Broadcasting the Good News
Megachurches find success with video worship services; Life.Church leading the way
An Edmond-based megachurch became a videoteaching trailblazer and one of the leaders of the growing multisite trend quite unintentionally.
Life.Church embraced that trend over the years and recently unveiled its first purposely designed broadcast facility.
The church is known for using video technology to share sermons with its 34 satellites across America. By doing so, it's part of the multisite movement
movement — one of the first churches in Oklahoma, and perhaps the country — that tried the model and made it successful.
“The first time we ever used video was actually a last resort,” said the Rev. Craig Groeschel, Life. Church' s founding senior pastor.
“My wife, Amy, gave birth to our son Sam after church on a Saturday night. Since I couldn't be there on Sunday, we decided to show a video of Saturday's sermon. We were shocked to see that just as many lives were changed by a video message as a live message.”
Groeschel said back then, he never thought the church would become so a dept at video-teaching that it became the ministry's standard mode of operation.
“We never could have predicted how God would use that moment to shape the future of our church,” he said.
The Rev. Bobby Gruenewald, the church's pastor- innovation leader, said the new broadcast facility at Life.Church Edmond, 4600 E Second Street, represents the first time the church intentionally created a space specifically geared for the taping and broadcasting of Groeschel's live preaching and other ministry segments.
G rue ne wald said Life. Church's recent enhancements are geared to using the latest technology to reach more people for Christ. This includes robotic cameras, an LED wall for visual imagery, and stadium seating. He said the newly designed facility helps creates a more intimate experience for all church members, whether they are sitting in seats experiencing the spiritual message live or if they are watching Groeschel on a screen at another Life. Church location.
18 years with church
G roes ch el had been
preaching live at Life.Church Oklahoma City ,2001 NW 178, Cooper for the past
18 years but began preaching at the Edmond broadcast facility a few months ago.
Other churches around the metro area and state have taken a page out of Life. Church's playbook by using video technology to share the Good News to church members attending satellites in suburban areas and even prisons. Each Life.Church satellite has a campus pastor and worship team and most of the other churches follow the same format.
The founding pastor of People's Church, the Rev. Herbert Cooper, preaches at the church's location at 800 E Britton Road and that is broadcast to satellites in Midwest City, in far northwest Oklahoma City and in Indianapolis. St. Luke's United Methodist Church's Edmond satellite features the sermons of St. Luke's senior pastor, the Rev. Bob Long, via video. And a Broken Arrow Southern Baptist house of worship, The Church at Battle Creek, regularly shares the sermons of its senior pastor, the Rev. Alex Himaya, with i ts six satellites across eastern Oklahoma—and an additional one in Egypt where Himaya has family.
The Rev. Marty Grubbs, Crossings' senior pastor, said the model has worked well for his megachurch at 14600 N Portland. Crossings shares Grubbs' messages via video each Sunday to satellites in Edmond and Joseph Harp Correctional Center in Lexington.
The church's embrace of the video-teaching multisite model could be viewed as ironic.
“I' m the guy who told Craig (Groeschel) 'that video thing is never going to work' Grubbs said, chuckling.
Reaching people where they are
According to Warren Bird,
co-author of the book “The Multi-Site Revolution: One Church in Many Locations,” there are more than 5,000 multi-site churches in North America.
In a January 2019 Leadership Network blog post, Bird said the statistic came from a national survey of churches of all sizes and it validated the growing database of multi-site churches of Leadership Network, a leadership development collaborative.
In his blog post, Bird said the churches reach more people than single site churches, tend to spread healthy churches to more diverse communities, have more volunteers in service as a percentage than singlesite churches, baptize more people than a single site and tend to activate more people into ministry than a single site.
Cooper, founder of People's Church, said his church decided to meet people where t hey are by opening churches closer to their neighborhoods. He said having multiple locations works because of the strength of each campus pastor and each campus team that connects with church members in their local area and the community surrounding the campus.
Grubbs said he watched Groeschel make the model work and it made him realize that his church could do something similar.
“Life. Church paved the way for the church multisite movement. No one does it better than they do,” he said.
Grubbs said Crossings' transition to multiple campuses was made easier when leaders realized that they were already a campus within a campus because of the several different worship experiences they were already hosting at different sites on the church's main campus each weekend.
Like Cooper, he said he liked the idea of putting churches in communities where the house of worship could create its own flavor and yet still be part of a wider congregation.