Mars Hill Church | West Seattle is on the verge of going where few churches have gone before - preaching via satellite. This is creating much discussion around the use of video as a mechanism for preaching and teaching. This has also raised many questions that have heretofore never been asked, such as: How important is it to have the preacher physically present in the room? How do Campus Pastors lead their people without having a regular voice from the pulpit? Can the Holy Spirit work through video? (that’s a rhetorical question, by the way) Can churches with video preaching be anything more than overflow rooms? In light of these questions, and many others, MHC has created the 36-minute video segment, “Videology: Why We Use Videos”, available here. In it, Pastor Mark outlines the theological, historical, cultural and practical reasoning behind the use of video and why we’re moving in that direction.

One of the reasons this so stretching for most people - I too had significant doubts when we started our first campus in Shoreline - is that it blows our paradigm for what we consider “church” to be. We don’t have a category in our minds for what preaching via satellite looks like, let alone what it looks like in a fully thriving Jesus-loving church. This is where vision - a picture of what will be through the grace of Jesus - comes in. Video will revolutionize how we think of church. What did people think when they heard about a machine that printed books, no longer requiring scribes to do so manually? Or, a metal box that runs on fuel no longer requiring animals to pull you around? Or, the insane idea of actually flying to the moon? Though video preaching is not on par with these other ground-breaking moments in history, they all have one thing in common - they were all paradigm breakers. One day, and likely very soon, we won’t think twice about watching a sermon over video on Sunday.

I’d like to answer some questions that I am frequently asked…

Q: Why don’t you, as the campus pastor, preach?
A: I will preach 10-12 times a year, teach classes, trainings and seminars as needed. However, believe it or not it takes a lot of time to run a large and growing church. Mars Hill Church is going in a direction that creates for a better division of labor, allowing various men and women to do what they do best according to their God-given gifts and do what they’re called by God to do. For more on this read 1 Cor 12:12-31 and Eph 4:11-16 that speak of the church as a body with various parts functioning together, all of which are important to the health of the entire body, so that the church may “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love”. (Eph 4:15,16) This actually fosters more health in the body and allows the mission of Jesus to move forward more effectively and efficiently, ultimately allowing more people to hear about Jesus.

Q: Doesn’t this encourage the elevation of one man? What happens when Pastor Mark is gone?
A: These two questions are connected as there is concern as to what would happen if, for some reason, Pastor Mark was no longer around. I will respond to each. First, the church is about one man - fully God, fully man - Jesus Christ. Our primary concern must be that Jesus is preached, regardless of who is preaching. If the popularity, controversy or God-given gifts of a particular pastor are used for the spread of the Gospel (i.e. what Jesus has done and is doing), praise God. If for some reason Pastor Mark is no longer able to preach, Mars Hill Church is in the safest and most secure position it has ever been in given that each campus has a lead pastor (i.e. campus pastor), and team of elders, that would be able to fill the pulpit in this unlikely scenario.

Q: Will people be willing to sit through an hour long sermon over video?
A: Simply, yes. The average American watches over four hours of television every day, and with the advent and popularity of Internet video technology (e.g. YouTube, Google Video, etc) the trend is not likely to slow down any time soon. It is important to point something out here - everything preaches. Everything. Though video preaching within the church is a relatively new phenomenon, it has been in use much longer in secular America. The evening news, weekly sitcoms, reality tv, late night comedy, and movies at your local cinema all preach a particular worldview, philosophy of life, ideology, or belief system. In this sense, many are already taking in hours of preaching on a daily basis often without even knowing it.

Q: Will folks that I invite to church accept video preaching or should I just bring them to Ballard?
A: Your friends and family will accept what you accept. It is a shift in thinking for all of us, so there will be an adjustment required. However, in my experience, it takes a relatively short amount of time to forget about the video aspect and begin thinking about the content of the message being conveyed. If you are not sold on video, or speak awkwardly of it, those you invite will feel the same way. If you are on board with what we’re doing, where we’re going and speak of it positively to those you invite they will likely give it a shot. Mars Hill Church is one church with many locations. The purpose of our many locations is to give us the ability to contextualize what we do to the specific culture of the particular areas that we are in. Doesn’t it make sense to invite folks from your community (friends, family, neighbors, etc) to the church in your community? We see this in Act 1:8 where Jesus tells his disciples before his ascension, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” In other words, mission begins at home and moves out from there. As a church we are moving into a new season and we invite you to join us as we participate in Jesus’ unfolding story of redemption, beginning here in West Seattle.

Other questions? Post a comment below or email: westseattleblog(at)marshillchurch(dot)org