Is Multisite a Healthy Option for Churches? Jason Ishmael VS. Brett Kays

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How do you define a church and how big should
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it be? How many campuses can you have? Is there a limit to, you know,
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do we stop at the county border or do we keep going? Like some of
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these churches have campuses across the nation and across the world. We also know,
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though, that in reading the Book of Acts, that there's, there's no way
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that all of those people are meeting in one location all the time. We also
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see this happen throughout the New Testament world,
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multiple house churches in lots of different places. The fact that
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they are meeting in separate places does not
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make them any less one or any more one.
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I think the real question becomes— Hello
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everyone, and welcome back to Scripture in Black and White.
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We are thrilled that you are with us on today.
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We recognize you've been watching us this season and how
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we've been doing this season differently than before. We've been having
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these theological Thunderdomes, if you will. We've been discussing
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some major topics in
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the body, topics that people are very passionate about,
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churches are very passionate about, and we've gotten to hear
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from different positions, different perspectives on those topics.
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So we're thankful that you've joined us, uh, here on Scripture
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in Black and White. I'm Anthony Walker, minister of the Highway
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231 South Church of Christ and also a part of
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Renew, here with my partner, my brother, my friend Daniel.
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Hey Anthony, my name is Daniel. I'm the editorial director for renew.org
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as well as part-time professor of philosophy and ethics and world religions
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at Ozark Christian College, and I'm glad to be here. This can be an important
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conversation. Awesome, awesome. It is important. And Daniel,
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I, I want you to help us, uh, by setting the stage today
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to see what are we dealing with in today's
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topic. Yeah, is multi-site
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a good option for growing churches?
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And, uh, this matters, this question matters because the flagship
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churches in most areas, uh, you know,
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they're going to give churches in that area a vision for what is a healthy
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church and what that church can be if it keeps growing. And currently, uh,
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so many flagship churches are multi-site. And so if
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multi-site is a healthy option for growing churches, then so far so good,
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um, keep up the good work. If it turns out multi-site
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is not— is often not a healthy option then
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these other growing churches need to know that. And so what I'll be
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looking for in this conversation is who has the best argument
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when you bring together both the theology and the
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doability, the practicality of it. Really want
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to bring both those together. We can't be too idealistic.
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We want to figure out what really does work, but also how
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can it be as healthy as it possibly can be. Hey man, that's,
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that's awesome. I'm looking forward— I think it is an important
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conversation. I'm looking forward to even personally, I have
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friends who have multi-site and, and they're
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thriving, doing well. I have one, uh, that, that I don't
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know personally, but it was an event I'm supposed to be heading
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towards where the church was multi-site for some time,
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but they were able to to secure a large building,
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and they've all come back. And so, you know, I'm interested
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to know, you know, how does that dynamic work, and would that work for
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some of these churches as well? I think it's also important,
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basically kind of piggybacking off what you just mentioned, that sometimes
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the visibility of it, uh, can be an evidence
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that, man, this church is— they are all over town.
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You know, they're all over the area for the
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ministry and the work that they're doing. So there's some interesting perspectives
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I'm hoping to hear and to get into on
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today. So with that said, Daniel,
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if you have anything else, go ahead and share, but if not,
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let's get into our guest for today.
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Yeah, so we have 2 people that are gonna be coming together and debating
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this topic, Jason Ishmael. Is the lead pastor at Antioch
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Christian Church in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa area. Hey, Jason.
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And a discussion question, which I think we should all
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answer. LeBron is going to the 76ers.
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How should we feel about this?
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What do you think? Is he still relevant?
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Oh, that's your answer. You can make it up and down the court this year.
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Oh, I'm loving Jason. Jason's my man.
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Okay, there we go. Brett, uh, Brett Keys, founding minister and
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lead minister of South Point Community Christian Church in the Detroit
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area. Hey Brett, thanks so much for being on here. Uh, what do you
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think about the whole LeBron going to the Philadelphia thing? Any comment?
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No comment. Okay, that's all right, that's all right.
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No, what's that? I said I'm already going to
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get myself in enough trouble with the other stuff I'm going to talk about.
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So, but Anthony, you're a lifelong Lakers fan, right?
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Not lifelong, but long, long enough. Um,
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my Laker years with LeBron there just gave me
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indigestion. Like, I, I wanted to root for the Lakers,
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but I didn't really care to root for LeBron. So I, I was
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taking antacids every time they played.
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So I'm glad the 76ers gets to deal with the LeBron
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circus. And, um, yeah, I'm gonna leave it with them.
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All right, so first question I'd like to
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ask Jason and then Brett, and, and Jason's gonna
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take, uh, more of the perspective that multi-site is a— is,
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is typically a healthy option for growing churches, and Brett is going to take,
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uh, the other perspective. That it's often
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not a healthy position. So,
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Jason, what are you afraid of? And I'm gonna ask Brett the same thing.
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And this isn't a— this is a serious question.
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What are the legitimate fears here of if we don't get this question
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figured out? Well, what's at stake?
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I'll start with something that's pretty close in context
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to me personally. And I cut my teeth in a rural context, deep southern
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Illinois. A town of 6,500 people. The subprime
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mortgage crisis hit, recession comes, and our region said,
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what recession? It's been that way for 20 years here. That's— and so
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you think about impoverished areas all over our country, and one of the challenges
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that we have right now in the church planting movement is that
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most, if not all, of our attention has been paid to suburban and urban contexts.
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The rural context is desperately in need of
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movement. Uh, throw a dart at the map, uh,
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especially in the Midwest, and you're likely to, uh,
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come near a town that is literally zero churches in it.
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Uh, we've got to get in there. We've got to fuel that, uh, fuel that
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growth, uh, fuel church planting in those places. And so I— for me
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personally, that's the, the biggest fear of all of this. If I were to lean
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into the multi-site, uh, debate in terms of things that I would fear,
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I would say there's a number of fears that I have from the multi-site side
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of things, uh, you know, that if— that we get to, you know, some sort
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of mini denominations, or that we, uh, have really closed,
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uh, really close fists around, uh, those,
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those, you know, campuses when they're planted, and an unwillingness to
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launch them independently, uh, or to let go of them,
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or to do independent churches at the beginning. Uh, you know,
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we're also seeing fewer platforms for
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training for preachers. I cut my teeth in a rural
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context, got to preach when I was 22. It was a huge benefit
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to me. And that poor church had to experience learning from me,
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or learning with me, you know, for those first several years. And so
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I would say though, that if I'm gonna be very specific and succinct here,
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the rural question's a big piece of this conversation for me.
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That counts significantly in our context.
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Thanks for that, Jason. Brett, what is a fear,
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uh, that kind of drives this for you? That— what, what is at stake here?
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Well, uh, I started the church in 1992 here, so I am a
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church planter, and I'm very pro-church planting.
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But we grew so fast that when we became aware of the whole multi-site
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model back in 2008, I jumped on board with it. And so, you know,
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many years ago, I would be the guy promoting multi-site as a good
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thing. In fact, I did that quite a bit. But now that I have so
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many years under my belt, we launched a second campus
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in 2010 and a third campus in 2015. But as of 3
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years ago now, we have been back to one campus again.
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It's not that I regret doing it. I just, I always had
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had misgivings about it, that sometimes it lapses
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more into pragmatism. Than what would be biblically or
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theologically sound behavior. Um, there's really no model
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for it in scripture. The idea of having no local
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leadership for congregations, often elders, one guy on
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a screen at various locations— that's really not
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how the Independent Christian Church started. That's not what we were about. And I'm afraid
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that we have begun to lapse into that kind of almost almost denominational
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kind of structure again, of becoming, you know, many churches
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under one centralized power and
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administration. And the truth is, really, we've seen
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now that you can say we're one church in 2 or 3
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or many locations, but it's really just the leadership saying that. The people
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themselves don't say that and don't feel that. You're really not functioning as
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one church. You know, how are you even defining what a church is anymore?
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It's a bunch of different churches with their own unique style,
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personality, focuses, culture, trying to perform
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as one church. And so even if you're sharing the same name
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and staff and budget, uh, you're really not one church. And ultimately,
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what's the endgame of all this? Where is it going to lead us?
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Um, you know, if we can have, uh, 3 campuses, why not 10?
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Why not 50? Why can't you have 1,000
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locations and still be one church? Isn't that what a denomination really is?
