The Virtual Preacher – Part 2

November 30, 2009 in Articles View Comments

Check out part 1 of this series first.

And this brings me to the point of this article. The virtual preacher has become the defacto standard for church growth problems. Whenever a church gets too big, the assumption is that the church should go multi-site (as opposed to just planting a new church) with the pastors sermon piped in through a live video feed.

Every time I see a church adopt this methodology I get a little heavy hearted because we have no idea of the message we are sending when we do this. Shane Hipps, who wrote, “The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture” says this about multi-site churches with video venues:

I visited a church recently on the day that it was launching its multi-site service. The most striking feature of the sermon was that his message was directly contradicted by his medium—the video venue.  His message was excellent and told an important truth—ministry is supported by character, not talent. However, the medium of the video venue had a subliminal message of its own. The message of a video-venue sermon is that the authority to preach is derived from talent and celebrity, not character or communal affirmation. A televised event doesn’t communicate anything about a person’s character. It can only affirm or deny talent and attractiveness.

Character is known only through communal affirmation, which requires some personal knowledge of one another. This personal knowledge is impossible for satellite congregations who only see the pastor’s performance.

Not only did the medium itself undermine this particular preacher’s message, but the extensive financial outlay required to pull off a video-venue service also communicated to the congregation that only a preacher with a golden tongue has authority to preach the gospel. . . The medium itself nurtures an elite priestly class in which the preacher is set apart from the people.

Even if this attitude is explicitly denied by the preacher, the very medium reinforces the belief that only talented people with some degree of celebrity can or should preach.

Our intentions with our use of technology may be genuine but I feel we need to take seriously the underlying message that is being sent for that is more important. Multi-site churches may be a good solution, but we need to think twice about virtual preachers for the following reasons:

1. It costs a lot of money to provide a live video feed. Some churches resort to a sermon on video which is cheaper but does not avoid the bigger message that is being communicated.
2. The bigger message is, as Shane Hipps put it, “only a preacher with a golden tongue has the authority to preach the gospel.”
3. We also miss a tremendous opportunity to disciple other men to become better preachers and leaders.
4. It promotes the celebrity preacher.
5. The church community learns to appreciate different styles of preaching.

Ultimately we need to weigh the benefits (what we gain) against the negatives (what we lose). When it comes to choosing whether or not to use video feeds in multi-site churches, in my opinion, the negatives far outweigh the positives.

multi-site churches, Shane Hipps, Technology, video venues