High-Tech Circuit Riders

BOB SMIETANA has a good article about multi-site satellite churches in the current issue of CT. Most of these churches are linked through a communication feed. This means that the preaching pastor isn't on site with the congregation but his message is beamed in from another location and projected on a large screen. His presence is strictly virtual.

Since I'm a tad bit geeky and am drawn to the creative use of technology I find this whole approach quite intriguing. Furthermore, I think that satellite congregations are a great way to network churches. (Really, this is just an updated version of the medieval European concept of the cathedral church with many parishes scattered across the countryside dependent on that city cathedral for pastoral oversight.)

However, my theology is challenging my geekiness and giving me serious cause for concern with this trend.

1) COMMUNITY-BASED PASTORAL MINISTRY

In my mind being church is much more than producing a quality worship experience. It involves being a community and the pastor needs to be resident in that community to fully function as a part of that community. IOW, a neighborhood church involves a neighborhood pastor -- present there in the flesh -- experiencing the life of the community alongside the people of the congregation.

We shouldn't foster the notion that people come to hear me preach because of my preaching skills and stage presence. My long-term credibility comes because I'm living life alongside them. They know that I'm real and what I'm saying is real because I am living there with them.

(Bayside Church is developing its satellite system with this in mind. Each of their satellites has its own preaching pastor.)

2) INCARNATIONAL PASTORAL MINISTRY

However, this isn't just about Aristotle's rhetorical concept of ethos. It is also a theological necessity that we as pastors be able to model incarnation. Christianity by nature is more than creedal facts and more than a decision for Jesus. It is about relationships and connection -- not just a perceived virtual connection but a real in-person connection with a real human.

What are we saying if the most public face of the church is disembodied? If your most immediate source of connection with the gospel on a week-by-week basis is a virtual pastor it is not a long leap to believing that the gospel is somehow another virtual experience -- unrooted in real life.

Yes, a projected video image may be very effective in growing the church (perhaps even more so than a less polished real live pastor). And yes, people may have a perceived connection with the image on a screen. But it is not real. If anything we should be encouraging people to foster a healthy suspicion of all that is filtered through a video medium. It is way too easy to manipulate the image and to make it into something that it is not.

In the first five centuries of the church's life we fought various forms of a heresy called Gnosticism. In a nutshell this teaching de-emphasized the incarnation and favored a disembodied spiritual reality. In some manifestations it questioned whether God would actually and literally become a man because men are fleshly material beings. "And everyone knows that the material world is basically evil. Never shall the twain meet." The goal, in that system, is to get beyond the material and to live a more ethereal life.

Video preaching is a new twist on that old idea -- albeit with a heavy dose of functionalism thrown in. It is too close to a disembodied Gnostic style religion. "The Word became flesh and set up his tent among us." (John 1:14) Pastoral presence shouldn't be anything less.

3) PASTORAL CONTINUITY

A congregation's pastor needs to be the same person/people proclaiming the Word and serving the sacraments. To separate these two means of grace leads to an unhealthy compartmentalization and reinforces a disconnect between the various ways the Word is received. Likewise in terms of proclamation and care. The pastor who oversees the care of the congregation should be the same one who is regularly preaching (not that such a person is the hands-on care-giver for everyone). The preacher knows what to say (or not say) on Sunday mornings because he or she has been caring for the needs of that particular church during the rest of the week. Preaching, sacraments, and caring are all dimensions of a single calling and if we start segregating tasks too much -- especially through a distance relationship -- we end up with some unhealthy disconnects.

Does this mean that I'll refuse to relate to video pastors and churches? Absolutely not. I don't have to agree with everything they're doing to function as a brother in Christ or to be a colleague supportive of their mission. But I will continue to gently nudge them toward what I see as holistic health and theological integrity.

PS -- Bob Smietana blogs at god-of-small-things.blogspot.com