THIS WEEK: I'm preaching.
Some great things are happening at the Watertown Church of the Nazarene where I attend, not the least of which I have my next preaching gig there this coming weekend. I've been thinking about a couple of different sermons ... "What Would Jesus Say to Ted Haggard?" ... "Q: Who was the first disciple of Christ? A: An unwed, pregnant teen." ... "Mythbusters: Evangelism Unlocked." ... maybe something else ... any suggestions?
Have you listened to my last sermon? Go to my other web site and download the audio file "090106 1st Baptist Wolcott".
NEW! Saturdays, 5:00 pm
Watertown Church of the Nazarene have begun a Saturday evening service at 5:00 pm. Saturday evening is still my ideal time to go to church. I don't know if it's just the lingering effect of going to mass as a kid on Sat evenings or what, but I like it. When I first went to seminary Alyx and I attended Willowcreek for a year and went every Saturday night. We would wake up Sunday mornings and look out to see all our friends scrambling to get to church, and we would leisurely get out of bed and stroll over to the convenience store to buy a paper, eat a late brunch and relax. Works for me. Sunday felt more like a Sabbath when I didn't have to go to church.
COMING SOON! Satellite Campus near Ft. Drum
A recent trend in ministry is for churches to plant multiple campuses instead of planting new congregations. I think Life Covenant Church, which was originally founded in Oklahoma but now has campuses in several states, was the trend setter ... or maybe they are the most successful at it. Watertown First Church of the Nazarene is making plans to do the same — well, maybe one day we'll be in different states but for right now we'll settle for another campus outside the city near Ft. Drum. We're looking at a January launch.
There are some advantages to this approach to ministry. The sermon is video taped and played at the other campuses, so each site doesn't need a preaching pastor. All the sites are part of one church and don't need their own separate elder boards. All the sites can share some administrative or overhead costs and certain ministry training opportunities.
In truth, that first "advantages" can be perceived as disadvantages as well. I know for some not having a live preacher is a theological problem. They don't just view preaching as a "pep talk" or communication event that is just meant to transfer information. For some, preaching is meant to be incarnating the Word of God, The Bible, just in the same way that Jesus Christ was the Word of God incarnate. The symbolism is ripe and vital for them.
Another advantage to multicampusing as opposed to church planting is control. I can think of an instance where one large, vital, healthy church worked to plant a church in a neighboring community about 15 miles away. The mother church sacrificed money, people, resources, etc. At first the plant thrived but then began to flounder after a pastoral change within the first couple years. After several years more, the plant became small and inward focused. The mother church would be willing and able to help the plant, but now that the plant had been established for nearly a decade they weren't easily able to be helped — mainly due to pride. There was nothing for the mother church to do but watch the plant suffer and dwindle. If it were a campus of the mother church instead of a church plant, the mother could step in and make ministry corrections as needed to keep the ministry alive.
It will be a first for this part of New York State. I'm going to have to do some research but I don't know of any church within a couple hundred miles of here that is doing multicampus ministry.
This just occured to me: multicampus ministry is very similar to an episcopacy. Episcopal literally means "'of' or 'relating to' or 'governed by' bishops". In this model the bishop is head pastor over a diocese which is a territorial jurisdiction of churches and the pastors of those churches, called 'rectors' are meant to be the regent, or agent, or extension of the bishop. Every diocese has a cathedral, which is the principal church containing the episcopal throne. In the multicampus model the "lead pastor" is the bishop and his/her church is the cathedral. The pastor of the satellite church is called the "host pastor" would equate to the rector of a local parish within a diocese.
I can just see it now: Bishop Greg Gates. We're going to have to get him a miter. And then of course we would have Canon Dan Hazelton and Canon Amanda Cash. The Nazarene Church in Watertown is returning to it's Anglican roots and don't even know it, though I doubt they'll be serving real wine for communion any time soon ... sadly. |
