deep as recasting their own hopes and aspirations with Christ as the answer unless we become as much their students as we are their teachers.

In order to speak to such diverse sub-cultures, Ed Young will need to back out of his own context and speak in such bland platitudes that I doubt it will change people in South Miami into Kingdom expanding, gospel centered, city positive residents that can go out and change their own culture. Most often those in our church are looking to us to tell them about their culture. How will we do this unless we know it? They tell us the story and then wait for us to explain it back to them in ways that will click so they are now empowered to go into their workplace and neighborhoods with an apologetic that is specific and pointed rather than vague and fuzzy. I’m as much an early student to this as anyone, so I realize this is quite difficult, but it is what will best speak to our people and in turn to those they know.

There are times when I preach that I am reminded about a particular pain of someone attending, a particular struggle of sin from a member, or a specific application that was not in my notes but came as I preached to those present. I want to be careful when I say this because I don’t want to limit what the Spirit can do, but how much are we binding the Spirit when we are thinking of speaking generally and not specifically? The Spirit is weekly speaking to the hearts of those hearing the word what things are for them and not another group. If in the act of preaching we are thinking about speaking in such sweeping terms or ideas, we are subtly asking for them to reach out and grab the stream of idea and figure out how to apply it. We already do this to some degree, but the goal is to take what the word says and allow it to be empowered and freed by the Spirit so that we are showing them how it applies to their need as the Spirit leads us in preaching application. The role of the Spirit can’t be overstated. We need to give the Spirit much to work with so that what they hear isn’t just “out there somewhere” statements, but “right here” thoughts and comments specific to their life as we understand their local and specific stories and struggles.

“Is there a danger of “Wal-Marting” nearby competing churches into oblivion?”

This is another thought provoking question. Are we to franchise the church? Well, this has to be answered in a way that takes our predisposition to Wal-Mart into consideration. If you come from an anti-capitalistic presupposition, then heck no we don’t want to become Wal-Mart’s. If you come from middle America, where Wal-Mart employs half of your family and is always the best deal in town for goods you need, maybe. I guess the question should be this; are we purveyors of religious goods or servants of our culture? How you answer that will determine how you view the Fellowship model. If you are inclined to see the church as a place to get your felt-needs met, then this model might work well for you since you can get the programs you want, in the amount of time you desire, with a well choreographed staff. Parking ministry, singles ministry, college-age, high-school, and youth groups galore might be exactly what you’re looking for. I’m not going to ding people because they desire certain needs to be met for their family. To some degree, we all do this, just with a different search criteria. For some it’s intellectual (they need to go deeper), for others it’s pragmatic (this needs to run smoothly with timely programs), and for some it’s emotional (I need to feel the presence of the Spirit through worship or dancing). We all start with our particular perspective and make our decisions to meet those needs. However, my concern is that we recognize that our particular preferences must be subsumed under what Scripture calls us to as the called out people. More and more we should lay aside our own particular tastes for what things are in closest accord with how God describes what a healthy church is and does. This is just a complicated way of saying that our opinion is secondary to God’s description of the church. With Fellowship, it seems as if they are very strong on the pragmatic, structural, program side, but may not be as concerned about the depth of God’s word or the deep emotional needs of the people. They tend to answer problems with programs and slickly marketed, bite-size nuggets that appeal to the common-sense side of our lives. The problem is that “common-sense” is not the truth of God’s word, nor does it often deal with us at a profound emotional level. This approach will make Fellowship attractive to those types of individuals no matter what part of the country a site is launched. Our country is full of consumeristic expectations which drives our “customer is always right,” “get it in a half an hour,” “have it your way” mentality. To see our culture shaped into a Kingdom culture, were going to have to put on the tanks and dive deep into the gospel and take our people with us so that change takes place from the inside out. Tips for living or lessons in biblical morality might work to grow a church, but it doesn’t help to grow Christians or save people from their self-righteous thoughts and behavior.

I say all of this because I am concerned that those churches which are trying to go deep with the gospel and see emotional/racial/social/and economic wounds healed, may feel the need to keep up with a monster like Fellowship moving into their neighborhood. Gospel-centered churches are not focused solely on what works, or what we feel, or how much you know, as they are about all three simultaneously. These churches don’t typically take the form of a monolith since to do all three well, you’re going to have to invest in your people and your people in the church community. Seeker driven, felt-needs, pragmatic churches don’t help the cause of the gospel to change the whole person, it complicates the process by appealing to one specific sensibility without addressing the others.

Does this mean that there is a limit to the size of church you should attend or grow? Absolutely not. Mars Hill is a great example of a church that is attempting to handle its incredibly fast growth by utilizing technology. Yet the focus of the ministry is to hit all three perspectives (intellect, emotions, Kingdom values) for the sake of those in our midst. Church doesn’t exist as a conduit for the mass marketed exercise of an individuals talent, but for the expression of community life shaped by the Gospel of the only one who should be exalted, Jesus. Imago Dei is another church that is seeking the same desire in a different way. Imago is working through how to extend the vision and values that are unique and gospel-centered throughout Portland in a way that won’t obscure what Scripture calls them to, yet is fluid and allows different expressions throughout the city that are specific to various contexts. Harbor Presbyterian Church in San Diego has planted six multi-site/multi-congregational churches and has plans for another 10 by 2010. They hold the gospel central to all they do and allow it to dictate how they function. This has created an environment of like minded locations that are truly one church, many locations, and they are seeking to reach the city from a grassroots perspective rather than by pouring money into a cookie-cutter franchise. This is what we’re attempting at Kaleo, and I pray we accomplish what we believe we’re called to.

I know it seems odd that I’m critiquing Fellowship church, which I don’t attend. It’s not Fellowship alone that I think is driven by pragmatism, it’s many of the churches that are rethinking this model as a way to advance their fiefdom rather than God’s Kingdom. I pray that we don’t use this as another way of expanding our mega-church empires, but look to multi-site planting as a strategy that we feel is best suited to serve the needs of the city by planting gospel-centered churches, to see the Kingdom advanced and the culture changed, one grace-saved sinner at a time.

Let me end with my favorite comment in this article:

“Sunday morning doughnuts are served in the air-conditioned lobby. The praise band is horn-heavy, wafted by a smoke-maker that helps the colored spotlights show up.”

Donuts- $275 per week
Air-Conditioning- $725 per week
Horn-heavy band- $500 per week
A wafting smoke-maker- PRICELESS