Podcast Episode #450
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Churches of the future will have many of the same components of churches today, but there are changes that will take place. Today, we cover five of those changes.
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
- Churches of all sizes are starting to embrace the multi-site model.
- Multi-site will soon be as normative as multi-service is.
- Healthy churches almost always have healthy discipleship groups.
- New ideas the church should be tried out of accommodation, not out of compromise.
The five future developments we discuss are:
- Shifts in the multisite model.
- More churches seeking to be acquired or merged into a multisite system.
- Return to some level of programmatic behavior.
- Rise of networks.
- The attendance frequency issue becoming a greater focus.
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Feedback
If you have a question you would like answered on the show, fill out the form on the podcast page here at ThomRainer.com. If we use your question, you’ll receive a free copy of Becoming a Welcoming Church.
I appreciate the strengths of multi-site, but for every multi-site campus, there is one less preaching pastor. There is one less group of believers connecting with a pastor who teaches and preaches to them in person. A campus pastor who does not preach cannot replace a real preaching pastor. IMHO the bad outweighs the good.
I agree with you about the shrinking opportunities for those called to preach the Word. I fear that eventually the only pastors left will be the big personality showman who’s true talent is the Bill Clinton-esque ability to make people feel important without even meeting them. Whether or not they accurately preach the Word or make disciples is beside the point. The only barometer of success is the number of people walking through the door.
Two of the drawbacks of multisites are that the sermons or sermon series live-streamed to each multisite campus are generic. They are not tailored to what may be happening at a particular church or the community in which it is located. There is a pastoral disconnect between the preacher and his audience. For example, the preacher may be in the middle of a sermon series on money management while the church and its community may be hurting from a school shooting or some other tragedy. Preaching as a form of pastoral care is missing. The second drawback is that local church is no longer a local school for preachers. Young men are no longer given an opportunity to develop, practice, and hone their preaching skills.
Good points!
Neither of those problems are unique to multisite churches, though. Many churches have the same problem. Perhaps since Martyn Lloyd-Jones rose to such prominence, systematic expository preaching has come back into fashion and become the preferred (or idolised) method of teaching the Scriptures in some circles. The ‘preaching’ is often very generic because it doesn’t require the pastor to have any interaction with the congregation. He isn’t directing his teaching according to the strengths and weaknesses of the congregation before him, he is just systematically working his way through the BIble from the comfort and confines of his study with no regard to the specific or immediate needs of the recipients of his ‘teaching’. This is a very different approach from Spurgeon who once said that a preacher should never announce a series of sermons but should always leave himself free to preach as led by the Spirit. More recently I recall reading some prominent reformed preacher saying that few men were actually gifted to preach systematic expository series as few men could do it well enough to keep the sermons fresh, to sustain the interest of the hearers, and to prevent the preparation of the sermons from becoming just a matter of dry routine.
With regards to the second point maybe it has always been the way but nepotism often plays a part when it comes to younger men being given preaching opportunities. While in some churches practically all the male members are invited to preach (generally when a church is without a pastor and they wish to divide the workload as fairly as possible), in many other churches the only unordained people a pastor will invite to preach are his sons and others amongst his own relations.