Preaching: Yeah, and I know pastors still that have multi-site locations, and they finish one service, hop in the car and drive to the other site and do—although that seems to be declining in terms of the numbers doing that as more and more move towards the video. And as you and I have talked already—I mean, people like Andy Stanley and John are great guys, and gifted and committed people. We appreciate what they’re doing because they’re trying to feel around and find ways to try to engage the culture and connect the culture with the gospel. We’re all as you’ve said kind of struggling forward looking for the best approaches.
Stetzer: Yeah, and it is kind of interesting because—take Andy Stanley for example—preaching the word in Atlanta, and people are coming to Christ and being transformed by the Gospel. The church keeps growing. They’re out of space. They could build another church, and a whole segment of Christianity would condemn them for building too big of a building. They could go multi-site, and a whole segment of Christianity would condemn them for doing that. They could plant churches—and they are involved in church planting as well—and a whole segment would condemn them for doing that. Ultimately I think one of the factors in church is we just like to be mad at people who are large and making an impact. I’m just—I’m not mad at the megachurch. I just want us to think through some of these issues. But I think ultimately at the end of the day Andy Stanley and his elders need to wrestle through what it means to be North Point church and how to best accomplish the mission God has given them.
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I remember years ago Bill Hinson, the late Bill Hinson, when he was pastor at First Methodist in Houston—Bill was one of our contributing editors for
Preaching magazine for years—I remember when they were trying to open they had that downtown location—downtown Houston. They were trying to get approval to do a second Galleria location. As he said, he said, “It’s not my Methodist church that’s the problem. It’s the other Methodist churches in the area that apparently were afraid we were going to come out and get some of the lost people.” He said, “You know, would that that would be the problem.” (Laughter)
Stetzer: Yeah, and I think—I think but I’m not sure—I’ve heard some people say that First Methodist Houston was the first larger church to actually do the multi-site kind of approach. There are certainly some others, but that was one of the pioneers so that’s fascinating. You know, again, nice problem to have—want to reach lost people in new communities and teach them the Bible and just trying to find ways best to do that.
Preaching: Yeah. As we kind of draw this to a close—this has been a great discussion—if you were to sit down with a pastor that’s out there trying to make a difference for the Kingdom what are some words of encouragement or counsel that you might provide to them based on the things you’ve learned through your research, writing and work?
