Pastor's Guidebook: "Do as I Say, Not as I Do" - Part 1

Who can forget hearing the words from a frustrated parent: "Don't do as I do, do as I say". I heard that at least once from a parent - they were of course saying that sometimes even though they might occasionally break their own rule, please still follow my rules.

Well, when it comes to pastors, we certainly would expect that the very things they tell us not to do or to do from the pulpit, or that they would tell us to do or not to do in a famous book they have written, that they themselves would practice them in their own lives.

Apparently not so with Mac Brunson. Mac Brunson and James Bryant have a new book out entitled "The NEW Guidebook for Pastors". To everyone's shock and surprise, the Baptist Press gave it a glowing review earlier this year (click here to read it). And again to everyone's surprise, as pointed out by the BP author, this book is now required reading in four Southern Baptist seminaries and at Liberty University.

First Baptist Jacksonville members will remember this book - it was the "book manuscript" Mac was working on in the summer of 2006 shortly after coming to Jacksonville. It was the "book manuscript" that prevented him from preaching on at least two occasions on Sunday and Wednesday nights . He also told us how far behind he was and how much writing he had to do in a week's time to meet the publisher's deadline that he wasn't able to fully prepare his sermon. Well, this book is that manuscript.

As we wrap up the FBC Watchdog site and let FBC Jacksonville continue on its merry way with Mac Brunson at the helm launching churches in the burbs and a school downtown (I think they have that backwards - we have a wonderful church downtown and maybe we need a school in the burbs to reach people?), I thought it would be doing a service to FBC Jacksonville, and the Southern Baptist Convention overall whose future pastors are now reading this book, to point out that at least one of the authors of this book is asking them them to behave in ways he himself has not behaved. Readers of Mac's book can then determine for themselves - should we do as Mac says, or should we do as Mac does. Need to be "fair and balanced" you know, and see both sides of the story! And of course since FBC Jax members were paying Mac a hefty salary so he could write his book instead of meeting his pastoral responsibilities to preach (which he emphasizes is the pastor's FIRST priority, preaching - not writing books) so they deserve to know some of the "discrepancies" in the book as well. And maybe this will help the authors "clarify" a few things in the next print.

Am I bringing these up out of spite? Am I trying to hurt Mac Brunson? No. But these things in the book that I will point out are the very things about which I have blogged since last fall! These are the actions taken by our pastor and allowed by our lay leaders that I knew were wrong and harmful to our church, and I found it hard to believe that Mac himself didn't know they were wrong and harmful to our church. When I read Mac's book I then realized that HE HIMSELF knew these actions were wrong, as he wrote about them and cautioned pastors agains doing them.

We'll take a look first at this quote from the book, page 183 in the chapter "The Pastor and His Ethics":

"Some pastors unintentionally separate themselves from their people by living in executive houses and driving luxury cars. Billy Graham has lived in the same house and driven older cars for decades. He did not allow people to give him automobiles. He did not allow local committtes to furnish luxury automobiles for him during crusades. Guard against greed. It will do you in."

That is great advice for any pastor. It touches on several things: one is the pastor's lifestyle. If I read this correctly, Mac is saying that pastors should not live in "executive homes" - which is a strange use of words - I would take that to mean "large, expensive homes, like CEO executives might live in". This is a VERY odd thing to put in a pastor's guidebook. Most pastors, shall we say 99% or more - their problem is not living too high, its having enough money to meet their needs because they are pastoring small churches. So who is Mac addressing this to? This wisdom certainly has no application to a pastor of a small church earning say $35,000 per year salary, as he wouldn't be able to afford one NIGHT in an executive home. Here's the key: he's obvioiusly directing that statement to pastors WHO MAKE ENOUGH TO AFFORD AN EXECUTIVE HOME. So he is saying: "Even if you earn enough from generous church members in salary, and your preaching gigs around the country, and your book sales, don't live in an 'executive home' at a level way above your average church member." Or saying it another way: just because you can live large, doesn't mean you SHOULD live large.

