For some, the announcement that Seattle-based multisite megachurch Mars Hill would officially dissolve earlier this week, was received with a sigh of relief.
It’s a tragic day for those who have given their lives for the past few years to create this multi-million dollar religious organization. There was much good accomplished and lives changed.
Praise God!
Also, many people were hurt. Plenty of blame has been dished out on Mark Driscoll for his arrogant and bullying approach to leadership.
But was Driscoll the real problem?
Or is this inevitable?
Jesus story begins this way: the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
God became a Jewish baby in first-century Palestine and moved into a specific neighborhood. Jesus gospel was that the kingdom of God was at hand.
Jesus could say that because he was the King, and he was at hand.
Every Sunday at Mars Hill and hundreds of other multisite megachurches like it, a human being is put on camera. His (for some reason, it’s almost always a “his”) head is projected on hundreds of times its natural size. His image is broadcast hundreds of miles away to people that have never met him.
People talk about him. People comment on his hairstyle. People notice if he’s not wearing the right makeup.
People tweet about him. People (including yours truly…) write blog posts about him. Book publishers flock to him, not because he has something worthy of print, but because he already has a platform for promotion.
Jesus was at hand.
He used this opportunity to explain the good news to twelve people. On only a few occasions, he taught to a crowd. When he did interact with strangers, it was often to touch them and heal them.
It’s hard to be on hand on a video screen. Especially if the video screen is thousands of miles away.
What happened in Seattle is heart breaking. When you look back at the system—a centralized institution broadcasting religious content by promoting a single individual—you have to wonder, “well, how else would this end?”
Is God present and working in the lives of people who make a multisite their church home?
Undoubtedly.
God works when and wherever he wants. That’s what makes him God.
Can “church” happen within a multisite system?
Of course. Church can happen in a parking garage. Or a movie theater. Or a house. Because church is people.
I love the heart behind multisite megachurches: leveraging resources to reach as many as possible. And God CAN work within the megachurch system. But just because God can work in any way he wants does not provide an excuse for us to create systems that run counter to Jesus methods for proclaiming the gospel.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
How can anything be called a church that is not also at hand?
If the church is not, don’t be shocked when it begins to do some very un-Jesus-like things.
Let’s not wait for another megachurch to spin out of control. Let’s dig deep into the life of our neighborhoods and ask “what does it mean for the Church to be at hand?”
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