Multi-site Churches?

In today’s edition of the Clarion-Ledger (Jackson’s newspaper) there was an article about “multi-site churches”, based principally around the growing New Jerusalem Church in Jackson. New Jerusalem Church is in the process of buying a piece of property to expand to three congregations, all of which will be administered and preached to by the same man. According to the article: “Called multi-site churches, the franchise congregations enable churches to grow exponentially, without worrying about how many people can fit into one sanctuary.” You know, the universal Catholic Church has been doing this since St Peter and the Apostles. Only, St Peter didn’t try to preach to each congregation himself.

The article goes on further to point out some other “non-denominational” churches that are opening “satellites.” This just furthers the idea that “non-denominational” is indeed becoming its own denomination. Only, it is a denomination without any structure. I would like to further that claim (if I may be so bold) by saying it is actually fueling a large enemy of proper Christian morality—Relativism.

Why do we need to start new churches when we can’t even get the ones that already exist to agree and unify? If we really want Christian unity, then should we not take what we already have and work with that, as opposed to saturating the problem all the more? I understand that there are people out there who despise the concept of denomination. I agree. I, too, want a unified Church. But why are there denominations in the first place? Basically—someone thought he/she knew more than a group of extremely learned people and so decided to leave an age-old, Apostolic Church and begin his/her own. Case-in-point—Kind Henry VIII.