Problem is, I would argue that Mac himself has separated himself from his congregation by living in an executive home. He lives in an exclusive, gated, private-golf-club subdivision where very rich executives live. By any objective standard his home is an "executive home" - it has 6 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, has a pool, and is appraised at over $1,000,000. That my friends is an "executive home". The home certainly would not be affordable by the average church member who is asked to give sacrificially - and more importantly - WILL IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE be asked to sacrifice even more for the new ministries and facility upgrades. So Mac is very correct in cautioning pastors about living in executive homes, as this has and will continue to be a problem in Mac's ministry. So do Mac's words apply to Mac and other mega pastors, or only apply to those bumbling, stumbling pastors who aren't good enough to make it to his level?

He mentions "driving luxury cars". That's interesting. Is he saying pastors shouldn't drive "luxury cars"? Is he saying when church members see their pastor and wife driving, oh say, a big black Lexus and a Jaguar that this can harm the pastor's ability to minister to his flock?

There is one other area that this excerpt touches on, and that is "gifts". He holds Billy Graham out as an example of how a pastor should avoid accepting gifts - that Billy Graham would not even allow people to give him automobiles. We'll address this one in the next article.

So to wrap it up, one has to ask the question: Why? Why would Mac say one thing in his book and then behave in a contradictory manner to the advice he gives others? I have my own thoughts on that, but I'll let you decide. Fair and balanced.

Are Satellites the Answer for FBC Jacksonville?

On Wednesday May 14th, Mac Brunson and Jim Smyrl unveiled their strategy for starting satellite churches in strategic locations in Jacksonville. I think it will be helpful as we near the end of new posts here at FBC Jax Watchdog to analyze and discuss this strategy here in this thread; this satellite strategy that Mac Brunson is embarking on to finally get our church growing again. My purpose here is to not slam this strategy and point out all its faults, but to get FBC Jax members to think more carefully about this strategy and the risks it presents to their church.

Let me begin by saying the following: I am not against FBC Jacksonville trying new approaches to ministry in order to fulfill our mission of reaching Jacksonville for Christ. As Jim Smyrl correctly pointed out a few Wednesday's ago, Homer Lindsay, Jr. did some very innovative things to bring people under the hearing of the gospel. So long as the new approaches don't compromise or undermine the biblical teachings of the church, and so long as they are consistent with the mission of the church, we should be open to try new approaches to ministry.

However, careful thought needs to be given before launching new ministries. Just because a certain ministry works for another church doesn't means it is the right move for our church. While it sounds good for Mac Brunson to express the attitude of "let's try it, why not, even if we fail at least we tried" when it comes to this satellite strategy...this I think ignores the possibility that some attempts at ministry could actually harm the church in the long run.

Let's consider first some trends of satellite church ministry:

1. The number of churches moving to satellite or "multi-campus" models have exploded in the past 5 years. National Public Radio (NPR) did a very informative piece on multi-site churches a few years ago that is worth listening to. Click here to listen. This story gives some facts about the explosive growth of multi-campus ministries since the year 2000.

2. Most, nearly all, multi-campus "satellite" ministries are born out of necessity - they are churches experiencing very rapid growth, and because of worship space or parking constraints, they simply have no choice but to set up additional locations to accommodate the crowds. They are not by-and-large started as a means to achieve growth (I've not found any such examples in my research - although I suppose its possible), but they are started as a natural outflow of rapid growth already occurring! Read this article from the Star Tribute (Minneapolis) that highlights several churches in their area that have gone "multi-campus" and I think you'll see this is true.

3. Most, nearly all, of the satellite churches are those of the non-denominational persuasion, or if they are affiliated with a denomination, that affiliation is not part of their name. For example, Andy Stanley's church, Northpoint Community Church, one of the fastest growing churches today and successful at the multi-campus concept, is non-denominational. Ed Young, Jr's church on the other hand, Fellowship Church I believe is still affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (if not they started out as Southern Baptist but changed their name to accommodate their "seeker friendly" approach to ministry), but the word "baptist" is not in their name or any where on their website. Some familiar churches in our area that are non-denominational and so far at least moderately successful in the multi-campus efforts are Mandarin Christian Church (now called "Christ's Church") and also "Celebration Church".

4. Most, nearly all, of the churches utilizing satellites are those that one could easily classify as "seeker friendly". They feature more modern worship styles, modern music, and perhaps more "liberal" or "hip" preaching styles - maybe the more "historical" context of Mac's sermons fit this mold.

