Driscoll and MacDonald vs. Dever on multi-site churches
Here’s an interesting discussion between Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald, and Mark Dever on multi-site churches. Driscoll and MacDonald, both multi-site pastors, obviously argue in favor of that strategy and try to convince Dever, not a multi-site guy, that this is a good way to go. And, Dever responds with some good questions of his own.
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Posted on September 28, 2010, in The Church and tagged church growth, church planting, James MacDonald, Mark Dever, Mark Driscoll, multisite churches, The Church. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
scientia et sapientia 
Wow! Driscoll and MacDonald IMMEDIATELY got defensive before Dever even unrolled his sleeves – and they changed the subject to church planting.
It was interesting to hear Driscoll equate people wanting to know the pastor with “addiction.”
Yes, I would have loved to see a more thoughtful interaction with Dever’s questions. He asked some good one’s, and I was really hoping to hear more on how Driscoll and MacDonald would respond.
The other two guys were not really engaged with anything Dever said were they? I had imagined they had better reasons for multi-site than this – seems like it’s purely pragmatic.
I keep hearing out of James and Mark…I…I…I…I…I
These guys came across a little prideful to me and I love both of them. Mark Dever makes a good argument and they don’t really address it. There is no way these guys are saying that having them on a video screen is better than having a real pastor preaching and planting that church 100% of the time, right? Sounds like it to me. And then James makes the argument that having Driscoll on 75% of the time at one of these campuses makes it less about Driscoll? They also make the argument that if they die people will keep coming to these campuses to hear a live preacher that isn’t James MacDonald or Driscoll? I think if that happened and they stopped preaching, 50% of their multi-site campuses would die. These guys try to say that no one has an “addiction” to them like Dever because Dever has one large campus or is “smarter” than them? Please…I know many people who are addicted to Macdonald and Driscoll. Ask those people who Dever is and they’re like, “Who?” I think this seems like “franchising” the ministry to me like a fast food restaurant.
I have a lot more research to do on the specific model of multi-campus discussed here, but I don’t buy the reasoning displayed here. Church planting I am all for, but video-church under the banner of contextualization? Not sure. I wish they would follow up to this video and I wish I could ask them questions too.