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I mean, Life.Church, probably one of the biggest ones. I think they have 45,
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46 locations, 85,000 people. Why can't
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you have, you know, 1,000 locations, millions of people all over the world, and still
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call yourself one church? I mean, where does it stop? So that's
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why— yeah, now that's awesome. So definitely a lot of fears there on
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that side. So, uh, thanks for that. Let's go ahead and let Jason
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give, uh, 5 minutes or so just giving your, your best
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presentation of why multi-site is a healthy option,
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and then Brett will, uh, do 5 minutes or so of why it is,
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it is not a healthy biblical option. Go for it, Jason.
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Well, I think first that the scripture in terms of church governance is
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not one that gives intense detail on how
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we are to do this, and when we just dig a couple layers in,
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I think we'd all— we're all going to agree here on locally autonomous eldership,
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a plurality of eldership that has one yes or one no together,
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every elder submitted to the eldership, those kinds
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of things. The question becomes, okay, how many elders are we supposed
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to have? Is an elder supposed to have
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term limits? Is it good to have break years? There are all these policies
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that are not bad things to work through, but each one
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of these groups of elders under the headship of Christ,
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uh, in the guidance of the scriptures gets to decide
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locally. And there might be decisions that are made in another
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locality, uh, that rub against the decisions
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of another locality but can both be scriptural. And so I think we're
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going to find that in— personally in this, that there's going to be some potential
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for liberty here. And I would, I would lean into a couple of things though
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in terms of a defense of multi-site First,
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biblically, I mean, I think we— when you look at the church in Jerusalem,
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for instance, in the book of Acts, over and again it is referred to
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as one church. Uh, we also know though
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that in, in reading the book of Acts that there's, there's no way that all
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of those people are meeting in one location all the time. We also see this
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happen in, uh, throughout the New Testament world, multiple house
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churches in lots of different places. Uh, the fact that they are
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meeting in separate places does not make them any less
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one or any more one. Uh, I think
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the real question becomes what, uh, what makes a church one?
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I mean, when I was in— I started out in a— and my position
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was actually firmly against multi-site church, uh, for the first 10 years of
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my ministry. And one of our challenges in our church was that people were
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upset that we had multiple services on Sunday morning because we couldn't fit everybody in
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the room on Sunday. And so we would have people say, well, it's a church
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within the church. We have multiple churches and they just happen
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to meet at the same place. And, you know, we could make the same
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kind of statements about their lack of oneness because
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there'd be times where some of them would never see each other. The first service
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would never run into the third service. Maybe if you went to the second,
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you'd get to be kind of that cohesive unit between everybody.
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But I think that the first time we step outside of one
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service, one time a week, We're going to find some
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of these unity problems and challenges. At the same time, we open
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ourselves to some potential. The way I like to see our spot,
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we're in a town of greater Cedar Rapids,
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around 250,000 people, and the surrounding
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area are rural towns. And our
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most successful ministry outside of the
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original the original spot is when
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we're able to find rural towns that are in desperate
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need of gospel movement. And what multi-site has helped us do is
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it broadens the skill set of who you could bring for
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a rural plant. I think it accelerates the growth of those rural plants because
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we have essentially a group that has in their culture and DNA the
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idea of pressing out, of flowing out all the time. They give resources to
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places that they, uh, that they may have never been before, uh, and as
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a result, that group gets to concentrate its impact,
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uh, and spread and point that in specific ways.
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And I think we get farther faster when, uh, when we're,
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when we're concentrating our impact together. I, I think it's
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important though that we realize that, you know, if this is about padding the ego
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of a single, of a single person to swell numbers or whatever Um,
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again, we can find that in, in traditional church models as well.
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Uh, and that pride is something that is,
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uh, creeping at everybody's door, uh,
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that does the kind of work that we do. Uh, I will say that
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I, I do enjoy some of the, uh, some of the pragmatism
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of this. Is it working? Uh, what's the best way for us to reach these
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places? And to me, it's always going to be, um, in all of the
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above approach. Our church loves to give away
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resources to places that will never be, uh, and, and to release them to
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other people. We also love to, uh, to have some
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even more accountable relationships where we're able to invest in some places that are
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not at the point yet where they're going to be independent. Now,
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one wrinkle in this for me is that I, I do have a dream of
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seeing these things one day be established as independent on their own, and I think
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that's a decision that locally we have to steward for ourselves,
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uh, what is best for our fellowship and the mission
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as it concerns Eastern Iowa.
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Wow. Thanks, Jason. Appreciate that. So what we
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have here is someone who was firmly anti-multisite who actually
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has been convinced that it's, it's a very healthy model, or at least it can
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be. And we're going to hear from Brett Case, who uh,
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started out doing multi-site and realized, ah, this isn't really as healthy as
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I thought. So Brett, take it away, 5 minutes or so on your position.
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Yeah, well, I think Jason made a good point
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where he talked about the idea is you do want these churches to become independent
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at some point, but over the course of all these many years,
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yeah, that's not what I've seen a whole lot of. There, there have been a
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few churches that have un-multi-sited. They have taken Got a little bit
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of headlines for that over the past few years because we just haven't
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seen it work out in terms of what it was meant to be. I think
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we did it the best way possible in that all of our campuses were local.
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They were within 15 minutes of each other. Uh,
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you know, the— I as the preacher and the elders,
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we all rotated around, the staff rotated. So we actually
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knew all the people there. They knew us. Um, so it was more
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than, than just having a guy on the screen. And that's the deal, is your
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multi-site's only really going to work if you have one guy kind
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of in charge and on the screen. The video preaching is pretty key in all
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these massive multi-site churches. It becomes a bit of
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a cult of celebrity. Um, so when we
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had, you know, a campus minister at one location, another campus minister another location,
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Inevitably, those guys become the main lead guy at those places,
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and each develops its own focus and personality.
18:26.056 --> 18:29.734
And you never truly function as one church, even though the leaders
18:30.168 --> 18:33.284
feel like we are. So, um, yeah,
18:33.300 --> 18:36.865
that's— it's just inevitable that's what's going to happen. And certainly what happened with us,
18:37.701 --> 18:40.576
uh, one of our campuses we spun off after only 3 and a half years
18:40.608 --> 18:43.611
because it became so different. The leader there, uh,
18:44.190 --> 18:47.563
really became possessive and focused in whole different areas.
18:48.462 --> 18:52.558
Uh, the other one that was more long-term, uh, lasted for 13
18:53.058 --> 18:55.947
years. And, uh, that was a good one. That was a good, uh,
18:56.349 --> 18:59.706
un-multisiting. Uh, and it only worked because we were
19:00.204 --> 19:03.802
both the campus minister and I were good friends and we'd worked together for a
19:04.302 --> 19:07.930
long time, very loyal, but inevitably it creates a lot
19:08.430 --> 19:12.363
of complexity with a centralized, uh, staff versus campus staffs.
19:13.117 --> 19:17.189
It creates a lot of confusion. It breeds—
19:17.542 --> 19:20.796
you would think it would create fellowship, but it doesn't. It creates much
19:20.828 --> 19:24.692
more of an us versus them mentality. You always feel like an outsider
19:25.141 --> 19:27.995
at the other locations. And so why are we continuing it?
19:28.909 --> 19:32.757
And so I had already agreed to let the first second
19:33.257 --> 19:37.390
campus go a few years ago, but he wasn't quite ready. And finally
19:37.422 --> 19:40.661
he said, I'm ready because it was creating some frustration and tension
19:41.161 --> 19:44.320
because he wanted to lead it. His way with his emphases, and I wanted
19:44.820 --> 19:47.997
to lead it in a different way. So we blessed him and let him go,
19:48.013 --> 19:51.674
and that was a good thing. But inevitably, it would have led to probably
19:51.691 --> 19:54.918
a church split down the road if we had not released it. And that's what
19:55.418 --> 19:58.579
I see happening, is some of these churches get so big with so many
19:58.595 --> 20:02.353
campuses because they're often taking over small campuses,
20:02.690 --> 20:06.351
small churches, dying churches, rural churches where,
20:06.479 --> 20:09.129
yeah, they are struggling. And so they invite a big church to come in and
20:09.629 --> 20:13.523
take them over. Um, but it's—
20:13.539 --> 20:17.596
that's not like good biblical growth. That's just
20:17.853 --> 20:21.284
adding churches that already exist. Yeah, you may have some
20:21.316 --> 20:24.683
evangelistic effectiveness, but, uh, now it
20:25.183 --> 20:28.419
becomes about how big can we get with how many campuses. Used to be preachers
20:28.451 --> 20:31.722
would talk about how big is your church and they talk about numbers. Now it's
20:32.222 --> 20:35.699
how many campuses do you have. I can think of even one, one that I
20:35.907 --> 20:39.596
know not too far away that did that same thing. They started
20:40.096 --> 20:43.557
accumulating campuses by takeover. Again, it's— they were invited in. It's not
20:43.589 --> 20:47.117
hostile takeovers. And with the idea that they were going to release
20:47.617 --> 20:51.142
all these campuses eventually and let them go. And that never happened because they wanted
20:51.642 --> 20:54.670
to keep all those campuses. So there's a danger involved with,
20:54.814 --> 20:58.615
um, why are we wanting to get so big with so many campuses?