5. Multi-campus churches hold services in a variety of ways: some use live video feeds for the preaching, some record the pastor's messages and play it back at the satellite while the music and worship time is led by live. Others utilize a "regional pastor" or they rotate ministers through the satellites. Some of the satellite churches have different worship styles to match the demographics of its region, or to provide variety to reach different demographic groups in the same city with different versions of the church "brand".

So that I think summarizes satellite churches. If I'm wrong, or there is more to add, chime in.

So this leads one to ask the following questions - questions I certainly hope Jim Smyrl and his crack education staff and the A-Group are considering as they plan this satellite launch next April in St. John's County.

1. Is there any evidence that suggests this satellite concept will work for a Baptist church, especially one that already has a brand image of being stuffy, conservative, rich, and judgemental? Are we patterning our move to satellite after another mega Baptist church that has had success in satellite?

2. Forget for a moment whether any stagnant, mega, conservative, non-seeker friendly, denomination-affiliated churches have had success with satellites...maybe the more pertinent question is: what makes us think that a downtown, centrally-located Baptist church in a fast-growing metropolitan area, a church with above average facilities, plenty of space, plenty of convenient parking, excellent ministries for all ages, a modern worship center and children's building...that has been mostly stagnant for 10 years in its growth...is suddenly going to see growth by starting a satellite ministry? Does this mean our location is why we've been stagnant? If so, what took us so long to figure this out? Or are there other underlying problems or "issues" that need to be addressed? What are these other issues, and how are we addressing them?

3. Is our stagnant growth a function of us not "modernizing" our worship to becoming more "seeker friendly"? Or is it also the antics of our new pastor and current lay leaders that have turned people off to our brand? Maybe the common thread of fast growing churches utilizing satellites IS the seeker friendly model. If this is the case, are we willing to modernize our worship and change our brand image to be more "attractive" to the lost? If we haven't been up to this point, will we go seeker friendly at the satellites? If we do need to go more "seeker friendly" to reach a younger generation, why have we not in the two years Mac has been here tried starting a "seeker friendly" worship service on Saturday night or Sunday morning to perhaps try to reach a younger generation and begin moving in this direction? Space or even cost certainly is not an issue. Mac can't claim that we would oppose it, as the church has followed in lock step with all of Mac's other ideas, so why would he not have started a contemporary service like the one started in Dallas?

Some of the posters here have been discussing how Mac is trying to lead us to "Purpose Driven". I tend to agree with that assessment now, and I can't say that I blame him. Either he needs to lead us in that direction, moving our church to staying faithful to the preaching of truth while offering a more modern style of worship to reach a younger generation, while teaching us why and being respectful and gentle and to those who might not like it, or he needs to not do it. Right now it feels like our church is stuck in the middle. We have a pastor who wants to move us in that direction to reach a younger generation, but senses that there will be opposition so instead he complains that we are stuck in the past and have "legalist lists". Get over it Mac - there will be some opposition no doubt - but LEAD. Just LEAD in love. And I'll add: this is why this blog was started: to get Mac to address the concerns that the congregants have over his actions the first year PRECISELY SO HE CAN LEAD US TO WHERE WE NEED TO GO!

So will the satellite strategy work for FBC Jax? I honestly have my doubts but mostly that's because I don't see a precedent for a stagnant mega church achieving growth by satellites - and of course I have doubts about Mac's ability to lead the church successfully until he comes clean and clears up issues raised on this blog with his congregation. So really there are other issues behind why our church is stagnant that are not going to be solved by satellites; our problem is not that we just aren't "where the people are". The current strategy for launching the St. John's County satellite is to start home groups, home churches to meeting on Sunday nights, then use these converts and home church leaders to start a satellite. That's fine, but if that strategy works, why not invite these home church converts downtown to join us for an awesome God-honoring worship service? Our stagnant growth might have to do with Mac and his questionable leadership or even his pulpit behavior the first two years; it might have to do with our worship style, it might have more to do with our church "being stuck in the past" as Mac says. Whatever happens, I do wish FBC Jax well in their quest to grow through satellites, but something tells me: we need to have a clear strategy to start reaching people more effectively downtown, through evangelism, expository preaching, perhaps offering more diverse worship style alternatives downtown, being more involved in city youth ministry and concerts....in short building momentum in our current location, before we start looking at satellites elsewhere. And we are fools if we think a school is the primary way to reach young people in our city as Mac has told us. So Mac, address the problems downtown where our church has been hugely successful in the past, then we can start talking about satellites.

