Satellite… of Love? Pt. 1

Years ago, the evangelical church began to get enamored with something called satellite churches. As best as I can describe it, a satellite church is one where at least a portion of the Sunday experience—most of the time the sermon or message—is broadcast to a geographically distinct (or remote) group of people. The strategy seemed to provide easy solutions for churches who were experiencing growth “pinches”: they could provide their Sunday experience to a new group of people without having to worry about constructing a larger worship space. These remote locations generally have their own musicians and staff; sometimes the music and “programming” is determined by the central church campus, other times the satellites are left free to determine their own elements (while retaining the video message).

Many mega-churches (and some not so “mega”) continue to heartily engage this strategy; they are excited about the ability to expand with a minimum (relatively speaking) of infrastructure. And for the most part, congregations have testified to the success of the strategy: an ever-increasing number of faces are tuning in faithfully, eyes fixed on the screen in the same way that they are fixed on their 48-inch plasma at home.

However, I am concerned with this movement, and have been ever since it was pitched to me as a staff member at a mega church back in the late 90s. Something about instantly struck me as wrong and worrisome, expeditious and incautious.

While I think that there are numerous ecclesiastical concerns regarding the satellite movement, for now I’d like to consider just one. By its actions, the satellite movement subscribes to the “franchise” mentality of growth, meaning that the “central product” or brand is protected by the “owner”. In this way, quality and uniformity are ensured, and the “consumer” is protected from any kind of unpleasant experience.

What this extends is evangelicalism’s unhealthy deification of excellence. Even before the blossoming of the satellite campus movement, excellence was on its way to becoming a god of large churches everywhere. Scripture wasn’t quite shoe-horned, but it was definitely used shakily to justify the elimination of “mistakes” on a Sunday. The sheen and shine of the gathered people was polished and perfected until any kind of misstep (some might call it a sign of humanity) was minimized and (ideally) eliminated, in the name of (a) being excellent for Jesus and (b) providing a compelling experience for the seeker.

I have no problem with being good at what you do. I have no problem with guitar players being great, or with teachers being great. However, the line begins to blur quickly, and churches can find themselves embracing a potentially unhealthy level of “triumphalism”, where their excellence becomes confused with their spiritual health and effectiveness.

When the satellite movement began, the larger, more resource-rich congregations seemingly found an effective way to “export” their excellence to new, unreached (really?) populations. Their top teacher could now be a thousand different places at once, accompanied by a music and programming staff that could be coached and cajoled along, minimizing the “mistakes” that most young churches are bound to make.

At its end, I wonder what kind of gospel this embraces. Seems to me that they would take Paul’s words in the 1 Corinthians and change them to say that the God had “chosen to kick-ass, the really, really GOOD to shame the wise.” Seems to me that maybe they would change Jesus’ lament that he had no place to lay his head to his proclamation that he is now in HD.

Try as we may, we Christians can’t escape the fact that the road to salvation is marked with blood and suffering. The triumphant church “franchise” is an effort to minimize suffering, mistakes and even humanity, whereas I believe our loving Father in heaven would call us to embrace suffering, laugh about our missteps and embrace our frailty. I firmly believe it is err, but we are all so enamored with the numbers, the screens, the popularity of the new medium that we seem to be unable to ask the questions about where this is all headed.

I embrace the idea that life (and theology) is full of grey areas, but I am somewhat proud to say, however, that I see little grey in this. The new corporations who franchise Jesus would do so much better to release the control that they are desperately trying to retain, and allow these satellites to become “bodies” (after all, it’s the biblical metaphor), and allow these “campuses” to learn, stumble, and grow just like the “mother ships” once did. Ironic, isn’t it?