bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Sects Necessary? - Pastors and Congregations Askin...":
Steadfast Lutherans agrees with Rev. Bickel. Steadfast Lutherans believes that synods who fund church growth churches with satellite churches are funding their own dissolution. The synods will be replaced with a collection of mega-churches.
Now someone might say that the LCMS is already loaded up with dual and triple parishes, and these don't cast off the synod, so why would mega-churches weaken a synod. The difference is that these satellite churches are in big cites, not in small towns, so they can grow very large. Also, if they can pipe their services to satellites, they can easily add TV church.
The larger congregations have a history of doing what they want within a synod, and also leaving synods, so synods will have greatly diminished power in the near future.
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http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=25941
Worshippers became comfortable seeing their minister on a screen.
Without realizing it, Saddleback had proven that believers would accept a sermon delivered by a pastor who wasn’t in the room.
Murrow predicts that by 2062...
...denominations as we know them will be gone – replaced by about 200 “mother churches” with tens or even hundreds of thousands of members worshipping in satellite and microchurches in thousands of cities across the globe.
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Boundaries for our DPs: An Update
http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=13571
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From the Steadfast post -
By 2062, 80% of U.S. churchgoers will receive teaching from a pastor who’s not in the room with them.
The seeds of this innovation were sown in the early 1990s, when churches began adding cameras and screens to their sanctuaries. Projecting a magnified image of the pastor on the screen allowed worshippers to feel closer to him — even in a big room. Worshippers became comfortable seeing their minister on a screen.
Very quickly, churches like Saddleback began routing that video image to other buildings on their campus. Thus, Saddleback was able to offer multiple musical formats (traditional hymns, hard rock, country-and-western, Polynesian, etc.) but each venue featured the same sermon, piped in by video live from the main sanctuary.
Without realizing it, Saddleback had proven that believers would accept a sermon delivered by a pastor who wasn’t in the room.
Once churchgoers began to accept preacher-on-the-screen, the door opened to satellite campuses. Typically a megachurch rents or renovates a space in another part of the city and beams its pastor’s teaching into that venue. Satellites allow one pastor to teach in many locations. He can reach more people, relieve congestion at the main campus and shorten the drive for many attendees.
But why stop at the city limit? Some megachurches are planting satellite campuses in other cities and states. This trend will continue and accelerate.
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GJ - The WELS latte church bombed with with pastor-on-the-screen model, served up with coffee and couches. Of course, they had Stroh advising them!
