2 Churches, 1 Building...

So in a time in which McChurch is growing by leaps and bounds, I'm part of rebelling and doing the opposite. And I don't feel the least bit bad about it. Don't get me wrong: the McChurch is not a terrible thing. It's just that...what? The McChurch? Oh, sorry!

The McChurch is the franchising of the church of Jesus Christ. So instead of planting and mentoring new churches which have their own identity, big churches are now planting new churches with the same name as the mother church, using live bands but video preaching. They are, in a sense, extending the reach of the mother church via branding and centralized leadership rather than planting entirely new churches.

This isn't wrong or bad. It can reach people with the message of God's love and make disciples. Driscoll in Seattle, Chandler in Texas (and many more) are currently doing McChurch. It's simply a different and legitimate use for technology.

However, I'm cynical, skeptical and rebellious. I just read in 1 Timothy about the church taking care of "true widows" who don't have family to take care of them. I keep finding the scriptures speak of helping the needy right alongside preaching Jesus and making disciples. In Galatians, Paul was commended by the Apostles to to to the Gentiles as a missionary. The only thing they asked was that he "remember the poor." Jesus talks about Sheep and Goats. The difference between the two appears to be how big they grew their church. Nope? Yeah, you caught me! The difference is how they treated people who couldn't help themselves.

And I believe many of these McChurches are helping the needy. I wonder if they ever considered putting up housing adjacent to their buildings for those in need rather than theater seats, neon signs and full-service coffee shops in their churches? But, again, I'm cynical and idealistic and somewhat angry at bible-belt Christianity, not to mention consumer-church Christianity. As though the size of the church determines its' success. Here's a hint: Nofreakinway, dude. (Quick disclaimer- I pastor small churches. I'm not jealous nor am I upset about it- it's a privilege to speak God's Word and I LOVE our people).

So...to the original point- I want our building to be used as much as possible. So when it came time to plant Biker Church, we used the Layman building. We just met on an alternate day and time. Rather that "one church, many locations," we became "two churches, one location." And I'm open to a third church or more using the same space. Maybe a Hispanic church plant? Or Bosnian? Roanoke has a fairly large transplanted Bosnian contingent. Hmmm...

And we use it as a center for our distribution of food and clothing to people in need. We give bread items, frozen food, all manner of clothing to those who can use it. Through our Mercy Ministries person, we also house people.

We're small. We don't seem to attract rich donors. We haven't franchised the Layman name and have no plans to make much of our name. But, God help us, we're gonna make much of Jesus. To people Layman can reach. To people Biker Church can reach. To people in need, serving in the name of Christ.

Layman will patch them up and watch many of them go their way. That's OK- our little church baptized more than 20 last year. Quite a few have moved out of state or had circumstances take them away from us. Because that's the nature of many of the people we reach. But we had the privilege of bringing them to faith and beginning to disciple them. We fed and clothed and housed many. And we're good with that.

Praise God for churches large and small who serve Jesus and the people he created- all to his glory.