Sun 18 Jun 2006
Mesilla Park Community Church (MPCC) announced last Sunday (6/11/06) that the church is going to branch out in two areas — church planting and multi-site churches. This is part of MPCC’s vision to double the lives we reach every five years. This will hopefully meet an urgent need in our community — to transform the church from a place where people have to come to church, to a place where the church goes out to people.
The church planting will be in the form of small churches located mostly in homes (although they don’t necessarily have to be) connected to one-another through a common “core” leadership. The small groups will periodically join together for big-group worship somewhere in town — like a hotel conference room or other large meeting place. The church plant will be its own organization, complete with elders, by-laws, etc. The main idea behind the church plants is to provide a place where the relationships we build at work, at school, in the world, etc. have a place to connect with the church in a non-stereotypical “church” way. In every way, the home groups will fulfill all of the functions of a New Testament church.
The multi-site churches are similar to the church plants, except that they will remain connected to Mesilla Park Community Church, and will feature Dennis Diaz’s preaching via video feed. The multi-site churches will meet in larger groups, complete with their own worship bands with varying styles depending on the congregation style being reached (post-modern, country, traditional, etc). The multi-site congregations will seek to meet in movie theaters, conference rooms, schools — wherever we have opportunity and resources to set one up. Stay tuned for more information!
If you have any thoughts about this, post them below. . .
June 26th, 2006 at 12:08 am
uhm, cool. really cool. I have only one fear: the video feeds. Dennis is a cool guy, great teacher, but will not have the same impact as the real Dennis. Why not just have the whole church stay at home and rent sermons they want from Blockbuster? Community doesn’t happen when people watch tv, or movies together. If it does, it’s usually what happens before or after, that is the real community. It also sounds like there isn’t the leadership there, or leadership called to actually plant a new church. If the new church doesn’t have it’s own teacher now, when will it get one (or many, depends on the goal)? I think it’s an awsome and brave step, but may not be far enough actually leave the boat(ie, walk off the plank). Maybe it will work though, I hope it does. This is not meant to be argumentitive, but just some ideas that may be helpful. Jesus bless these brothers in sisters as they touch Las Cruces in new ways. Jesus, love them, so they can love their neighbors.
June 26th, 2006 at 4:35 am
Hey Robbie — long time no hear! Yup, you’ve summed it up, alright. As for the video venue churches, if all they are built on is Dennis’ preaching, they will fail. As you point out, they will be nothing better than going to the video store and checking out your favorite sermon (along with a box of popcorn and Red Vines — with the benefit that you can also grab a few back episodes of Monk or X-Files).
That’s the big issue for prayer — to raise up leadership for the video venues so that the “campus pastor” has the resources to coordinate a top-notch team of volunteers (worship teams, greeters, children’s workers, etc.) to make it their own congregation outright. They’ll still be connected to MPCC, but they’ll get their identity from each other. Dennis’ preaching will need to presented “sans cheeze,” of course. It can’t be played up as a “video production.” It will simply be a recording of Dennis preaching just as you would see in a “real” church. Of course, we need to wait and see if such a model for church growth will really take hold in a relatively small town such as Cruces. But, we think it’s worth trying.
As for the leadership for the other church plant, we had to scrape the bottom of the barrel a bit for that one. My wife and I are going to be the ones heading that one up. Our last day in ministry at MPCC will be July 9. We’ll then be spending the next several months (as long as it takes) building the “core team” for the new church, and refining its strategy, purpose, distinctives, etc. It’s a birthing process for sure — we want to make sure we’re fully gestated, so to speak. Many churches start out life stillborn because they rushed into their plant. The telling statistic is that 80% of new church plants fail within the first year. It’d be a drag to be part of that statistic. . .unless we learn from others and strive fully to be on the other side of that. We’re trusting God to stay faithful with the calling and vision He’s put in our hearts.
Thanks for your prayers.