video church

i have to admit that i am not a very big fan of the multi site church concept. it may just be my own personal bias but watching a video for church simply doesn’t work for me. i would love to see some research on these things. i truly wonder how effective they are. are they bringing people to CHRIST? or are they just bringing people from other churches? i have my thoughts but they are just my thoughts. does anyone know of any research that may have been done on how effective they are?

for my friends who are not familiar with church culture and therefore probably not used to the term “multi site church” what it means is a church that does a video feed to several other locations that have their own worship team that may or may not have a different flavor of doing things. the sermon comes from one site and is piped to all the others. these other locations are part of the base church and somewhere in the church’s tag line is almost always something like “one church many congregations.”

back home

chicago 2008
wednesday the family and i drove down to chicago for a few days. it was wonderful. we played tourists as much as we possibly could, going to a < href="http://blackhawks.nhl.com/">blackhawks game (which was awesome), hitting the art institute, watching the musical “suessical,” etc., etc. one of the most fun things for pam and i was getting visit with some of the people we know and love who live in and around chicago. it was great. a few years back when i stayed at the simple way some of the simple wayers talked about having homes everywhere (largely because they had no home of their own to limit them). i’m not sure i’m there yet but it does feel great when pretty much anywhere pam and i go we have people there whom we love. visiting new places is cool but connecting with friends is so much better.

of course, it feels wonderful to be back home.

SIDE NOTE – running along the lake michigan chicago lakefront during a snow storm was amazing. between the sights of downtown chicago and the docks the view was absolutely gorgeous. when you add the snow to this it was truly unforgettable.