What?!
First I will back up with scripture the giftedness aspect - this is not charismatic this is biblical.
Secondly I will expand your comment of sound teaching.
Thirdly I will disagree using Jesus as the example of the "can't be over 5000" comment (plus the one minister comment).
Fourthly application for technology in using video preaching in PCQ.
1. GIFTED PREACHERS
1 Corinthians 12:1-10 & 14 discusses various spiritual gifts among them here is preaching (prophecy). Being a gifted preacher is not necessarily about being a Mark Driscoll or John Piper nor is it about attention grabbing or being “charismatic” in preaching. It is about someone who can preach Philip Jensen, JI Packer, Dave Mc, Dave Miers, Matt Chandler, etc. It is as Calvin put it
“By the term prophesying I do not mean the gift of foretelling the future, but as in 1 Corinthians 14:3 the science of the interpretation of Scripture, so that a prophet is the interpreter of the divine will... Let us understand prophesying to mean the interpretation of Scripture applied to the present need.”
Personally, I think that there are men that need to step up to the plate here and preach because they do have gifts in this area and they are not using them. This is two found though the elders and the pastors encouraging and allowing men to do this as well as men sticking up their hand to do this.
For me I think that I would be well suited to an ‘executive/management role’ but not a counselling one. Sometimes small churches don’t allow people to use their gifts and sometimes it pushes everything on to the plate of one man – generally the pastor.
2. SOUND TEACHING
So running on from the previous section sound teachers I would say are preachers. I am also not saying that a Pastor has one bad sermon and you throw them out.
3. IS THE MEGA CHURCH EVIL? – ONLY IF JESUS IS
I think that there is a part of evangelicalism that is far too legalistic and conservative when it comes to church size.
Jesus preached to thousands – yes live (Matthew 14 & 15; Mark 6 & 8; Luke 9 & 12; John 6). So did the disciples (Acts 2 & 4).
There is no way, as you said, one preacher can take care of personally that many people. I think this comes to a flaw in the thinking of church. The preacher does not need to be the one dealing with each church member one on one. Elders and other Pastors (whether that is a counselling pastor, small groups pastor, “site pastor”, etc) have to step up the plate here. To be honest I love the thought of freeing up the “Preaching Pastor” to focus on preaching and not having to worry about the other items.
There is something fantastic about building teams that allow people to focus on an area of ministry (and I think that this is very Biblical both OT and NT). This is what happens with Dave H being the Youth Pastor he can pour his time into this and why a small groups pastor would have been great for Willows.
Getting back to Jesus, He NEVER cared for the masses on a one on one basis (as a broad generalisation) he focused on a small group of men, his disciples. It is even highlighted in Acts 6 where the apostles were set apart to pray and minister the Word (preach) putting other men into those roles.
I am not opposed to small churches but the reality is that if you have one full time staff (assuming you have supportive and active elders) I still think that you can probably only minister to no more than 150 ppl.
4. APPLICATION IN PCQ
I think that there are some great opportunities to tie various congregations through technology and more importantly to get those that are out west plugged into a church community via a TWO way video feed (we see them, they see us). This allows two way communication.
I think that there is application here in here to presbyteries. Lets break congregational boundaries and employ at a presbytery level with staff allocated across the churches. Allow people to focus on a particular area and build ministry teams in various churches. I do not see this happening anytime soon though due to stubbornness, hurt and the current differences.
Summary
Someone said to me that they think that it is sinful when people are opposed to large churches (selfish) I am not sure where I stand on this comment but I do think that there is some truth to it, though general. The reality is that you cannot say there should not be big churches - it is unbiblical.
They also said that you have good and bad large and small churches – it is not about size but health.
I agree with him entirely.
To put it simply I believe (and think that I have shown from the bible) that large churches are biblical and so are ministry teams with specialist is particular areas (particularly for preaching).