20:58.679 --> 21:01.854
Why are we wanting to keep them part of a multi-church
21:01.886 --> 21:05.783
instead of letting them go independent? So, uh, for those
21:05.815 --> 21:09.119
reasons, I think it, it creates some negativity, some resentment,
21:09.744 --> 21:13.320
some, uh, confusion. Um,
21:14.170 --> 21:18.404
so overall, I just think it's not a healthy thing in either pragmatic
21:18.904 --> 21:22.349
way or practical way or in a biblical way, because there, again, there are really
21:22.849 --> 21:26.710
no New Testament examples of calling yourself one church in
21:26.823 --> 21:30.094
multiple locations. Each church had its
21:30.174 --> 21:33.715
own individual elders, and they knew the people. They knew their
21:34.215 --> 21:37.531
flock by name. But I'll concede, and we'll get to
21:38.031 --> 21:41.912
the conceding part, there are problems with the current situation as well without being multi-site.
21:45.263 --> 21:48.222
Hmm, interesting, interesting. Uh,
21:48.675 --> 21:50.940
Daniel, what do we got next? We got question round now.
21:52.541 --> 21:55.616
We do, yeah. So questions for Jason.
21:56.682 --> 21:59.665
From anybody here who's not— whose name is not Jason.
21:59.810 --> 22:03.225
So who's got a question for Jason? I'm not named Jason,
22:03.273 --> 22:08.709
so I'll take a stab. Jason, with the multi-site,
22:09.415 --> 22:13.745
is— do you find a challenge with the limits?
22:14.066 --> 22:17.754
And these are some of the limits that I hear Brett bring up,
22:17.834 --> 22:21.987
but as well those limits that I think of, which is a limited size
22:22.244 --> 22:26.223
of the other locations, a limited number
22:26.448 --> 22:29.060
of other locations? Is there a challenge with that?
22:31.207 --> 22:34.780
Yeah, I think that you get to the point where, you know,
22:34.796 --> 22:38.450
like you said, you get, uh, you know, is it— is 1,000— well,
22:38.466 --> 22:41.848
now it's, now it's a denomination, uh, and I think
22:42.348 --> 22:45.081
that that is a, uh, I think that's a sound criticism,
22:45.550 --> 22:48.864
uh, you know, you think about what's happening at CCV
22:49.364 --> 22:51.720
right now. Of course, this is in our brotherhood, Uh, go down to Arizona,
22:52.080 --> 22:55.260
uh, and, and, you know, we're talking about a church that— what is it now,
22:55.760 --> 23:00.260
in the 40,000 and 50,000, something like that? I mean, it's like mind-bogglingly
23:00.760 --> 23:04.940
huge. Uh, at the same time, they, they did baptize 6,000 people last
23:05.440 --> 23:09.500
year. Uh, and if, if, if pragmatism is 6,000
23:10.000 --> 23:13.120
baptisms, there's a part of me that is saying, well, that's,
23:13.620 --> 23:17.164
that's pretty cool. I'm very glad to see the movement Uh, in the forward
23:17.664 --> 23:21.464
progress. I do think though that we have
23:21.496 --> 23:24.945
to be so cautious around building, uh,
23:25.106 --> 23:28.202
simply around a, as you said, Brett, a cult of personality.
23:29.181 --> 23:33.176
And I think what we're gonna— what I personally think is the greatest limitation,
23:33.833 --> 23:36.898
uh, is you're gonna find this in leadership all the time.
23:37.523 --> 23:41.278
Uh, we've all got our own proclivities, and if it swells
23:41.294 --> 23:43.810
your pride to have your church grow,
23:44.499 --> 23:48.121
then it's going to be pretty hard to be
23:48.621 --> 23:51.374
an evangelist and, uh, and do so with pure motives.
23:51.871 --> 23:55.460
Uh, take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. That doesn't
23:55.476 --> 23:59.114
mean that you shouldn't do it, uh, but I think that there's something to be
23:59.614 --> 24:03.152
said for, uh, the crisis of credibility
24:03.489 --> 24:06.934
in, uh, in senior leadership across the country right now.
24:07.495 --> 24:10.690
Uh, and not just multi-site, but bigger churches
24:11.188 --> 24:14.674
do concentrate our risk in those situations.
24:14.739 --> 24:17.759
And I think it just underscores something I tell our church all the time.
24:18.128 --> 24:20.843
If you come to Antioch, uh, one of the first things you hear, if you
24:21.343 --> 24:23.944
come to like one of the new people things, uh, you hear us make some
24:24.040 --> 24:26.996
very specific comments on some important cultural issues,
24:27.575 --> 24:31.093
uh, around marriage and around what we do as a church and who
24:31.109 --> 24:34.675
we are. But I also make it clear I do not
24:34.724 --> 24:38.626
lead autonomously. I am submitted to our eldership.
24:39.380 --> 24:42.993
And I think that, that, that piece is a
24:43.493 --> 24:46.863
first layer of defense. Uh, and, you know, and again, you could say,
24:46.879 --> 24:50.218
man, is there a point where 1,000 churches is unhealthy, you know,
24:50.235 --> 24:53.221
for me to point lead in that sense? And I would say, yeah, probably.
24:53.269 --> 24:56.754
That's, that's a bit of a hyperbole, of course. Um, you know,
24:56.818 --> 24:59.387
but what's, what's reasonable? And here's where I, here's where I would go.
25:00.720 --> 25:04.651
Our, our current culture already has a pretty regional
25:04.827 --> 25:07.860
identity in the rural areas. Again, in the rural areas,
25:08.679 --> 25:12.674
when you look at a lot of these spots, they're having consolidated
25:12.690 --> 25:15.996
high schools where it's a county high school instead of a, of a
25:16.496 --> 25:19.767
town high school. And so their identity a lot of times comes down to where
25:20.267 --> 25:23.987
they're watching football on Friday night. And that community
25:24.019 --> 25:28.079
is already being built around, uh, you know, 2 or 3 towns.
25:28.674 --> 25:32.270
Is it reasonable for a church to lean into some of
25:32.302 --> 25:35.852
those same possibilities? I think so. I think
25:35.917 --> 25:39.449
that it can be helpful, and I think that there are opportunities for us to
25:39.949 --> 25:44.606
reach more people in those places. I also think there's a benefit to
25:44.704 --> 25:47.936
galvanizing purpose and mission. I personally,
25:48.196 --> 25:51.608
Brett, like, I really appreciate the warnings because
25:52.108 --> 25:55.615
I feel so many of those Uh, at the
25:56.115 --> 25:58.331
same time though, I felt them when I was in a single-site church as well,
25:58.702 --> 26:00.205
in the, in the exact same ways.
26:04.028 --> 26:06.011
Any other questions for Jason?
26:07.656 --> 26:12.641
Yeah, I, I would— I'm thinking in terms of multiplication
26:13.238 --> 26:17.001
being kind of the main metric, whether that be disciples
26:17.033 --> 26:19.988
multiplying disciples, churches multiplying other churches.
