The Journey

One of the great things about being a Christian leader is that you get to rub shoulders with other Christian leaders. J.D. Greear is one of those great leaders. Though J.D. and I have never met, we have mutual friends and are both pastors who minister in the Acts 29 church planting network. I hope to meet him soon.

In a recent blog http://jdgreear.typepad.com/ he insightfully answers the question, "Why one church in multiple locations?"
I thought Greear's/Piper's insights are very helpful in understanding the reasoning behind a church going multi-site. Enjoy!

Is the Multi-campus church concept biblical?
John Piper shared some interesting perspective on this question I thought was worth passing on to you (mixed in with this are some of my own thoughts... so, the parts that don't make sense you can blame on me...). I found this very refreshing since many of those promoting multi-site don't seem to have wrestled with the biblical implications of the approach... they only have a "this works so it's got to be right and don't criticize me or slow me down with the Bible" kind of attitude.

Let me say right up front: you can't mandate from Scripture that all churches should be multi-campus. But.. with that said... Consider the church in Jerusalem. Here's a few salient points to let marinate in ye olde hopper:

1. The Jerusalem church had a massive growth problem: The first few chapters of Acts tell us that within a few weeks well over 10,000 people had come to Christ and that more people were being added "every day." Acts 2 records the crowd's response to Peter's sermon as, "What should we do?," and after Peter's explanation 3000 respond... in Acts 3 it says that 5000 MEN responded to Peter's second sermon... That created a "Holy cow, what should we do?" question for previously small Jerusalem congregation. They went from 120 to over 10,000 in one week! What did they do? They tried to accomodate the growth! (No conscientious Christian ever says "we're growing too fast" any more than a cancer patient says "I'm healing too fast." The Jerusalem church scrambled to do what it could to accommodate that growth.)

2. The Jerusalem church remained as ONE church: Three times in Acts a reference is made to the church in Jerusalem, and each time it is referred to in the SINGULAR. Acts 8:1: "There arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem." Acts 11:22: "The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch." Acts 15:4, Luke describes Paul and Barnabas' return to Jerusalem: "When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders." Each time, it does not refer to churches, but church. Not once, that I can find, is it referred to as MULTIPLE, independent congregations. Putting that together with #1, that means that the Jerusalem church was one church with at least 10,000 members.

3. That church devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching: Acts 2 says that the new church (singular) gathered around the teaching of the Apostolic team. This is actually important for the multi-site concept, when you consider #4.

4. There is no way the one church could have been gathered as one large group: There was simply no facility that could hold them in Jerusalem! Acts 2 tells us they were meeting to hear the Apostles' teaching daily "in the temple." There was no place in the temple that could daily accomodate 10,000 people... plus, this was before microphones and video projection. Thus, for 10,000 to devote themselves to the Apostles' teaching would take multiple, smaller gatherings. That's probably why it says they met "daily." (You see, it never says that all 10,000 met every day, just that every day some portion of them were meeting to hear the Apostles' teach.) Do you get what that means? A "teaching team" of Apostles were holding multiple services in the temple. And it's reasonable to assume that each Apostle was teaching the same sermon multiple times each week. You can't tell me that each one rushed home and prepared a new message every day. And you can't tell me that if they had blogs, video and T-1 internet connections they wouldn't have been using them.

5. In addition to smaller temple gatherings, the one church met in multiple houses every day to devote themselves to the Apostles' teaching. This seals the deal for me. One church, meeting in multiple houses. A traveling group of Apostles' teaching every day in different houses and different locations in the temple or wherever else they could find space.

6. The Jerusalem megachurch had massive organization problems and members who felt "left out." In Acts 6, people were complaining that in the Jerusalem megachurch member-care was not happening. Notice the Apostles' response. They didn't start reading Brian McLaren books and declare themselves "post-megachurch" and poopoo the whole idea of a big church. Nor did they read George Barna books, declare the end of the local church and start meeting on the golf course with their Ipods and Jesus golf-club bags. Nor did they complain that as trained ministers they weren't able themselves to do the member care Jesus had ordained them to do. What DID they do? They appointed another organizational structure within the church to minister to the needs of the growing body. You see, big church is messy. But it's better than letting people go to hell.