Let me tell you: after “clown liturgy”, the consumeristic underpinnings of the quest for the “best pastor” …. ARGH!

ARGH I say!

I am not a consumer of video church, but I have seen a few online sermons [at non church times] and find them helpful to my walk.

A couple things concern me about substituting a video for a “real, Live” pastor preaching are these:

- it plays to the entertain me ethic prevalent in the US, and is an entirely passive consumption form of church.

-How does a video church fulfill the mystery of our union in Christ? Does it honor God as He intended? What relationship is formed between pastor and flock in a video church? How is that relationship fostered? What makes a video church different from a rock concert, play, symphony, or ballet? Does it fulfill Christ’s vision for the Church?

Just some food for thought…

Jake

This is nothing new, but a proper way to deal with it is to have multiple teaching pastors on a preaching rotation from the same hub. Each pastor then flucuating between the church plants would offset the cult of personality idol.

Do you all consider video sites church plants?

Robert Austell made a similar argument a while back, and framed it pretty provocatively: http://robertaustell.blogspot.com/2009/08/piper-projection-and-pornography.html

I exchanged some debate with John Lagrou on that exact issue, all of which Robert kindly linked to. John was pretty up front with that impulse–why should we listen to our local pastor when we can hear Piper, Driscoll, etc?

matt

Unfortunately, I think we make the great the enemy of the good. Piper is a great preacher, and few local pastors can compare with his homiletic abilities. So does that mean we should all just set up screens and satellite feeds in our churches and pipe in Piper so that we can all have great preaching?

Why can’t we be happy with decent—but not great—preachers who loves God and who do their best to preach the Word? It seems a bit like being dissatisfied with our wives because they are not Angelina Jolie.

I’m just saying that on the continuum of un-incarnation, one guy who is virtual on video and preaching to a crowd that is physically present is “better” than everybody by themselves on their computer and everybody is virtual.

That makes sense. But I think it’s problematic that Driscoll gave up the principle, and then mocks those who take his position to its logical conclusion (as he did at the Desiring God conference). What did we expect once we said that people’s bodies aren’t necessary for communication? And no one calls him out for it–we simply laugh because it’s funny and we don’t want to take the online church people very seriously.

But I think you are ultimately agreeing with my point that its the same ball of wax. The difference is degree, not kind. But that’s what makes the arguments against online church so unpersuasive, since they don’t seem to recognize that and don’t want to specify why we shouldn’t go out to the extreme.

I like Chandler’s honesty about that too, and that’s the line my own pastor has taken it. I don’t know if Chandler’s church uses video or not (his doesn’t say), but I should qualify my own reservations about multi-site to those that use video sermons. I am a much bigger fan of those that use the additional services to actually raise up new leaders.

Matt

That said, I am a fierce critic of preaching and time and again I am dismayed by what passes for preaching in a host of churches. The advantage of someone like Piper preaching to multiple sites is at least the people aren’t stuck with a quack.

http://wedgewords.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/why-no-images/

A little fear and trembling would be nice amidst the gung-ho “leverage technology” gang.

No. I don’t.

I think it is a bad idea to move toward un-incarnating any aspect of the worship gathering, including the preaching.

I’m just saying that on the continuum of un-incarnation, one guy who is virtual on video and preaching to a crowd that is physically present is “better” than everybody by themselves on their computer and everybody is virtual.

I don’t think you’ll need to get started. I think I can do enough damage on that one for the both of us.

To be honest, my hope is that the conversation about online church will expose the problematic anthropology the video folks have adopted by revealing the inconsistencies in their rejection of online church. That’s my big hope for this conversation–I really want to hear Piper and Driscoll (who are both on record rejecting online church) explain how they can justify video sermons without leading to online church. I really want to hear that.

matt

But it doesn’t involve a physical gathering for the person preaching the Word, and yet we still think it’s just as effective as if the pastor were there. Does the pastor’s body get some special dispensation that allows him to not be present with his people physically? That simply begs the question, if not necessary for the pastor, why necessary for the congregation? Simply saying that there is a difference without articulating it doesn’t help much. Think of online church as an extension of the priesthood of all believers in that regard.

Also, it’s worth pointing out (as I argued at CWC) that most proponents of online church are in favor of physical gatherings, and in fact will meet offline.

Best,

Matt

Seriously: don’t get me started.