26:21.040 --> 26:24.994
And it would seem that if
26:25.010 --> 26:28.625
multiplication is the goal, that multi-site is
26:29.125 --> 26:32.804
maybe a step in that direction, but that it's not the best
26:33.078 --> 26:36.757
model. Ideally you'd be planting churches
26:36.870 --> 26:40.107
that have their own elders that then would go and plant other churches that would
26:40.607 --> 26:43.317
have their own elders, and that would be a truer sense of multiplication,
26:44.380 --> 26:47.778
so I very clearly hear
26:48.278 --> 26:50.826
the practical argument though. Practical argument being,
26:52.206 --> 26:55.935
look, we got so many churches here. There are resources here. We can make
26:56.435 --> 26:59.990
a huge dent in these areas, so I guess
27:00.039 --> 27:00.965
my question is,
27:03.689 --> 27:07.379
is there a good reason beyond the pragmatics of it
27:08.137 --> 27:13.053
to do multi-site when it would seem that it's
27:13.553 --> 27:17.464
falling short of the multiplication goal? Is there a good argument beyond
27:17.964 --> 27:21.028
the pragmatics of it? And again, I hear the pragmatics very clearly.
27:21.540 --> 27:25.088
I'm not really debating that because I, you know, I'm hearing it. But yeah,
27:25.346 --> 27:28.665
anyway, that was my question. Yeah, I think that
27:28.859 --> 27:32.331
when you look at eldership, I think a question that
27:32.831 --> 27:36.768
undergirds this is what— for
27:37.268 --> 27:41.600
American— Americans in a democratic republic, we tend to view eldership
27:42.100 --> 27:45.293
as representative government. It is not representative
27:45.793 --> 27:49.083
government. Uh, and we, and we hear this sometimes. Well, should we have an elder
27:49.583 --> 27:53.627
from every campus? That's, that's one of those thoughts that as if it would create
27:53.739 --> 27:57.705
a different kind of unity or a better kind of unity. I think that still
27:57.818 --> 28:01.816
falls short. Uh, you know, Jesus, when he prayed for unity in John 17,
28:01.848 --> 28:04.529
framed it as, Father, may they be one as you and I are one,
28:04.594 --> 28:08.158
so that the world may know that you sent me. Uh, that is an
28:08.254 --> 28:11.161
ultra-profound level of unity, given the fact that, you know,
28:11.402 --> 28:13.955
We still debate how to define the Trinity.
28:15.038 --> 28:18.415
And so I think for
28:18.915 --> 28:22.829
the— beyond the pragmatics of
28:22.861 --> 28:26.970
multi-site, the way that we define and look at eldership
28:28.176 --> 28:31.501
is core to, especially to the restoration
28:32.001 --> 28:35.670
movement. And I think it's something that we need to keep in mind. How long
28:36.122 --> 28:38.883
should it take? And we see the same thing for church plants. How long should
28:39.383 --> 28:42.448
it take to raise up independent elders? Uh, is, you know, a church
28:42.496 --> 28:45.913
that takes 5 years to raise up elders somehow in breach
28:46.571 --> 28:50.244
biblically, though they might be submitted to, you know, another governing
28:50.276 --> 28:53.725
body somewhere else? I don't know. It's— the scripture doesn't give us chapter and
28:54.225 --> 28:56.179
verse to be able to say, well, this is the day that it has to
28:56.679 --> 28:59.948
happen, except maybe we should say day one perhaps. But is that even possible
29:00.462 --> 29:04.247
in some of those situations? Uh, and so if,
29:05.177 --> 29:09.173
if we, if we get down to what eldership is, I think that helps define
29:10.651 --> 29:14.202
what that means for multi-site multiplication, because this is not just
29:14.702 --> 29:18.043
about decision-making at
29:18.543 --> 29:21.835
the top level. This is, and I think Brett, you hammered
29:21.883 --> 29:24.920
this point, and it's one that we need to hear regardless of church size.
29:25.901 --> 29:29.918
You sound like you have a deep heart for shepherding, that one of
29:30.418 --> 29:35.283
the things that comes in, that kept coming through in your description of eldership was
29:35.395 --> 29:38.218
the pastoral nature of it. Poimen, shepherd, pastor.
29:39.004 --> 29:42.068
And that is the part of eldership that I think, at least in my time
29:42.568 --> 29:46.079
in the last 20 years in church, is most neglected because
29:46.579 --> 29:49.993
it just becomes a group of decision makers. And I think
29:50.493 --> 29:53.843
there's a real danger in that. The other problem though is that
29:54.343 --> 29:58.062
how many people can a group of elders reasonably shepherd?
29:58.640 --> 30:02.762
You know, how big can churches be? Um, you know, I was never working
30:02.811 --> 30:06.436
harder than when I was serving a church of 300 people. Uh,
30:06.821 --> 30:10.158
the expectations pastorally on that are
30:10.270 --> 30:13.639
the most profound that I've ever experienced, uh, because there were fewer
30:14.139 --> 30:17.409
people to help carry the load and a very clear demand that if,
30:17.505 --> 30:20.233
if, you know, Marge is in the hospital, that I'm going to show up,
30:20.618 --> 30:23.922
uh, regardless of how many elders were, were a part of our church
30:24.422 --> 30:27.211
and leading our church. And so I'm going to stop rambling there.
30:28.069 --> 30:30.067
Thinking out loud, as you always make me do, Daniel.
30:32.017 --> 30:35.176
I tell Daniel all the time when I talk to him, he, he makes me
30:35.676 --> 30:38.803
think better. Sometimes just having him on the line, I get to
30:38.884 --> 30:42.172
thinking better. Uh, I have one more quick
30:42.672 --> 30:46.836
question for you, Brett, and, uh, I'm gonna use an analogy
30:46.869 --> 30:50.106
that I— it's gonna sound light, but, but I really want you to think
30:50.606 --> 30:54.040
through the analogy. Our city, we've got a major
30:54.482 --> 30:58.273
kind of road going through our city, and it's so congested.
30:58.321 --> 31:02.080
Murfreesboro is— I call Murfreesboro a big town.
31:02.514 --> 31:05.791
You know, everybody grew up together, knew each other, but it got so
31:05.888 --> 31:09.486
big so quick. We're not really a city, but it's
31:09.986 --> 31:13.326
a town. But anyway, because of that, we have some
31:13.519 --> 31:17.133
strategic placement of grocery
31:17.633 --> 31:21.359
stores and restaurants. I live between
31:21.632 --> 31:25.516
2 major roads, but I— there's 3 Publix
31:25.869 --> 31:29.303
within a 2-mile distance. I can go 2 miles one
31:29.400 --> 31:32.208
way from my house and I'm at Publix. I can go 2 miles the other
31:32.708 --> 31:35.803
way, I'm at another Publix. I can go 2 miles south, I'm at another Publix.
31:36.156 --> 31:39.655
But the way the interstate and the way the town
31:39.768 --> 31:43.764
is mapped out, a community may not ever
31:44.264 --> 31:47.455
come to that other side of town, and they may just see that one Publix.
31:48.017 --> 31:52.113
I just happen to be in the middle. So I say that with the
31:52.613 --> 31:55.728
company, the restaurant Whataburger. Whataburger just
31:56.228 --> 31:59.759
came to Murfreesboro. And when they first launched,
31:59.824 --> 32:03.309
there's a whole marketing piece. And they launched 3
32:03.679 --> 32:07.197
restaurants kind of strategically on this road.
32:08.016 --> 32:11.598
2 of them thrived, one of them did not.
32:12.208 --> 32:15.806
And that side of town is still a congested area. There's still know,
32:15.822 --> 32:19.155
we've got several Walmarts too like that. There's still a lot of that going on,
32:19.347 --> 32:22.920
but that particular Whataburger location just
32:23.017 --> 32:26.718
didn't thrive. In the multi-site dynamic,
32:27.279 --> 32:31.381
I think perhaps like the restaurants, like the grocery stores, you are looking
32:32.150 --> 32:35.659
at the demographics, you're looking at the area of town, you're looking
32:35.691 --> 32:39.714
to say, hey, there's no representation of a church in this
32:39.858 --> 32:43.980
rural area, we need to plant one there. Are there instances where,
32:44.189 --> 32:47.644
you know what, we tried it for 2 years and the market,
32:47.869 --> 32:50.376
you know, so to speak, was not beneficial there?
32:50.842 --> 32:53.082
How do you deal with those challenges with multi-site?
