Megachurches fascinate me. Having an engineering background, I think the fascination stems from the effective use of resources – by having a larger staff, they can be engaged fully in ministries away from the up-front stuff.
Anyway, NPR have a good item on how megachurches continue to grow by establishing smaller satellite churches. What is interesting is the use of video recorded at the main meeting being distributed to the satellites (via DVD in the case of the item, although I’ve also read about churches using live video links) containing the main message.
The churches in the item don’t emphasise the Bible like a Sydney Anglican church, the messages have “passing references to the Bible” and focus on a message of self-improvement of mind, body, soul (what might be called the prosperity gospel). Having said that, it is still interesting to see how these churches are using technology.
Now this content syndication, watching a Bible talk on video, may not work with Australians, but it’s an interesting model to consider. I think one of the reasons it works in the US is that it allows churches to take their “personality” (energetic, hip leader) and use his likeability further. I think Sydney Anglicans would shy away from the idea of personality, but we do recognise that we have some great Bible teachers in our midst. We enjoy the trip to Katoomba to hear them speak, why not more often?
If content was distributed amongst Sydney Anglican churches, wouldn’t that free local full-time staff to undertake other Bible-focussed ministries?
I’m also fascinated by technology as a Gospel tool.
I’ve been thinking about putting pen to paper to write some articles (for Southern Cross??) about how to think about and plan to use various technologies for Gospel ministry. And I’m talking about more than gadgets here. I think the tricks for church use are
I like the way you are thinking about the TAC web site—it’s a good example of these principles.
Regarding distribution of teaching material by video, I have a couple of observations:
I reckon that the value of shared video content is a lot bigger than sermons, however. I think that messages from Head Office (Peter Jensen tackling the subject of the day, giving a five minute perspective, for example) are just one example where video technology is a winner. Others I know of: