How Is a North Campus Good for a South Site.pdf

A Conversation Among Five Bethlehem Pastors and a Church Planter

Participants:
Dan Holst, North Campus Pastor
David Livingston, South Campus Pastor
Kenny Stokes, Downtown Campus Pastor
Jon Grano, Lead Pastor for Operations
Jason Vaden, Church Planting Resident
Sam Crabtree, provocateur and recorder

Why should we have a multiple campus approach to church life?
David:  We spread. By locating campuses along the I-35W corridor we pull people from adjacent neighborhoods.
Dan:  Yes, our mission is to spread. Regional centers expand the spread. At the All Night of Prayer I met a woman who drives from Rochester. We have people who drive to the North Campus from an hour and a half north away.

Give some specific examples of how the campuses benefit each other.
David:  There is a healthy kind of collaboration. For example, this summer South is planning to do what the North did last summer: A program called Ten Essentials of the Gospel. And the North blessed the South with I don’t know how many chairs.
Dan:  And North is considering doing what the South did last summer.

Why should anyone on one campus care what’s happening on somebody else’s campus?
Kenny:  We’re family.
Dan:  There is a kinship that is real. It was expressed by a recent gift from the South folks to the North. While that dynamic comes with being part of the Church universal, it goes deeper and is more personal. The kinship finds expression in all-church events like the All Night of Prayer, the Christmas Concert, and so on.

What advantages of multiple campuses pop into your minds?
Kenny:  The multiplication of ESL. It’s more than just a program, but people with hearts spawning an expansion of a good thing in multiple locations.
Dan:  Other kinds of departmental things, too, like Women’s Ministry.
Jon:  I compare it to federalism: When one state tries something and finds success, other states are welcome to adapt the idea for themselves.
Jason:  I see a vision that exhibits the transcendent nature of a truly biblical paradigm that is able to thrive in one socioeconomic context as well as another.
David:  We should want to fill the city with our teaching. Campuses help us fill the city. To ask “What’s in it for me only?” is an attitude that is suspect.
Dan:  Think of the benefit to missionaries: Not only knowing there are 5,000 people behind them, but they can come home to any of our campuses and be known.
Kenny:  Bigger is smaller. Within a large total mass, an individual can experientially know and be known. A large church can achieve intimacy and community.
Dan:  And remember the reciprocity of capital giving: We’re in this together.
Jon:  There’s also an economy of scale. Together the campuses can afford what one campus might not: A missions pastor, a women’s ministry coordinator, an accountant, IT personnel, and so on.

These advantages come at what cost?
Jason:  The complexity of it all. It’s challenging to cultivate unity and solidarity over the miles.
Dan:  Overall proximity is stretched.
David:  And yet it’s a significant encouragement to me that our people could drive 28 miles to another campus and catch the same DNA.
Jon:  Campuses are more constrained than church plants when it comes to the latitude of variation in programs and philosophy.
David:  Video technology costs money.
Jon:  Yes, but large churches use technology even if they are not on multiple campuses, so there probably would be little savings to be on one campus.
Dan:  And technology is perhaps cheaper than hiring multiple preaching pastors.
Kenny:  Staffing is challenging, but that’s true whether a church is on multiple campuses or not.

What would you say to the other campuses?
Dan:  Having operated for years in a rented facility, North folks are sympathetic to our counterparts down south. To persevere for three years in setting up and tearing down without a 24/7 facility comes with a fatigue factor. The South folks are loved and prayed for. I love to run into them at “all-church” events. At the All Night of Prayer I encountered a woman from the South Site who said, “Pardon my humor; I’m being shaped by Marc Heinrich.”
David:  Thanks, North, for ministering to Mounds View for us. You have not become complacent with a facility.
Kenny:  We’re praying for 139 more years of fruitful, rooted, God-centered gospel grace together. Why transplant hosta? Because it’s doing well and there are bare spots without any.