32:55.218 --> 32:58.747
I think it's interesting that you bring up all these different businesses because when
32:58.844 --> 33:02.082
I was kind of being sold the multi-site model
33:02.582 --> 33:05.648
many years ago, they really described it in terms of franchising. You were franchising your
33:06.148 --> 33:09.057
church. And the idea is like, we want to take the church to where the
33:09.557 --> 33:11.217
people are. And we knew that we weren't going to be able to reach all
33:11.282 --> 33:15.272
of our whole community with multiple hundreds of thousands of people from
33:15.336 --> 33:18.865
our one little location. So yeah, that makes perfect sense. Let's take the
33:19.365 --> 33:23.037
church to these various locations so everybody has a church just like South Point
33:23.502 --> 33:27.577
within just a few miles of them. And that's the only model
33:27.609 --> 33:30.545
that I see multi-site still being a valid,
33:31.202 --> 33:35.405
viable kind of option, is when it is used locally to,
33:35.774 --> 33:39.769
um, not really extend your church, your brand
33:40.212 --> 33:43.881
But church planting, I think multi-site has detracted
33:43.898 --> 33:47.615
from and really robbed a lot from the church planting movement because so
33:48.115 --> 33:52.678
many larger churches especially have invested themselves into extending their brand all
33:52.742 --> 33:56.341
over their city instead of planting a church and developing
33:56.374 --> 33:59.508
leaders and elders and preachers to lead those churches. And so,
34:00.458 --> 34:03.901
um, by, by saying
34:03.933 --> 34:07.226
we're going to put a church close close by everybody like us,
34:08.542 --> 34:12.107
I think we're doing more harm than good sometimes because we
34:12.476 --> 34:16.506
have not put in the effort to actually start
34:17.006 --> 34:22.029
a new church. We, we've— so in other words, multi-site is a good temporary transitionary
34:22.109 --> 34:26.412
kind of form until a church is able to have solid leaders,
34:26.781 --> 34:30.089
specifically elders. And I know as a church planter it took me a long time
34:30.137 --> 34:33.331
to get elders in place. So I'm not saying a year or two, it may
34:33.831 --> 34:37.009
take a few years, but it would have to be with that understanding
34:37.041 --> 34:40.542
that we are going to let this church become independent in
34:40.574 --> 34:44.188
just a few years in order to get at least a couple elders on site
34:44.688 --> 34:48.443
there and a solid preacher that can function as an elder as well, and then
34:48.943 --> 34:52.057
we can release them to be independent. But now that I've, you know, seen this
34:52.557 --> 34:56.344
for a couple decades now, that's usually not the way it goes, is they
34:56.377 --> 35:00.098
hold on to all of these different sites and continue to expand
35:00.114 --> 35:04.270
and accumulate their one so-called church when it's really not functioning
35:04.448 --> 35:07.990
as one church at all. It's a lot of different churches but with
35:08.490 --> 35:09.404
one centralized leadership.
35:13.058 --> 35:16.115
Um, any other questions for Brett?
35:17.344 --> 35:19.058
For those who are not named, by the way.
35:21.214 --> 35:23.952
And Brett, did you have a question for Jason? I want to give each of
35:24.452 --> 35:26.255
you a chance to ask each other a question. I don't know if you had
35:26.271 --> 35:30.079
one for Jason. Well, I empathize
35:30.111 --> 35:33.183
with the idea of rural churches because you're absolutely right. Church planting is all about
35:33.424 --> 35:35.869
suburbs and the cities. And, you know, I'm in the suburbs.
35:37.650 --> 35:40.960
So rural churches are having a very difficult time. And so if I were in
35:41.460 --> 35:44.752
a rural setting, you know, my church was struggling, I would certainly consider like,
35:44.897 --> 35:48.916
I want to invite in some church to basically take us over.
35:51.046 --> 35:54.871
But again, there's— I think there's just some danger in that. So I'll just go
35:55.371 --> 35:58.621
back to my original question about, like, really, how do you define a church?
35:59.264 --> 36:02.643
And how big should it be? How many campuses can you have? Is there a
36:03.143 --> 36:06.361
limit to, you know, do we stop at the county border? Or do we
36:06.861 --> 36:10.081
keep going? Like, some of these churches have campuses across the nation and across the
36:14.300 --> 36:15.092
That's kind of a question.
36:18.939 --> 36:22.758
Would you— do you have a line where you We'll go beyond that. We won't
36:22.774 --> 36:26.130
go beyond the county. I have— and I think these are going to be nebulous
36:26.323 --> 36:29.663
things, you know, how do you define what is, uh, a community?
36:29.920 --> 36:33.389
You know, Anthony, to your point, you know, is it the Publix that you go
36:33.889 --> 36:36.970
to? Is it your high school? Is it your elementary school? That sort of thing.
36:37.628 --> 36:40.872
Uh, you know, for us, uh, you know, I think
36:41.372 --> 36:43.473
it's something I, I perceive regionally.
36:44.051 --> 36:47.343
Um, this is just a personal conviction and not one that I could apply to
36:47.843 --> 36:50.715
someone else. Uh, that is in a different context,
36:50.972 --> 36:54.376
led by elders that are gonna have to make decisions for themselves. And then people
36:54.408 --> 36:57.812
willingly submit to them or not. Uh, and because ultimately that's,
36:57.957 --> 37:01.136
that's what, that's what gets to happen. We're not foisting this upon everybody else.
37:01.794 --> 37:04.990
Uh, we've got to make decisions and then live with the consequences of our own
37:05.022 --> 37:08.827
decisions. Uh, and for me, that's, you know, we have a campus that's,
37:09.020 --> 37:12.584
uh, that's an hour away. Um, and that actually
37:13.084 --> 37:16.656
feels really good. Uh, there, because it's, I know it was known
37:17.156 --> 37:20.999
as the meth capital of Iowa 5 years ago. And that fellowship
37:21.207 --> 37:24.684
is changing the spiritual landscape of their community.
37:25.213 --> 37:28.465
Uh, one of the things that I think is the biggest strength of doing this
37:28.594 --> 37:31.606
is that that group desperately needed,
37:32.103 --> 37:35.131
uh, support through some really, really lean years.
37:35.708 --> 37:38.897
Um, financially speaking, it was subsidized,
37:39.153 --> 37:42.329
uh, significantly. Uh, probably more than
37:42.377 --> 37:45.942
a normal church plant would have been, uh, subsidized. And part of that is that
37:46.231 --> 37:49.731
we had a very large stake in it. We had a vested
37:50.165 --> 37:53.617
interest. We had skin in the game. Uh, and I think
37:53.681 --> 37:57.117
that one of the challenges with church plants in the rural context is
37:57.214 --> 38:00.666
recruiting to them is so difficult. Uh, who wants to
38:01.166 --> 38:04.616
move to those places? Um, until you've lived there, you don't know how good it
38:05.116 --> 38:09.256
can be in some of these towns. Having come from a place that everyone laughed
38:09.756 --> 38:13.543
at and hated and couldn't wait to leave. Phenomenal people.
38:13.688 --> 38:16.915
It was a really tough community to live in, though. I mean, our unemployment rate
38:18.023 --> 38:21.074
peaked at 18.7% in America,
38:21.475 --> 38:24.975
in the Midwest, in our lifetime. I mean, it's absolutely
38:25.072 --> 38:28.781
wild. And so when I think about the,
38:29.487 --> 38:33.211
the real strength of be a multi-site,
38:33.419 --> 38:37.060
if you cannot get together, and I think about this from a leadership standpoint.
38:37.204 --> 38:40.476
So the guy who leads at, uh, at our Old Wine location, his name
38:40.976 --> 38:45.816
is Carl. And one of the great benefits to them being a
38:45.864 --> 38:49.536
part of something that's not just them is the encouragement that Carl
38:50.036 --> 38:53.000
is to us and that we are to him. Uh, it's one of my favorite
38:53.500 --> 38:56.930
things about, uh, our entire church is to see
38:57.430 --> 39:00.827
something happening in him and in that congregation,
39:01.405 --> 39:05.014
um, that encourages everybody else, that provides some degree
39:05.514 --> 39:09.313
of fruit outside of their context, and ultimately lets
39:09.361 --> 39:12.297
us do something that wouldn't have happened,
39:12.794 --> 39:16.339
um, from a fiscal standpoint or from a,
39:16.885 --> 39:19.644
you know, raising up leaders standpoint. Um,
39:20.430 --> 39:22.868
and will there come a day where, you know, we get to do that again?
