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Are Multi-site Churches Biblical?
The debate over the biblical legitimacy of multi-site churches continues.
In a friendly exchange, Mark Driscoll and James MacDonald asked Mark Dever why he does not have a multi-site church. His response: “The word ekklēsia in the New Testament means assembly.” For Dever, multi-site churches do not have biblical warrant because, according to the meaning of the word commonly translated church, all of its members must be able to assemble together, and multi-site churches are not designed for such a common assembly.
Concepts Are More Than a Single Word
Two comments are in order: First, we do not define a concept by defining a word. For example, if someone asks us about salvation, we would not respond by saying “the meaning of the word sōteria in the New Testament is deliverance from danger.” Similarly, if someone asks us about justification, we would not respond by saying “the meaning of the word dikaioō is to acquit of wrongdoing.” Both salvation and justification are far richer in meaning than the mere definitions of the New Testament words translated for them. So it goes for church; its meaning is much more than the definition of the word ekklēsia. Thinking that church can be discussed by appealing to a definition of the word ekklēsia commits a methodological error.
A Word With Multiple Meanings
Second, while it is true that a meaning of the word ekklēsia is “assembly,” it is only one of the meanings of that word. An assembly is certainly in view when Paul addresses celebrating the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:17-34) and regulates the exercise of speaking in tongues and prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:26-40) when the church is gathered together. But ekklēsia cannot mean “assembly” in Acts 8:1, for example, when Luke’s point is that the church was “scattered”—not assembled—because of persecution. In fact, the word church can refer to meetings of Christians in houses (Acts 12:12), the church in a city (1 Corinthians 1:1-2; 1 Thessalonians 1:1), all the believers in a region (Acts 9:31), the universal church (1 Corinthians 10:32), and even the saints already in heaven (Hebrews 12:23). Saying that the word ekklēsia means “assembly” commits a lexical error.
If the dismissal of biblical warrant for multi-site churches may be dismissed because of a methodological and lexical error, then what biblical evidence does exist for it?
The church in Corinth expressed its life and ministry through meetings that took place in the houses, the physical dwellings, of its members.
Multi-sites in the Early Church
In a discussion of four passages—Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:9; Colossians 4:15; Philemon 2—in which the expression, “the church distributed into the house” occurs, Paul’s reference has an interesting implication for multi-site churches. Proponents of house churches, rendering this expression as “the church in the house,” take house churches to be the basic unit or building block of the church in a location. For example, many house churches in the city of Corinth composed the church of Corinth.
This idea is wrong, because Paul is not describing “the church in the house” but “the church distributed into the house;” that is, the church in Corinth expressed its life and ministry through meetings that took place in the houses, the physical dwellings, of its members.
Accordingly, the church of Corinth would gather regularly for worship in the home of Aquila and Priscilla (1 Corinthians 16:19), “the house of a man named Titius Justus” (Acts 18:7), the home of Crispus (Acts 18:8), the house of Stephanas (1 Corinthians 16:15), and others. These “church gatherings” distributed among the houses stood in contrast with the “whole church” assembling together, probably in the home of Gaius (1 Corinthians 14:23; Romans 16:23). Importantly, “each of the home-based groups included only parts of the church, i.e. a subset of its membership.” Still, each home-based gathering was a legitimate gathering of the church of Corinth.
Modern Multi-site Churches
Given this pattern, we have strong biblical warrant for multisite churches.
To contemporize the illustration, Sojourn Community Church (which I attend) is distributed into four campuses: Midtown, East, J-town, and (soon) New Albany. Mars Hill Church is distributed into twelve campuses: Ballard, Shoreline, Bellevue, Downtown Seattle, West Seattle, University District, Federal Way, Olympia, Everett, Albuquerque, Portland, and Orange County.
These multisite church structures are parallel to Paul’s description and affirmation of “the church distributed into the house(s)” of the early Christians and is strong biblical warrant for multisite churches.