I’ve been throwing out a few of the updates, changes, things going on in church. Usually by the end of the year my mind is spinning with changes that need to be made as a result of the growth that has taken place. So, we’ve been spending hours discussing some changes that need to be made to better serve our people, help us get ahead of the growth that has come to our church and to position our church to reach more people. I don’t want to bore you with statistics, but the reality is our church has seen tremendous growth in the past 18-24 months and it isn’t slowing down. I’ve already discussed the need to re-structure our leadership team into a campus model – campus pastors and service pastors, etc. And I want to throw out another thought we’ve been working through…

When we established our second location in Collierville earlier this year we had two priorities – making room at our Cordova campus (we had about 40 people at the time driving to Cordova from Collierville), but more importantly, our top priority was to reach more people. It has been a successful second location, and I’m really fired up about where we are in terms of growth and strength.

When we started the Collierville location we said we would do a combination of live preaching and preaching captured via video. Without a doubt, the video concept is proven in the United States and around the world. It’s amazing. It works. So, I think it’s a no brainer to use video (especially the quality that God has blessed us with). It’s especially effective when we are approaching a strategic series (like the 7 week Miracle Series we just finished) and a strategic weekend (like this weekend when Pastor Don Matheny, my pastor and one of our presbyters, is speaking). So, video is a great tool we can use at any campus. Several weeks ago we used a video message in our 10:15a service in Cordova and I had several core people tell me they didn’t realize I was not on the stage until half-way through the message! I find the vast majority of people don’t mind video. Some do, and for those people, there are plenty of other service options where someone is preaching live.

I also want to raise up pastors and communicators who can preach live in any one of our services. I get more fulfillment out of training and releasing up and coming communicators, than I do handling all of the preaching myself. This helps to keep the church from totally revolving around me, my giftings, or my personality and the church isn’t limited by my inability to be in more than one place at a time.

So, I don’t think its an “either or” but a “both and”. We’ve not yet perfected an exact formula, but I think I can confidently say it will not be ALL video or ALL live. We’ll see. I’m fired up about the future and the incredible impact that creativity can have in reaching more people!