39:22.996 --> 39:26.445
I hope, man. I hope that we get to just spread spark multiplication in that
39:26.945 --> 39:30.617
regard all over rural communities across Eastern Iowa. So is
39:31.117 --> 39:34.564
there a place, a point in time when you are going to release those congregations
39:35.064 --> 39:37.901
and let them become independent, or are you, are you going to continue to hold
39:38.401 --> 39:42.345
on to them? Well, this is not my decision independently, and so
39:42.874 --> 39:46.645
I, I, to answer that question definitively would circumvent our
39:47.145 --> 39:51.513
eldership, which I'm not going to do. Uh, and so if If
39:51.610 --> 39:55.065
that— the way I look at this is this: if, if our elders decided
39:55.500 --> 39:57.777
that we're going to take the whole thing because the Lord told us to,
39:57.825 --> 40:01.531
we're going to grind it up and blow it
40:02.031 --> 40:04.575
out to the wind, praise the Lord, that's what we're going to do. Um,
40:05.074 --> 40:07.795
but I need to know that the Lord told us to do that, and,
40:07.908 --> 40:11.560
and I would not make that decision independently. And, and for me, I think one
40:12.060 --> 40:15.993
of the dangers in a lot of multi-site environments is single-point leaders that
40:16.493 --> 40:18.792
don't have elders at all, let alone elders in multiple campuses.
40:19.964 --> 40:23.432
And so for me, I personally would love to see
40:23.898 --> 40:26.949
more launchpads established. I mean, like,
40:26.965 --> 40:30.401
for instance, we've got to get into Des Moines, the capital of Iowa.
40:30.497 --> 40:33.740
It's a phenomenal metropolis. I don't see that being
40:33.789 --> 40:37.032
a campus of Antioch. That needs to be its
40:37.128 --> 40:41.126
own launchpad to reach the rural communities around Des Moines
40:41.640 --> 40:44.161
and to become another hub for church planting.
40:45.269 --> 40:48.772
So, so what I hear you saying is the eldership really hasn't
40:48.788 --> 40:52.050
thought this through. There is no end game. No,
40:52.066 --> 40:55.279
that's, that's— you're, you're putting words in my mouth. I did not say that the
40:55.779 --> 40:59.473
eldership hasn't thought, thought this through. Uh, it's a point of constant
40:59.973 --> 41:03.731
prayer and constant shepherding. Is the goal going to be to
41:04.231 --> 41:07.105
let them become independent churches if it's possible?
41:08.149 --> 41:11.843
Okay, that's, that's what I'm asking. Like Yeah. You want
41:12.343 --> 41:15.480
to stay multi-site and continue to accumulate campuses, or is the goal
41:15.608 --> 41:18.877
to let them go, to grow them to a place where they have leadership and
41:18.893 --> 41:22.210
then you let them go and they're no longer Antioch? It's an,
41:22.402 --> 41:25.270
it's an all of the above approach for me, because there's going to be times
41:25.367 --> 41:28.667
when the most appropriate thing, even pragmatically actually,
41:28.988 --> 41:32.145
is to release them. There's going to be other times to say this,
41:32.337 --> 41:35.766
we've not been able to grow this thing to independence in multiple
41:35.798 --> 41:39.529
levels, whether it's leadership, finances, missional health.
41:39.594 --> 41:42.435
I mean, there's a lot of things that, that come into the same bucket.
41:43.474 --> 41:45.698
But man, I would— to me, it's an all-of-the-above approach.
41:47.882 --> 41:51.116
No, no, one more follow-up. You're good. Oh, I was just gonna say,
41:51.132 --> 41:52.968
so for the ones that you say it's an all-of-the-above,
41:54.588 --> 41:59.116
is there a plan then that says we are going to keep certain campuses even
41:59.616 --> 42:02.532
though they could be independent? And why would you do that?
42:05.659 --> 42:08.871
I think that if I'm going to play out a hypothetical scenario here,
42:09.352 --> 42:13.095
there are times where if the, you know,
42:13.191 --> 42:15.054
I think distance plays into this for me.
42:16.403 --> 42:19.695
You know, and again, the Des Moines examples, probably some details
42:20.195 --> 42:24.578
here, it's 2 hours away from us. And to me, that's pretty far to
42:24.610 --> 42:27.983
be able to say, hey, we're like, we're in totally different contexts,
42:28.384 --> 42:32.113
totally different areas of the state. And to me, that feels like a rubber band
42:32.145 --> 42:34.688
that stretches a little too far. That's,
42:35.460 --> 42:38.705
that's my, my personal feelings. You know, when I think
42:39.205 --> 42:42.748
about Olwine, for instance, is there a time where that thing
42:42.878 --> 42:47.241
becomes strong enough to be independent
42:47.948 --> 42:51.323
in every way? If it had— I don't think
42:51.823 --> 42:55.076
it was necessarily planted that way. So both of
42:55.108 --> 42:58.921
the multi-sites, by the way, were started before I got here. And so
42:59.258 --> 43:02.831
some of it is strategically where you go. And if we were going
43:03.331 --> 43:06.181
to try to make a hub in that area, there's a town that's 10 minutes
43:06.681 --> 43:10.379
away that's actually a little better, uh, to serve for that, because where everybody goes
43:10.491 --> 43:13.760
to buy groceries is that town. Uh, nobody goes
43:14.260 --> 43:16.837
out to the town that we have a church in. Uh, but we happen to
43:17.337 --> 43:19.914
have an elder who grew up in that church, and they were closing down.
43:20.042 --> 43:23.071
I think 15 people came to the, to the goodbye.
43:23.616 --> 43:27.323
And they gifted that to the church. Now, if that place
43:27.823 --> 43:31.721
becomes— and those people become able to stand on their own feet, uh, to me,
43:31.801 --> 43:35.011
I— the model that I dream of is actually something, uh,
43:35.332 --> 43:39.249
I don't know if you've read Multichurch, uh, but you end up seeing more coalitions
43:39.281 --> 43:42.651
between churches that say, hey, we have independent leadership,
43:42.972 --> 43:46.262
but we are very closely tied together, uh, in a missional
43:46.762 --> 43:50.292
standpoint. So you get some of the pragmatism of multi-site without
43:50.792 --> 43:54.208
the centralized authority, um, and the dangers that come with that.
43:54.579 --> 43:57.850
Personally, I think it'd be phenomenal if, uh— I've heard it, I know some places
43:57.882 --> 44:01.000
in Indianapolis that are doing this right now that are pretty cool. Um,
44:01.522 --> 44:05.031
that of course has its own downsides, but I think it sounds pretty good.
44:06.780 --> 44:10.194
Cool. Brett, here's a question for you. Let's say
44:10.694 --> 44:13.833
someone's listening to this and thus far they're saying,
44:13.946 --> 44:17.945
okay, fair enough, there are some weaknesses
44:18.121 --> 44:21.413
with the model, but it doesn't have to define the
44:21.913 --> 44:25.379
model. And we see a lot of success, a lot of, you know,
44:25.443 --> 44:28.157
the CCVs in the Southeast. And, uh,
44:28.815 --> 44:32.540
you know, still, I, I don't know how we— why
44:32.572 --> 44:36.554
we should argue against that kind of success. Okay, talk to that person
44:36.763 --> 44:39.749
who, at this stage in the conversation, that's kind of their,
44:40.199 --> 44:41.580
their main takeaway so far.
44:43.829 --> 44:47.186
Okay, so from a practical standpoint, usually you're
44:47.686 --> 44:51.829
starting multi-sites to, um, to grow, to grow your church.
44:52.728 --> 44:56.006
Yes, we're starting it in a new location, but it's still growing your church.
44:56.182 --> 44:59.283
And in fact, the way that we were taught multi-site
44:59.347 --> 45:02.512
many years ago was if you send out a bunch of people— because ours was
45:02.544 --> 45:05.837
local, so we sent out hundreds of people to start a church in
45:06.337 --> 45:10.238
a second location— that the idea was your original location would grow grow right back.
45:10.415 --> 45:12.711
You'd fill it back in. That did not happen.
45:13.707 --> 45:17.640
So we did not grow from doing that. We had a huge second campus start,
45:18.363 --> 45:22.377
but it quickly grew back down as well. So we didn't
45:22.877 --> 45:26.279
get any real net effect from that. Um, we did the same thing
45:26.375 --> 45:30.036
with our third campus. We sent out a bunch of people and our original
45:30.084 --> 45:33.488
site did not fill back in, and that new site
45:33.520 --> 45:36.282
really didn't grow either. So, um,
45:36.988 --> 45:39.588
you know, the idea of, are we really being effective? Well,
45:40.423 --> 45:43.858
would it have been better to start an independent church there with a church
45:43.970 --> 45:47.341
planter or a, you know, a, uh, some sort of group
45:47.841 --> 45:50.808
of people to go start a different church in those areas?
