Despair or envy?

A friend from our old church said there was to be a special church meeting last Thursday. Saturday there was a big tent up, which was odd, and on Sunday there were 4 or 5 men guiding parking in the newly renamed “Heartland” church. My wife and I talked about that briefly, and I thought there must have been a merger.

I was sort of right.

September 28, 2007 (Rockford, Il) — Mark Bankord, Directional Leader of Heartland Community Church, announced today that the elders, Board of Directors, and Leadership Team of Heartland, after prayerful consideration, have agreed to accept the gift of the assets of the non-denominational, evangelical Pathway Community Church in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Effective Monday, September 24, 2007, Pathway has changed its name to Heartland Community Church and offer Heartland’s “different way to do church” to their community. “Based on counsel from True North 128, Inc., a Christian Church Consulting firm, the elders of Pathway approached us with the idea,” said Mark Bankord. “They are gifting the assets of their church to Heartland and adopting the Heartland name and model. They will rely on the leadership of Heartland here in Rockford to help them positively impact their community.” Pathway, a 29 year-old church that owns 40 prime acres near Madison, has been without a senior pastor/leader for the past five months. The desire of the Pathway elders and the members has been to determine the best method available to grow their congregation and to reach out to their community. Heartland’s Leadership Team in Rockford will duplicate the methodology that has been in place since the church was founded in 1998.

Apparently the Heartland methodology is to rely heavily on video lessons.

The Thursday meeting was an announcement, not a discussion: typical of the elder board, I fear. Their ambition has been to grow the church into a “megachurch” using the currently fashionable worship and ministry models. Along the way the elders alienated over half the congregation, including most of the mature and experienced members.

I'm startled to find them choosing this option, though. Perhaps they were overwhelmed with the quality of the Heartland model and materials, and figured that piggy-backing was the only way to get started fast. Or perhaps they looked around at the number of workers left, and decided they needed help from outside.

Years ago the elders decided they weren't very interested in adult education, and canned everything in the hopes that small groups would do the job instead. It looks like the Heartland model will let them just pop in a video tape and sit back.

Better than nothing, I suppose. But the plan has that attenuated “tele-church” feel. Does a video-taped speaker count as one of the “two or three gathered in my name?”