I don't think one off meetings with Jesus preaching to 5,000 is the same as "church". I think the model of the early church we should be looking at are those in Acts and the epistles. I'd say they were generally smaller bodies broken into manageable chunks and looked after by one man (eg Timothy) who was to be gifted in many ways. Not just as a preacher.
ReplyDeleteI'm increasingly convinced that preaching is overvalued in evangelical circles - given that nobody really listens to more than 10 minutes of a sermon (based on the average attention span) - there are much better ways to teach than using a monologue.
If Jesus was around preaching today then by all means - broadcast him to as many people as possible.
But our modern teachers are not Jesus - nor are they apostles. They are men.
Nathan's Blog and My Comment
ReplyDeletehttp://nathanintownsville.com/2009/video-hits/
Nathan
ReplyDeleteYou are dead right and wrong at the same time.
Acts 2 one body of believers that broke into smaller communities. But they all went to the small "church".
To me the first few chapters of Acts show one church with a ministry team that broke during the week into smaller community.
To me the NT shows a "one church per city" approach that again broke into smaller community.
I am not sure I can see what you are saying on "preaching is overvalued in evangelical circles". I would say that there is some bad teaching in these circles in terms of both content and style. In addition I would say that we define preaching by what we see in the majority of churches now. Monologue with no discussion or debate. I don't think that this is accurate to what the Bible talks in terms of preaching. I see discussion after the sermon, I see questions raised during and after as would have occurred in the Temple.
I do think that preaching is critical in church but this depends on how you do it. It also means that the people listening can't sit there like drones but should be thinking, analysing and commenting nor should the preacher not allow any input from the congregation. (I am not convinced 20th century church is what it should be, I think that there are problems that need fixing.)
The 10 min, 20 min time frames for preaching I think in some cases are helpful but I think it also shows that people are not coming to be taught and think through what is being taught. I have been places where sermons have gone for an hour and no one missed a beat. Think of uni lecture and tuts go for generally an hour or 2 we don't complain there. (well some do)
They are men but they are men with a gift from the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit are using and so I would say let's listen think and be challenged.
I agree with Nathan and Leah (although I don’t know if I agree that preaching is ‘overvalued’).
ReplyDeleteOne element missing from video preaching is relationship. You may argue that relationship is the responsibility of pastors/small group leaders etc but you’re wrong. It’s everybody’s job. A video broadcast is a one way relationship so that just doesn’t work.
Relationship is biblical and I think all Christians would agree with this point. Practically it’s necessary for growth and unity of a congregation. It’s important that a preacher is in a position to biblically guide the congregation through specific issues which relate to them. Some issues need to be dealt with in small groups, but others must be dealt with from the pulpit (or both). It’s important that a body of Christians who are living in community with each other (by this I mean going to the same church) understand some issues from a similar viewpoint (even if they personally don’t agree with it, they should understand it). If a minister is relationally remote from his congregation it’s very difficult for him to know the issues and deal with them accordingly.
I made a long comment and it disappeared into the internet ether. Here we go again...
ReplyDeleteHow can I be dead right and wrong at the same time? The two would seem mutually exclusive.
I'm annoyed that I lost my comment, it was really well written.
I think your understanding of the biblical church is under-realised - and it's probably wrong to aspire to the same model - the early church was unique. The early church also would not have envisaged video preaching. Which is a triumph of pragmatism over faith.
I think the picture you describe is of a church being lead by itinerant apostles whose role is to establish churches all over the place - these churches are then run by their own ministry team with the apostles chiming in with occasional teaching and the odd letter.
Our current ministers are not apostles.
I agree preaching is critical - it's a critical part of church life - but exceptional teaching is not critical. Teaching that encourages people to love Jesus is critical. I don't care how eloquent or entertaining a preacher is - so long as they're pointing people to Jesus.
I don't think there's any excuse for bad preaching. Good preaching is learnable - I don't think it's the gift your holding it up to be, but I think exceptional teaching is beneficial and comes as a spiritual gift.