45:50.969 --> 45:54.741
So I question how much growth is actually taking place on
45:55.241 --> 45:57.983
a lot of multi-sites, because as I said, a lot of it is just adding
45:58.015 --> 46:01.916
campuses that already exist and making the one central church
46:02.044 --> 46:05.543
somewhat bigger. At the expense often of smaller
46:06.043 --> 46:09.956
churches. Because that, as you mentioned, that's a megachurch problem too, is the megachurch
46:09.972 --> 46:13.262
Walmart effect where there's one big church in the area and they grow not through
46:13.422 --> 46:17.386
conversion. Yes, there's a lot of baptism. We've had a lot of baptisms, but how
46:17.434 --> 46:21.157
many are genuine conversions of unbelievers versus you're
46:21.286 --> 46:24.656
drawing in the Methodists and Baptists and Lutherans and you're the,
46:24.880 --> 46:28.427
you're the big church in town with all the programs. And, you know,
46:28.571 --> 46:31.781
all the studies seem to show Megachurches really grow at the
46:32.281 --> 46:35.745
expense of smaller churches as opposed to actual evangelistic growth.
46:35.809 --> 46:39.067
And I think that's probably the multi-site effect going on as well.
46:39.677 --> 46:43.320
So I would caution people on that alone, let alone
46:44.074 --> 46:47.973
the biblical concerns about eldership unity, um,
46:48.728 --> 46:52.258
the, the idea of like we are in a sense adopting a
46:52.758 --> 46:56.447
bit of a denominational structure. Yes, it's in a baby small form,
46:56.976 --> 47:00.581
But again, you take it out to its logical conclusions and, you know, where do
47:01.081 --> 47:04.539
you draw the line on how far away you can plant? You know, you said
47:04.843 --> 47:07.808
we have one that's 1 hour away. 2 hours is too far.
47:08.753 --> 47:11.285
Well, there'll be a lot of people say, well, an hour is too far.
47:12.294 --> 47:15.996
And others would say, well, 2 hours isn't that far with all the technology
47:16.044 --> 47:19.264
we have. And that's why you have a lot of the big churches
47:19.764 --> 47:23.575
in the country have these huge internet campuses, because that becomes the local
47:24.075 --> 47:27.177
church. For a lot of people who don't go to an actual physical location.
47:28.920 --> 47:32.434
So it's hard to separate the multi-site from the internet church concepts.
47:34.972 --> 47:38.655
Brett, I've got another question kind
47:38.671 --> 47:43.258
of pointed to that and trying to get even more pointed to your perspective.
47:45.000 --> 47:48.554
So I got a friend who their church is
47:48.765 --> 47:51.845
effective. In the area. Uh,
47:51.925 --> 47:55.132
they, they are discipling church, they, uh,
47:55.276 --> 47:58.179
great worship ministry, great programs, etc.
47:58.740 --> 48:02.396
But then there's another local church, and you've talked about accumulating churches,
48:02.428 --> 48:06.229
but there's another local church further on the outskirts,
48:06.742 --> 48:10.109
um, you know, aging, dying leadership,
48:10.670 --> 48:14.503
uh, aging, dying young, you know, youth in
48:14.535 --> 48:17.421
the church. So it's, it's an aging and dying church, so to speak.
48:18.368 --> 48:21.771
Your perspective sounds like, and this is where you get to kind
48:22.271 --> 48:25.897
of sharpen it if I'm off, but it sounds like you would say,
48:25.913 --> 48:29.990
hey, well, let's train them, let's equip
48:30.023 --> 48:33.602
them, let's— if there are some who are interested in
48:33.618 --> 48:36.155
planting or someone who's interested in leading, hey,
48:36.460 --> 48:40.088
here's a place where you guys could go, but that
48:40.136 --> 48:42.640
particular church should not,
48:43.250 --> 48:46.685
hey, this will be our West Campus and we will
48:46.717 --> 48:49.447
bring effective program leadership,
48:49.912 --> 48:53.300
teaching, discipling to that area in that
48:53.365 --> 48:56.560
dying area? As I said, there's— I think there's a couple ways you can go
48:56.592 --> 49:00.895
with that. You can go multi-site and make it a temporary transitionary
49:00.927 --> 49:04.845
thing and then let them go, but is
49:05.345 --> 49:09.277
that any better than— you're going to release somebody to go be the
49:09.777 --> 49:13.788
campus minister there, why not send them out as a
49:13.852 --> 49:17.638
church planter. You say, well, they can't, they can't do that. They're not as equipped.
49:18.970 --> 49:22.371
Well, I don't know. I've done both. And I don't know that there's that big
49:22.871 --> 49:25.852
of a difference. In fact, in the early days, they told us you don't need
49:26.028 --> 49:28.884
a really great speaker, communicator,
49:29.012 --> 49:32.557
dynamic person to be the campus minister there. You just
49:32.605 --> 49:35.685
need kind of a shepherd figure. And we did that and it did not work.
49:36.937 --> 49:40.033
They needed a communicator. They needed somebody dynamic there.
49:40.706 --> 49:44.135
And when we put somebody in there later to replace them, then it did
49:44.392 --> 49:48.077
a lot better. So, um, the idea of like, we're going to send
49:48.577 --> 49:52.036
out some guy to be a campus minister who's
49:52.536 --> 49:54.808
just a shepherd guy, he, you know, he can't really be a church planter,
49:54.824 --> 49:57.724
he can't lead well— well, it's not going to work anyway.
49:58.333 --> 50:01.859
You, you need a communicator and a dynamic person, whether they're
50:02.359 --> 50:05.961
a campus minister or a church planter. So my druthers, my preference would
50:06.461 --> 50:09.665
be plant it or revive it somehow, you know, shut it
50:10.165 --> 50:13.355
down and restart it. But, uh, the danger is going to be down
50:13.371 --> 50:16.575
the road going multi-sites. You're, you're maybe not going to ever want to let that
50:16.689 --> 50:20.154
go, or do you make them so dependent on your resources
50:20.186 --> 50:23.781
and your staff, your budget, that you are enabling their
50:24.461 --> 50:27.940
dependent behavior? Hmm. Okay.
50:29.979 --> 50:33.753
Jason, do you have a question? We're still talking about church growth,
50:33.801 --> 50:37.525
right? That I, I, I take a little umbrage
50:37.734 --> 50:41.441
with dependent behavior in the,
50:41.682 --> 50:45.165
the idea of being able to accelerate growth in
50:45.855 --> 50:50.365
certain communities that are under-resourced is— it's
50:50.865 --> 50:54.265
a really pessimistic way of talking about it. Uh, and I,
50:54.425 --> 50:58.422
I wouldn't think about my brothers and sisters an hour north of me as
50:58.839 --> 51:03.207
those of dependent behavior. They are, relative to what
51:03.707 --> 51:06.000
is happening in their own finances, are faithful people.
51:07.365 --> 51:10.817
But we're able to move resources from a place
51:11.317 --> 51:14.880
that has more than it needs to a place that is,
51:15.699 --> 51:19.472
is in need. And I, to me, that's just, that stood out
51:19.972 --> 51:21.704
to me. And I, and I don't know if that's the point you're making,
51:22.202 --> 51:25.502
um, but there are some good ways of looking at
51:25.569 --> 51:28.622
this. Uh,
51:28.737 --> 51:32.130
I think it goes back to behavior. Are you trying to make it a
51:32.630 --> 51:35.919
temporary transitionary thing, or are you trying to keep it a permanent
51:36.419 --> 51:39.992
thing? If so, yes, there's going to be dependency. You have
51:40.105 --> 51:43.511
robbed them of the ability to become independent by doing everything for them,
51:43.575 --> 51:46.949
providing everything for them. So why would they ever aspire to
51:46.965 --> 51:50.530
anything more than that? I know when I planted the church, I had 2 years
51:51.076 --> 51:54.347
to get off any kind of outside support. And I did it. It was
51:54.523 --> 51:58.115
very difficult. I didn't— it was— we were poor. We had nothing,
51:58.147 --> 52:01.722
but we did it. And that made us a stronger, better church because
52:01.770 --> 52:05.442
of it. Otherwise, you know, I was part of a church planting board in
52:05.942 --> 52:10.236
our state. I was on the committee for years, and I saw churches that became
52:10.736 --> 52:14.357
dependent and relied on the church planting finances to keep afloat for
52:14.373 --> 52:17.756
many years. Whereas if we had kicked them off after a couple of years,
52:18.093 --> 52:21.496
they would have learned to survive. Or they don't. But either way,
52:22.209 --> 52:25.933
it's not that kind of unhealthy situation where
52:26.433 --> 52:26.905
they're not really independent.