As I said yesterday in the comments section of the previous article, I will be winding this blog down by mid June. Doesn't mean the site is going to be "taken down" or removed, just that I believe its time for me to stop blogging for the foreseeable future after I make my last three or four posts, with one grand finale that you won't want to miss. Stay tuned.

The "Remaking" of the FBC Jax "Brand"...

Continuing some thoughts about the satellite ministry concept and the FBC Jax "brand".

From a marketing perspective we can say that our "brand" - the "FBC Jax brand" - has lost market share BIG TIME. The population in metro Jax is growing fast, and thus our stagnation means we've gotten a smaller and smaller slice of an expanding pie. Other churches have come in and seen growth in numbers and in locations in the past 10 years while FBC Jax has been mostly stagnant in worship attendance and Sunday School attendance.

Certainly since Mac arrived, we've tried to re-make our brand somewhat and give it wider appeal (maybe what some would call PD), but the changes have been mostly superficial - we tried the kids dropping robes in choir, we had our choir members wear pastels for a sermon series, we feminized the ushers for a few weeks making them wear aprons (some just a bit too "snug"), tried more contemporary music (but not too much), we've had Jim Smyrl "boldly" stand in the pulpit Wednesday without a tie and criticize those who didn't like that he didn't have a tie - why we even have our deacons "tieless" on Wednesday nights! We even brought in a preacher who was more "redneck" like Jacksonville - we were told he drives a pick-up, eats Krispy Kreme, carries his own groceries, and picks his teeth with business cards. All somewhat moderate attempts at remaking our brand image.

But the sad thing is this: what little changes we've made to our brand to perhaps give it wider appeal and maybe to undo the image that the unchurched in Jax have had of us as being overly-strict, a group of Christian that blindly-follow-the-bossy-preacher, a church more interested in money than souls, a church for movers and shakers....it turns out that the actions of the pastor and our lay leaders (and the exposure of these actions by nosey bloggers) during Brunson's first two years have served perhaps to negate these changes and ironically have actually served to PERPETUATE the image of the "old brand" of FBC Jax! Those who have been members for a long time have heard so many of the stereotypes of our church: that its only for the rich and powerful, that the more money you give the closer you can sit to the front (yes, I've had serious people ask me that in years gone by), that to join the church you have to submit your tax returns, you had to agree to sign a pledge that you would agree to tithe, that Homer Lindsay was like the Bakkers and Swaggerts building the church to make himself rich and build "shrines" to himself (who can forget the "Homer Dome" comments), and even that our church bought up all the "liquor licenses" to try to dry out Duval County in the 1970's and 1980's. Oddly enough, the past two years have served to CONFIRM some of these wrong stereotypes in the minds of our "market" rather than shatter them.

Now comes Mac Brunson - a new day, right? He'll be the one to lead us to shatter these old stereotypes of our church, to make the necessary changes to show Jacksonville what we're REALLY all about. Unfortunately what our church was NOT but was thought to be, has now turned on us and we NOW are what we WERE NOT but the city wrongly thought we were (might have to read that again). The city sees the new pastor not driving a pickup, but he and wife are driving luxury automobiles. They see him not coming into town to roll up his sleeves and get to work winning the lost, but he came here to live on Amelia Island in a luxury multi-million dollar beach front condo his first year. During the first year when Jacksonville was sizing the new preacher up to see what he's all about, the city finds out that perhaps part of his "calling" here to Jax included a $307,000 land gift given by one of our church members. The city sees a man start building a million dollar mansion within WEEKS of moving to Jacksonville. The city now sees that part of the deal was jobs for wife and son with no stated ministry responsibility, which looks like so many of the televangelists that turn people off! They see him sign up for duty on the crime prevention steering committee, but blow off all but 2 of 7 meetings. Those that are listening to him on TV hear a man screaming about people not bringing bibles, preaching the tithe as doctrine and a requirement for God's blessings...and the city says: SAME OLD FIRST BAPTIST JACKSONVILLE. Angry preacher, going to tell me that I have to give 10%, all the while he's getting rich off the deal, and wants me to dig deep. They're hearing that he ram-rodded bylaw changes through creating a discipline committee without any explanation...and oh yes even less detail now on the financial matters. Why he even saw fit to build a new office suite for $100k in the prime location of our church property - the new children's building. Our "market" looks at this and says No thanks, looks like its not a "new day" at FBC Jax like the A-Group logo says - instead in the minds of our market, its "the same old day" down at the old church.