I have massive problems with video cast preaching. The more I think about it the more angry it makes me.
I can see how it works from a pragmatic point for Mars Hill - you'd feel ripped off living in Seattle, being part of the Mars Hill community and not hearing Driscoll week in, week out. There probably aren't buildings big enough. But I would hope that through his ministry team and through the many feedback channels he's opened up to people he's got his finger on the pulse of his congregation. He doesn't have his finger on the pulse of a congregation in Western Queensland though, and it's unlikely that anyone other than someone living in Western Queensland could.
Church is about community and relationships - like Robyn said - and fundamental to preaching is a relationship. Exhortation is much more convincing coming from someone you know than some guy on a video screen. No matter how entertaining or deep he is.
Video preaching is a bad idea. A better idea is to prayerfully and purposefully seek men to fill gaps in country churches. We've set the bar for teachers higher than it should be by placing the exceptional guys on a pedestal. Faithful teaching out of love for the congregation is all that's required. There are plenty of training resources out there that are helpful and leave no excuse for truly "bad preaching" anymore.
Re the nature of preaching - preaching must be appropriate to context. It's fine for uni lectures to go for an hour because they're to uni students - people in church aren't necessarily as self selecting - there's a broad demographic range and you should be preaching to everyone, not the academically elite. Preaching to the shortest attention span and dealing with those who want more in depth coverage independently is a much better model than boring 90% of your congregation out of the church. Pursuit of long in depth talks will not strengthen the church but water it down to just a particular group of people who like long talks. These people are too often caught up in the intellectual side of church and not in the acts of loving service. That's a terrible generalisation. I know.
Video preaching though - is bad. Bad bad bad. Imagine bringing a friend to church to watch a 12 foot preacher in surround sound... what happens if you want to ask a private question of the preacher after church over morning tea? You're robbing church of a primary relationship with the minister - and robbing the minister of any form of accountability to those in the video watching seats.
The pragmatic way is not always the best way.
I think you mistook a lot of the content of my comment as my opinion, when I was often referring to other people's opinions, and as a result, read a lot into my comment that wasn't there.
ReplyDelete*I* would never suggest the only gifted preachers around are Mark Driscoll and John Piper. That's the exact attitude I hate.
And of course I don't hate mega churches or think they're wrong. You know that. I would claim it's wrong to expect one minister to effectively minister to thousands of people on a weekly, church-based basis. (One-off seminars etc are a different matter and not the same as church.) These mega churches need several staff, and many of them do. It's when they begin exalting one particular staff member- and insisting it has to be HIM who preaches ALL THE TIME on ALL THE CAMPUSES that I get wary.
Of course a minister can't have a deep and personal relationship with everyone in a 200-member congregation. But he is at least present and available to be approached, questioned, conversed with, etc. And the whole mega-church thing is not necessarily synonymous with the video-preaching issue. You could have video preaching being done at 3 200-person campuses and I'd say that's just as dangerous. I don't care if you have a 6000 person church with one *main* minister, at least he is present and able to be approached, questioned, etc etc. It's when you begin broadcasting him to other satellite churches- as if no-one else could do that job- that I begin to think something is wrong.
Regarding Jesus never caring for the masses one on one: I am not sure he is supposed to be the model of a church's minister.
Oh and just regarding your uni-lecture/ tute example... 1 hour lectures, I am pretty sure most people zone out for a lot of it :P Not to mention visuals make it SO much easier to focus. Many ministers don't take advantage of that, while most lecturers do. And as for 2 hour tutorials, those are usually discussions, not one person sitting there talking at you. Again, easier to focus.
Why do we need video preaching at all? Can the churches that engage in it really not find an extra one or two good ministers to supervise the satellite church campuses?
Leah can you give me an example of this
ReplyDelete“It's when they begin exalting one particular staff member- and insisting it has to be HIM who preaches ALL THE TIME on ALL THE CAMPUSES that I get wary.”
