has anyone actually ever clicked on those elevation church banners

[PhillyB]

I would argue that it does matter, in this day and age at least. You have to be able to reach people, in America, in the 21st century. Christianity's great advantage, through history, has been its ability to change and evolve without changing its tenets one bit. This is just another form of that.

i guess the question is, where do you draw the line?

you don't want to be in some dusty warehouse yelling at the crowd because you didn't want to spend any money on a PA system. on the other hand spending truckloads of cash on the building is pointless because the people who are already in church aren't the ones that that need to be reached with jesus' message.

how do you strike that balance?

where do you draw that line?

my church has a serviceable sound system but the vast majority of our funds go towards community outreach, feeding the homeless, pumping resources into the foster care program, etc. we rent out a elementary school auditorium on sundays to avoid spending money on a building that we don't actually need.

not knocking the discipleship-centered model buuuuuut who are the ones jesus really calls us to go after?

just a thought.

[Delhomeboy]

i guess the question is, where do you draw the line?

you don't want to be in some dusty warehouse yelling at the crowd because you didn't want to spend any money on a PA system. on the other hand spending truckloads of cash on the building is pointless because the people who are already in church aren't the ones that that need to be reached with jesus' message.

how do you strike that balance?

where do you draw that line?

my church has a serviceable sound system but the vast majority of our funds go towards community outreach, feeding the homeless, pumping resources into the foster care program, etc. we rent out a elementary school auditorium on sundays to avoid spending money on a building that we don't actually need.

not knocking the discipleship-centered model buuuuuut who are the ones jesus really calls us to go after?

just a thought.

I think you don't have to pick and choose. I'm going simply by Newspring, since that's the church I attend. They started with a group in a living room, then something like an auditorium, then the Sullivan Building in Anderson University, finally a multi-million dollar building in Anderson. They funded this venture entirely by donations and generosity of the congregation, BUT they could have never gotten the funding at all had the congregation grown to thousands upon thousands of people. And now I think the attendance is 15,000 with something like 7,000 salvations over the last few years, and I cannot say with any honesty that that would have occurred without all the affectations.

I guess it depends on your definition of need. Do we "need" the sound system and the three-thousand seat church and the huge screens? I don't guess we do. However, have THOUSANDS of people come to Christ because of them. I fervently believe that yes, they have. And in my mind, that makes them completely worth it.

It's certainly not the only model, and maybe not even the best, but I think it has done great things.To sort of bring it back to the OP, Elevation runs along the same lines of Newspring, so I think it's fair to compare the two. Newspring/Elevation have been able to minister, do missions, AND build large buildings because their congregations believe in Christ and tithe like they're supposed to...like I said at the beginning, I don't think it necessarily has to be a one or the other thing.

[Crixtala]

15,000...? smh...

[Delhomeboy]

15,000...? smh...

:confused:

[pstall]

You are an increasingly odd individual.

say wha?

[Carolina Husker]

For personal reasons, I love their use of technology.

[fitty76]

I grew up Catholic. Church shouldn't be fun. It should be boring and ritualistic. So that young children grow up not wanting to step foot into a Catholic church again. Only the true believer keep going.

[Fiz]

Elevation's a nice church; Steven Furtick's preached at NewSpring and couple of times and he seems like a great guy, very well spoke and very passionate.

on the other hand, he's convinced people to pay him to talk about a magical sky monster.

[cookinwithgas]

You are an increasingly odd individual.

Theres nothing wrong with pstall that a little relapse won't fix ;-)

[Delhomeboy]

on the other hand, he's convinced people to pay him to talk about a magical sky monster.

Well, we can agree to disagree on that one.