This is the frustration Mac has faced. He and the A-Group knew to get FBC Jax back growing again the "brand" was going to need some modernization. But Mac has sensed opposition to many of the modernization techniques that he knows are necessary. Some changes have been made, but other changes have been resisted. He has resorted to blaming his congregation.
So what to do? 1. Spend $500,000 to start a school that has a brand name that carries lots of baggage, and 2. Start satellite churches even though our growth is stagnant and we have plenty of excess capacity in our downtown location.

Part 3 tomorrow I'll discuss in more detail the phenomena of church satellites.

Satellite Brand Extension: "God's Will" or "The Long Bomb"?

For the next few articles I will share my thoughts on the new satellite strategy unveiled last Wednesday by Smyrl and Brunson. Before you reject my analysis because its unspiritual and ignores what "our awesome God can do" and before you say "But God can do things way beyond what you can imagine" - keep in mind that this strategy I'm analyzing was birthed by Mac and his crack church MARKETING firm the A-Group when Mac was in Dallas, using, well, basic marketing principles they are known for. So I'm going to examine this strategy from the same business marketing principles from which it was birthed, at the risk of sounding unspiritual.

First of all, I'm not saying that the strategy won't work, and I in fact hope it DOES work - and I acknowledge it MAY work. But before one throws all their support behind the satellite ministry as a means of reaching people for Christ (meaning growing the church), let's do a sober review of the past two years:

1. Mac's first two years have yielded very little "growth". The "cloud" hasn't moved as we had hoped and as Mac's "John the Baptist" David Allen predicted it would when Mac arrived. No one can know for certain why, but we can't ignore the fact we hoped Mac was the man who would lead us to a brighter future - and no doubt, NO DOUBT, the search committee and trustees thought this too, else they would not have pursued Mac so vigorously, giving him all that he was given to come here from FBC Dallas. Given the tenacity of the search committee in trying to get Mac to come, the gifts and perks and family jobs it took to get him here, now the lack of growth, and his abuses since coming here, all should cause serious Christians to wonder if Mac is God's man to lead us in ANY direction.

2. And Mac should not blame us. We did everything we could to help Mac lead us into the future. From the gifts to help ease the transition, to agreeing to put his family on staff, the free use of a condo, etc. we tried to assist. We rolled Mac out to the community at the Sermon on the Mound on Father's Day 2006 (which Mac called a huge success in his pastor's guide book). Why even Times Union religion reporter Jeff Brumley trumpeted to the community Mac as the pick-up-drivin', Krispy Kreme - eatin', business card tooth pickin', good ole boy redneck preacher coming to Jax that would be a perfect blend of Homer and Jerry Vines (which I guess we now know it means if you add the value of Vines' and Lindsay's homes you almost get to the value of Mac's home).

3. We had hopes...we thought once we got the new preacher in that he would come in and work hard and lead us in a new direction. But that didn't happen. Mac was preoccupied his first year getting the land gift inked, staying at the beach an hour away from the city he was called to minister to, starting construction of his new million dollar home, finishing his book manuscript, traveling around the country preaching...in fact we never heard from Mac about his "vision" for the church until he had been here almost a year. No hurry in setting a course for the future - although he was in a HUGE hurry to get the house started, the pastor's suite constructed, getting wife and son on staff - no need waiting for God to move in those areas, after all those were priorities his first year, not getting us moving again in reaching Jacksonville.