North Point Community Church, Atlanta. Their preacher, Andy Stanley, is broadcast to 16 other campuses, and he would like to see it reach 60 by 2010.
ReplyDeleteBethlehem Baptist Church, whose "preaching pastor" is -gasp- John Piper.
And apparently Mars Hill.
BBC does it a little differently, with Piper rotating which campus he preaches at each week. His Saturday night message is taped and shown at the two campuses which don't get him on the Sunday morning. I guess you could say what Nathan said about Driscoll and Mars Hill - you'd feel ripped off if you attended BBC and didn't get to hear John Piper preach. But does it have to be him EVERY Sunday? It somewhat mollifies me that he is actually present at each campus once every three weeks, this is better than never being present at all. But I still don't like the fact that they can't train up more ministers to preach in Piper's absence, instead of just showing a taped message of Piper's. I think it is fairly safe to say Dave Mac is probably one of, if not the, best preacher our church has, but we don't insist he preaches 24/7, do we? We have Dave Hopper and now Nathan, and previously there have been people like Tim C, Keith C, Paul C and many others who have all had a turn.
We're not going to have Dave Mac preaching at Presbyterian 4 via video link. We're going to find them another minister. (Eventually. Granted, I am sure, that for the first while we will be loaning preachers to them. But it will be a real person, not a video image!)
I don't have a problem with it being used occasionally as a useful tool when other options won't work on a given day. But widespread use as the standard operating procedure? I don't think so.
Thanks Leah.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest my point here is to prove your statement "ALL THE TIME on ALL THE CAMPUSES" wrong
I could not find anything on North Point Community Church (but the goggle search did bring up his book "Creating Community"). But I went to Bethlehem Baptist Church John Piper annually goes away for weeks at a time and what I saw in their website there is at least 1 Sunday a week where he does not preach. There is even a Sunday for apprentice preachers. Mars Hill only has Mark preaching a similar amount to BBC and Willows for that matter less then two thirds of the year.
We do have heaps of guys preaching and I love that all at different levels of ability but all able to preach. Hopper is different from Mac but both are great preachers.
To sum up my point (in using the church plant as an example) is that I don't have an issue with Dave Mac being video cast in. BUT I am sure it will have its own minister and that is fine.
What I like about it is that it allows those called to ministry that are not preachers to spend their time doing what God has gifted them in and giving the preacher time to focus on his sermon.
Video Preaching is a tool that is all just like powerpoint, mics and a whole range of technology. I don't see anything wrong with it.
"there is at least 1 Sunday a week where he does not preach"
ReplyDeleteSo he doesn't do much preaching then?
Yeah I'm with Nathan here- "there is at least 1 Sunday a week where he does not preach" huh?
ReplyDeleteAnd what I said is exactly what I heard from a person who attends BBC.
And what I said about North Point Community Church came from several articles about it. I have no idea if they have their own website or anything.
And re: mars hill, I have no idea, I specifically said 'apparently' because nathan had suggested it in an earlier comment.
Dave Mac could be video cast in for the first while, until we found someone else. But ultimately we can't expect him to keep his finger on the pulse of two churches for an extended period of time. Yes we have the session etc but I'm sure you see what I'm getting at here. The other church will have to learn to stand on its own just as we learnt to stand on our own separate to John Knox. (When we were the same charge as them, we shared a minister who preached over there first, then did another service directly afterwards here at Willows, or John Calvin as it was then.)
"Video Preaching is a tool that is all just like powerpoint, mics and a whole range of technology."
ReplyDeleteNo. Mics and powerpoint are tools, actual pieces of technology. Video preaching is not. In that case, it is the camera, microphone and video link that are the tools. The video preaching is what you do with those tools. Just like you can use powerpoint and mics in a church badly, you can use cameras and videolinks badly.