The following is an edited transcript of the audio.
Why not get one of your 30 elders to pastor an extension campus rather than showing people a video?
It's both/and at Bethlehem, not either/or. There are 37 elders now, and they, along with lots of guys in our Bethlehem College and Seminary who are moving towards pastoring, are given opportunities to preach.
So we have lots of guys that are rising up into church leadership, and so it's both/and at Bethlehem.
Treasuring Christ Together is our strategy for fulfilling our mission, and it involves multiplying campuses, planting churches, and caring for the poorest of the poor—that triad of goals.
If the question changed to, "Why don't you only plant churches?" I would say that our people as a whole want me to teach them on the weekends. They get help from it, and they would like me to do it for as many of them as possible while I'm alive.
And we have the choice, then, either to do it by building a bigger building or by not building a bigger building. By not building a bigger building, but instead buying smaller buildings and having campuses, the possibility remains either for them to become churches someday on their own or for somebody else to step in and do it the way we're doing it now.
For whatever reason, there are some folks who say, "We get help, we get strength, we get changed, we get transformed through the ministry of the Word through you. Would you be pleased to do this for us and use your gift in this way?" And I have acceded to that and am happy to do it.
I love the people, and I could tell you amazing stories about the blessings that come through the video venues, but I'll restrain myself.