A new church was born Sunday morning, but, like an increasing number of congregations, it has no preaching pastor.
In what has become one of the most popular church growth methods across the country, a large white screen unfurled in front of the stage with the preacher’s image projected on it, preempting the live sermon and the pastor’s physical presence.
Welcome to the satellite church, a 21st century phenomenon that owes its success to advances in technology. These days, instead of starting new congregations, churches are reproducing the successful ones, franchise-style.
Ugh.
[blockquote] But the heart of the service – the sermon – is given over to the big screen.
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I stopped reading there. Anyone who believes that a sermon is the heart of church worship hasn’t a clue about the faith or discipline of the Apostolic Church.
Nothing to see here. Just more nutty Protestants. Moving on…
Amen #2! The heart of the service is the Eucharist. Though good sermons can teach, uplift, inspire, admonish, chasten, and generally edify, we meet Christ Himself in the Eucharist.
I logged on to say “ugh” but see that Evan has beat me to it. Are we growing into a world where none of us will really be *present* to others? Will all our “interactions” be mediated by screens mimicking reality? Ugh.
“The heart of the service is the Eucharist.” – That is not what the Apostles teach us. I will follow them in preference to human teachings.
However, service by video? I have my doubts. And yet, churches that are overflowing (and they do exist) have to use video to link in those who can’t be fitted in to the main building. And there are also some very good broadcasts of traditional services on Sunday TV which I know bring great comfort to those who are housebound. So, perhaps there is something worthwhile in it.
Might as well stay home and watch it on TV, no Confession, Absolution, Word and Sacrament here.
Our church will be launching a second site within the next couple of years, hopefully sooner rather than later. If our budget and technology allow, we will likely show the sermon via video. Theological disagreements aside on the the nature and essential elements of a worship service aside (which is an important discussion, just not the direction I’m taking at the moment), there are a lot of positives to showing a sermon via video, especially in the multisite model. For instance, it can be a unifying thing for all sites to hear the same sermon. Most churches I know that do a video feed have all the other elements of the service “live,” meaning elements such as worship songs are not piped in via video. We use a feed for our overflow services, such as Easter. It is also sometimes necessary to record a sermon on Sunday morning and show it during our Sunday evening service, such as when we have a guest speaker that must travel Sunday afternoon to return home by Sunday night. Overall, I would say the integrity of the pulpit is upheld in the situations I’ve mentioned.
Jesus had the boat to minister to the crowd. These preachers have their big screen. I’d say the big screen works better 🙂