Book Review–Franchising McChurch

When a choice is between eating a healthy meal or grabbing a fast food meal one makes such a choice depending on three factors.  One factor is time.  Does one have the time to prepare something healthy and make certain the proper balance of carbohydrates and vitamins are included?  This factor seems to be the first consideration for many people when it comes to their diet.  A second factor involves convenience.  Would it be more convenient to drive to a window, place an order, pay and pick-up at another window and then head home to watch TV while enjoying a meal.  Within this convenience factor is, as they say in real estate, location, location, location.  Could one go to just any house on the street and pull up a chair at the table to enjoy a healthy home cooked meal? No!  For all of us there is only one place to go and get a healthy meal: your house. With fast food, there is a location on every corner catering to the whims and wants of those who walk through the door.  One popular slogan of a particular fast food place was, “Have it your way”.  A third factor involves cost.  This factor seems to drive the decision of where to eat as much as the other two factors.

These factors have been moved over from our dietary life to our spiritual life.  Many times one hears someone complain about the time spent in church services (Time Factor), the starting time for the worship services (Convenience Factor), and the preacher preaching on tithing (The Cost Factor).  It seems that Dr.’s Yeats and White picked up on these factors as they critiqued and presented a clear call for us to examine the current trend of a consumer driven church structure.  Franchising McChurch looks at this trend and examines it by asking the question, “Is it wise?”  This writer desires to give two items with which he had disagreement along with five items of agreement in order to encourage further thought and investigation.

The first item of dissonance occurs in the structural models presented in chapter 10.  While the models are correct in and of themselves, there is no clear call as to where the  Southern Baptist Convention is seen relative to this model.  I understand that we come from a free church tradition and the models certainly are centered on the local church.  However, I feel that two Southern Baptist professors should have taken the time to point out that historically the convention has been a model where the churches direct the bureaucrats. The second item of dissonance is more with the grammatical device used than with anything else.  When referencing themselves Dr. White would write; “I (Thomas)”, and Dr. Yeats would write; “I (John Mark)”.  While, I understand the need to us such a device, I must admit it certainly caused me some re-reading that was unnecessary.  The first time I noticed this device was in Chapter One as Dr. Yeats explained his amazement of a billboard advertising a thirty minute drive-through service.  Because the device was I (John Mark), I began looking through Mark’s Gospel in the New Testament for the material that followed.  I know this sounds strange, but it did take me aback.

I have agreement with the entire book, as there are multiple areas of challenge and encouragement for me.  However five areas resonate with me more than the rest.

The first area that sends vibrations of agreement within my being is in something found at the end of each chapter.  There is a brief synopsis of the chapter and then some suggestions on how to improve and not fall into the pitfall covered.  This is very helpful for me as I am a hands-on kind of person.  I can read and understand, but to place into practice is usually not available for my mind.  I need some assistance in this area.  Dr.’s White and Yeats clearly define the issues and how to overcome them in these various chapter endings.

A second area that rings loud to me comes in the reminder of trends throughout Christendom.  The statement, “But today’s cutting-edge ministry is tomorrow’s tradition,” is one worthy of remembrance.  What happens when the pendulum swings back to a more personable touch and people desiring the senior pastor to come see them in the hospital?  What happens when the pendulum swings from praise bands to full choirs because people desire to be part of leading worship but cannot sing well enough to be in the praise band?  How much interpretive movement will be used ten years from now?  Will the dance ensembles continue with slender young girls dressed in leotards or will they die because some Bahamas Mama desires to put on leotards and be part of the performance?  The above questions result from barriers being removed in order to present the Gospel.  I am in full agreement with removing barriers that muffle the hearing of the Gospel.  However, one must ask, “How many of these are barriers and how many are just cultural personal preferences?”  The authors address the question in their analysis of the seeker movement.

Perhaps they removed a few too many, but they did attempt success at principle number one-reaching as many people with the gospel as fast as possible.  This resulted in Billy Graham crusades every Sunday morning.  The congregation contained shallow believers, but at least they were believers.

The third area that reverberated through my soul was the acknowledgment of seeker-sensitive churches and their desire to reach the lost.  The author said; “These seeker churches accomplish a great goal by reaching out to lost people and being sensitive to needless barriers of the gospel.” While the author points a critical finger to some of the shallowness contained in the seeker movement, the statement of truth came at the end of the paragraph. This truth is something that we must not lose in balancing ministry.  The author commends Dr. Mark Dever and his Nine Marks ministry as they encourage such a balance.

A fourth area that echoes a resonating song in my spirit is the balance the authors point to concerning preaching God’s Word.  They use Dr. L.R. Scarborough’s “Ministerial Danger Signals”.  Dr. Scarborough pointed to three items that pastors needed to be cautious of: Commercialization, Sensationalism (or Entertainment), and Plagiarism.  Dr. Scarborough called attention to commercializing one’s ministry by placing a dollar mark before the world for the ministry God has called us to.  The sensationalism, which Dr. Scarborough referred to as entertainment, “calls attention to a head-liner preacher that soon becomes a dead-liner preacher.” Dr. Scarborough pointed to plagiarism as being a lack of study on the preacher’s part.  He stated; “To appropriate other men’s sermons without acknowledgment and credit is ministerial littleness and spiritual thievery…A lazy preacher deadens the pulpit.”

The fifth and final area that echoed the booming call of God in my life was the section on the small church Pastor.  Dr. White related a story about his seminary roommate and how he is serving a small congregation in Florida.  That roommate is being as faithful to God’s call on his life as  is the mega-church pastor.  This section is presented in such a way as to remove the stigma that small church pastors should be relegated to junior pastor and large church pastors must be senior pastors.  We should not be wary of mega churches.  The authors caution our mega church pastors against giving up church autonomy in a desire to move to  multi-site ministries.  However, we must be faithful in the place God has called us.  Also, we must bring our attention to theological flaws within areas that are flawed.  As Dr.’s White and Yeats point out, multi-site churches remove the autonomy of the local church from their sites.  A churches vision to reach an area should not be built on the personality of the preacher but on the Word of God.  If a church desires to reach an area a multi-site ministry may be good to begin with, but there should be a clear vision that it is a church plant that will one day have its own staff and budget.

To conclude this review I want to state my thanks to Dr.’s White and Yeats for their graciousness in allowing me to review this book. They have done an excellent job in tackling an issue that is sensitive and reporting their findings in an equally sensitive way.  At no time do they put down those who are doing multi-site churches, but they do call attention to areas of concern.  I highly recommend the reading and practice of this book.