And don't you know Mac is frustrated. Mac has seen no growth at our church his first two years - we've lost huge market share for our brand as the city has grown but our church has been stagnant. He no doubt blames us, the "dry dead bones", the "hotbed of legalism", the "worshipping the past" and "worshipping previous pastors" and "comfortable in our sin and in our compromise"...and he JUST can't get all of us to bring our BIIIBLES....for some reason Paige Patterson thinks Mac never got a honeymoon (hmmm, how would he believe that lie that unless Mac told him?). He's spent the last year in so many ways blaming the recalcitrants to cover for his lack of leadership now that things are not going well in Jax. Maybe he's worried that FBC Jax will be the case study for those reading his book "how churches die" (which by the way is mostly focused on church members and how they cause a church to die - not on preachers - does that surprise you?)

So one has to ask: Is this satellite strategy his "long bomb" in an attempt to save his ministry at our church? Maybe it is. If it fails, no sweat he'll be off to another church or ministry (probably a seminary to teach or to be a president) and we'll be stuck holding the bag and the bills. If it succeeds, he will write a book - because as I'll point out in the next article, his strategy is indeed very novel - never been attempted before (as I'll explain, so hold your horses), and if it is successful it will indeed be a move of God's hand!

Just WHERE and in WHAT DIRECTION are We Going?

The recent posts about purpose driven are very interesting. While I don't believe Mac is making a conscious move toward making us purpose driven, there are many aspects of what we are doing that move us in that direction. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever, that Mac and Jim Smyrl believe they have a unique church ministry model that is different from all the rest, called "Theology Driven Ministry". I won't even delve into what that is (as I'm not certain what it is even though I'm fairly smart and sat in on the sermons last summer), but its a Jim Smyrl creation, and he preached about it last summer.

But here's my point: firstly, Mac can't lead his church anywhere, until he starts being honest with his congregation and getting some things straight about his first two years. I hate to go over my "list" again of his abuses, as I know how much he dislikes "lists" especially those rascally "legalistic lists" as he called them - which I take it to mean lists like: 1. Don't accept large gifts as the head of the 501(c)3 organization from donors of the 501(c)3 organizations (if for no other reason you're own personal credibility - and the fact that a certain Senator from Iowa doesn't like them - and oh yes, because your book to pastors cautions against them); 2. Don't put family members on staff, reporting to you, with no stated ministry responsibilities - this is called "nepotism". 3. Don't show favoritism to influential members by using our facilities for Jewish hospital fundraisers at the request of certain "influential deacons" and producing commercials for display during sermons for relatives of the man who gave you the very large land gift (if for no other reason than you tell other pastors not to do that in your book).

Those readers of this blog that are concerned over the PD movement in our church might be interested to hear Smyrl's take on this: he views Brunson as being attacked by Satan for wanting to move our church forward, and then dares to point back to Homer Lindsay as one who himself was innovative in starting new ministries and therefore to oppose Mac Brunson is an affront on the memory of Homer Lindsay (listen to yourself: Clip 1 and Clip 2). But the point Jim misses is that the opposition Mac faces is NOT primarily from those who don't want change at the church (as evidenced that Mac has gotten everything he has asked for so far with virtually NO opposition from the plebe), its from people who don't like the things Mac has done that we KNOW Homer Lindsay would not ever have done (the gift, the $100k office suite in our new building dedicated to serving families, children, and new believers); THAT kind of change we don't like. I can't say categorically that Homer would not have ever started satellites - I CAN say he wouldn't have built a $100k office suite for himself his wife and his dogs, and that he would not have approved a new preacher in town accepting a quarter of a million dollar gift from one of our donors or putting a video highlighting his sons business in the middle of his gospel sermon), and I think I'm safe to say that Homer would not have approved taking church funds to start a school which is primarily NOT about spreading the gospel (still might be a good idea, and maybe worthy of raising funds specifically for, but not funds given to the church for church ministry).