52:30.329 --> 52:34.023
Jason, did you have any follow-up question there? Well, they didn't, you know,
52:34.088 --> 52:37.523
they didn't. The or they don't possibility is very real.
52:38.838 --> 52:42.831
And, you know, most of my ministry time has been in the rural context.
52:43.219 --> 52:46.532
And it's pretty tough out there and
52:47.032 --> 52:49.348
it's largely ignored. It is not a conversation that is happening in church planning circles.
52:50.752 --> 52:53.323
Right now. Uh, and, and to me,
52:54.207 --> 52:57.534
a church that's locally established, that's regionally established, gets to
52:57.646 --> 53:00.590
look at those things and say, all right, what little towns are,
53:01.042 --> 53:04.721
are people forgetting about? Are we not seeing from a broader perspective?
53:05.221 --> 53:08.626
Uh, and from my standpoint, I look at that and think, okay, this thing— if
53:09.126 --> 53:12.715
I've got a thing that's moving, that's working, doubling down on
53:12.829 --> 53:15.833
that and concentrating impact there to say, hey,
53:15.849 --> 53:19.020
let's put some more fuel in this thing Uh, to have an even greater
53:19.036 --> 53:22.537
impact in, in that area. I, I would never say this is,
53:23.227 --> 53:26.310
uh, a thing where you say, well, you guys don't have to contribute to this
53:26.810 --> 53:29.489
at all. Uh, you know, we have— we all put in— put things in the
53:29.989 --> 53:33.327
same stream here. Um, but man, I would, I would
53:33.827 --> 53:36.554
want to double down. It— the one of the advantages of this is it allows
53:36.618 --> 53:40.376
you to concentrate some impact, uh, that you otherwise wouldn't
53:40.472 --> 53:44.354
in a place that most people would not invest. Uh, but because
53:44.403 --> 53:48.070
we've got a local footprint and a regional footprint, we're able to, to discern that.
53:50.931 --> 53:54.505
Was that a question? No, no, just, just responding. I,
53:54.893 --> 53:58.920
I love, uh, I love the rural church. I love the, the possibility
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of it, of its, of it thriving. Uh, but I think that there is
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some reimagining of what is, what is going to work,
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uh, in some of these communities, not in all of them. I don't think there's
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an all-of-the-above answer here, and I also think
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that the local churches get to make decisions for themselves
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and live with the positives and the negatives of that.
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I think it's one of the challenges in Scripture where we're not given every single
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detail about church governance. You know, as an Independent Christian Church
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guy that came here by choice, you know, I absolutely
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agree with our convictions around this, but I think it'll be interesting to see the
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way this plays out in our lifetime, as it concerns multiplication of leaders,
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um, let alone disciple makers. And I
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have 2 more very quick questions, uh, before we close this out.
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Uh, the first question is gonna be, um, Jason,
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what would you say is the most persuasive point that Brett made? And then Brett,
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what do you think is the most persuasive point that Jason made?
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Well, I'm a young guy who I'm grateful,
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Brett, to get time with you and to
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heed, uh, your warnings and experience.
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And I want to make sure that in this context, it's not really— if we
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were having coffee, I would, I would, I would have my hands like this
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to you saying, just keep, keep giving me, uh,
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advice. And so that's the posture that I would want to take.
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But I would say of the most salient things that I will come away with
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is Uh, the, the good of holding,
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um, you know, our collective feet to the fire, uh,
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on, on establishing, uh, independent churches.
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I think about, you know, some of the, the church planting movements of the '50s
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and '60s. So many of those churches are running their course right now.
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Uh, we're talking about just 60 to 80 years later, and, and so
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many of those churches are shutting down right now. Uh, some of them are making
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it Uh, but many of them are not. And I think that,
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uh, in the next phase, what does it look like to set another generation
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up to carry the gospel farther than us? And I think your advice is,
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is, um, is well-founded.
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Jason, thanks for that. You said you would like to hold
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your hands out this way, but for the podcast audience,
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they don't know if you're— if you've got your hands around his neck. They don't
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know. So what Describe it for the people who are listening. In line for
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that. Yeah, we're just audio listening,
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holding it out like, give me, give me more of this wisdom. Okay, perfect.
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Brett? Yeah, well, again,
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Jason, I was in your shoes 18 years ago. I was the guy defending multi-site
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because it was all new, uh, and for, for all of
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its cons— my concerns over the years I, I'm still driven by the
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same thing that you are. And yeah, you want to reach as many people for
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Christ as possible. Uh, and so to
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that degree, it's a good thing. Uh,
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I never want to squelch anybody's desire to try new
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methods or experiment, because that's what we do. We call everything
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an experiment, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
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Uh, and yeah, we'll see how this multi-site thing plays out.
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I, I think, uh, you you were— the most salient part
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of your, your point is like, we're trying to
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reach these communities that nobody else is reaching. And my fear is that,
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yeah, there's— over the next few years, because there is a great lack of
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preachers, uh, and church planters, that a lot
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of these rural churches are going to perish. They're not going to be able to
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keep them open due to lack of leadership and lack of funds. And so
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to the extent that multi-site is helping to save them and keep them going,
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I think that's a wonderful thing. My only concern is what's
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the endgame of it?
57:52.722 --> 57:55.845
And Anthony, the final question, and I'd love for you to take this home,
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is what is in black and white here? What do
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we— what can we all agree on here that we're gonna take with us?
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Guys, I think after listening to your passion
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and your love Um, the, the black and white that I see here
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is that you are both very passionate about the mission of
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Christ to seek those who are lost wherever
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they may be. Um, and, and you both have gotten the
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strategic angle to, man, how do we do that? But,
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but you're both following that, that mission passionately. Is that about
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accurate? Oh yeah.
58:35.190 --> 58:38.609
Yeah, yeah. Well, guys, we,
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we thank you here at Scripture in Black and White. Thankful to your
58:43.232 --> 58:46.828
perspectives. It seems like, Daniel, I've said this every
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episode— we've recorded a few episodes, but it— I say this
58:50.456 --> 58:54.084
about every one of them— you're not like fly-by-night,
58:54.228 --> 58:57.921
like you're not passing by this subject. You lived
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it, you work it, you've examined all of the implications.
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And you are resolved in your convictions. And so we appreciate
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you sharing that. I hope the audience has,
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has been able to hear even more in depth. I'm sure
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there are ministers, pastors out there that are struggling with this,
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that are on the brink. They're growing at such a rate to where
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it's, do we stay larger? Do we go multi-service?
59:26.351 --> 59:29.965
Do we try to secure a larger building? Do we go multi-site?
59:30.030 --> 59:33.886
So my prayer is that out of everything that you all have
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shared, that you've at least educated us and
59:38.516 --> 59:41.760
enlightened us on this subject. And so we thank you so much.
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And to our listeners, we thank you for listening through this. And hopefully,
59:46.436 --> 59:50.132
hopefully you have gained a bunch as well. Don't forget to like
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and share this with someone, especially those that you know
59:54.004 --> 59:57.698
that are considering multi-site. Or even growing at
59:58.198 --> 01:00:01.793
such a rate where the discussion is even at hand, be sure to share that.
01:00:02.178 --> 01:00:06.160
Follow us here on YouTube and all of our other podcast
01:00:06.674 --> 01:00:10.752
areas. Follow us at renewed.org. Be sure to get in
01:00:11.266 --> 01:00:14.702
much of our resources as well. So again,
01:00:14.718 --> 01:00:18.395
from Daniel and I and Britt and Jason, we thank
01:00:18.895 --> 01:00:22.478
you so much. Thank you for joining us on Scriptural. Scripture in black and