My second point: Mac is all over the place. He preaches things that are so confusing, sometimes contradictory to things he's said previously. He reprimands the church not over things that we know what he's talking about (like "sin"), but things that are not sin, or he disguises what he's talking about, which can be dangerous. And he has conducted himself in a way that will make it hard for him to lead a satellite ministry. For example:

- he preaches in an angry fashion most of the time. Hearing Mac every week its hard to tell if its always been thus, or if he is slowly moving in this direction. Listen to this beaut as he reprimands, then condescendingly tells us what a "novel" idea it is to bring a Bible to church and read it - this just one week after he had us all hold our Bibles in the air and there were literally thousands of Bibles - except for the mom who came straight from her hospital shift and didn't have hers, and maybe some people who have theirs on a handlheld device, and oh yes, that visitor from north St. John's county who came to see what church was all about and doesn't own one. These antics in the pulpit are NOT consistent with purpose driven. I'm pretty sure Lifeway's researchshows that "unchurched" people in the burbs typically don't want to be yelled at over whether they remembered to bring their bible to church - especially over video conferencing in a satellite church.

- his leadership is just plain confusing. He says even simple things as illustrations that don't make sense (his comment about a baby reflecting the atmosphere in which he is placed - he was 180 deg off on that). He chose to reprimand us for not witnessing door to door, but yet one of his MAIN reasons for starting a school was that door to door evangelism doesn't work because no one is home, thus a school is absolutely necessary. So which is it, go knocking on doors, or don't knock on doors because no one is home. Click on these two hyperlinks to listen: No one is home anymore and Koreans must witness for us.

- he preached against "legalistic lists" two weeks ago saying emphatically that "you and your legalism, and your legalistic lists are NOT spiritual, they are spiritually dead." He never once defined what this list is, or what might be on these lists - but did say "everyone has their own list", and "I'm always amazed that everything on someone's list is something they've already conquered." But again, he carelessly throws this terminology around but doesn't give examples, and worse doesn't bother to differentiate between "legalistic lists", and people that have multiple strong convictions about certain moral issues that could, well, be written down on a list. Am I "legalistic" because I don't drink, and I teach my kids that its best for them not to drink? He claims to want to help families, but that kind of carelessness can hurt when a teenager rarely hears the preacher talk directly about moral issues but then knocks "legalistic lists" without explaining the difference between "legalism" and "convictions". Dangerous and careless I tell you. And Mac has his own lists that he pushes on us, like requiring people to bring their Bibles and yelling at them if they don't, tithing or you won't be blessed by God - so don't tell us about lists Mac.

- last Wednesday he and Jim Smyrl made a strong case that people in the burbs we are trying to reach won't come downtown to church - some have hardly ever BEEN downtown they pointed out. But one of his primary justifications for starting a school with $500,000 THAT WAS DONATED BY PEOPLE FOR THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH (the vote for which was held UNANNOUNCED at a Wednesday night business meeting) was that door to door evangelism was dead and to reach our city we MUST have a school to reach people. So the logic is: if people don't want to come downtown for church on Sundays, what makes us think that they WILL come 5 days a week to drop their kids off at our school DOWNTOWN? The answer is obvious: a school is NOT primarily a ministry to reach the lost. We know that. He knows that. And that's not say that we should not start a school. But to justify using CHURCH FUNDS given for CHURCH MINISTRY he needed to paint it as a primary evangelistic tool of the church.

Lastly, on the purpose driven model and satellites - his goal with the satellites is for him to extend the FBC Jax brand, and I will go out on a limb and say its to grow HIS BRAND. Why do I say that? Well, when he unveiled his vision in February 2007 on satellites, he said specifically that the satellites would be places where they could watch the services via live feed, or until we get the live feed, he would drive from satellite to satellite to preach multiple times per day. That's great, but from what I've seen of Mac Brunson, his shtick of history lessons, mixed with some bible and a weekly dose of condescension and reprimands just won't go over well in the burbs..especially from a man who lives in a million dollar home far from their neighborhood, on a piece of property donated by a wealthy member of the church - this serves to feed their suspicion that church and religion is all about numbers and dollars and millionaire preachers. So those of you who are starting the in home churches, be sure to be honest with those you do get to come to your home church that the end goal is to get them to a satellite to watch live video feeds of the downtown preacher. Or perhaps consider your calling more carefully - if you believe the Lord is calling you to start a FBC Jax satellite home church (a huge investment of your time and resources) carefully consider if the Lord is not calling you instead to link with a more local fellowship closer to your home that you can partner with to reach your neighbors.