Chapter 24
Perimeters and Satellites : Presbyterians and
Baptists
Southern Baptists talk about "satellite" churches.1 Elmer Towns, head of the Church Growth Institute in Lynchburg, Virginia, calls the concept "the geographical expanded parish church."2 Others refer to it as the "perimeter" church.
Whatever we call the idea, churches practicing it are the pacesetting ministries on the leading edge of the coming millennium.
The Presbyterian Church in America
A pioneer in positioning churches from single to multicampus ministries is Randy Pope, pastor of Perimeter Church of Greater Atlanta, Georgia.
Some say perimeter churches are "minidenominations" in bud stage or actually small new denominations, But Pope's Perimeter remains firmly encircled by the doctrine and policies (polity) of the fast-growing Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).
With a strong commitment to missionary work, both at home and abroad, and to historic, creedal Presbyterianism, the PCA was
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organized in December, 1973, in Birmingham, Alabama. It jumped in size and expanded its geographic boundaries nine years later when it received the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, itself a merger of several Presbyterian bodies with antecedents in Colonial America.
The PCA also began picking up breakaway congregations and members disgruntled because of liberal leanings in the mainline Presbyterian denomination, now the Presbyterian Church (USA). Between 1987 and 1989, the PCA grew more than 13 percent, making it one of the fastest-growing denominations in the nation.3
The PCA believes the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. All officers are required to subscribe, without reservation, to the Reformed faith as declared in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms.4
"We are a conservative church," acknowledges Charles Dunahoo, the man in charge of the PCA's Christian education and publications, "but we're not old-fashioned. And we're very aggressive in our church growth department."5
When the denomination was founded less than two decades ago, it had 249 congregations and 40,000 members. Now, it has more than 217,000 members in over 1,200 congregations as well as 546 missionaries. And before the end of the century, the PCA seeks to add 875 new churches — 200 of them ethnic. The PCA is concentrating on developing a cross-cultural "pioneering ministry to Koreans and Latinos, Dunahoo added. In 1991, the denomination had ninety Korean congregations.6
Perimeter Church
The perimeter church is a PCA innovation. Dunahoo explained the concept as a "mother" congregation in a major city with satellites in the suburbs "reaching the yuppies under forty." The pastors are all associated with the main church, and once a month everyone joins in a festival of worship — a "big celebration" — at the hub church.
Pope's work in Atlanta has won high approval from his denomination. "We stay within the heritage of the Presbyterian Church, and we see our model as more biblical than any model in the contemporary church," Pope says.
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Pope's original idea was to plant a church that would have 100 different locations on the perimeter highway that circles Atlanta — "sort of like having a pizza parlor at every other freeway exit," he joked.
Perimeter Church was designed to be one "local church," Pope told Towns, but with many locations "to reach the entire metropolitan area for Jesus." It would have one senior pastor and individual pastors in each congregation; one board made up of three elders from each congregation; and one program of outreach administered through each individual congregation.7
Pope, right out of seminary, sold his dream to PCA officials. They also bought the challenge that was to become the motto for Perimeter Church and Pope's personal credo: "Attempt something so great for God that it is doomed to failure unless God be in it."8
Pope began staking out Perimeter Church in the summer of 1977. After several events that he considered to be signs that God was supplying financial needs, the fledgling congregation rented a building and held its first Sunday morning service on September 25, 1977.
The second perimeter congregation was started in Marietta, about ten miles away, in 1980. Additional congregations have been born about every three years since. Another perimeter-style church has been spun off in the university town of Athens, Georgia, about ninety miles from Atlanta.9
As the network grew to eight congregations, administration became more difficult. So Pope reorganized his vision, creating an umbrella unit called Perimeter Christian Ministries, Inc. This is a "transchurch" organization making the eight local churches autonomous.
As Pope explains it, each congregation contributes 5 percent of its total income to Perimeter Christian Ministries. The primary goal is to plant other congregations of like faith and practice. Call it a paradenomination, if you will.
Local Identity, Shared Management
Towns defines an extended geographical parish church as multistaff, multilocations, multiministries "with a single identity, single organization, single purpose, single force of leadership, yet governed by the entire members from all parts."10
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In his book Ten of Today's Most Innovative Churches, Towns elaborates: "Each section of the extended geographical parish church has local identity, yet retains a central system of shared management." The perimeter church "resembles a business with a main office and regional offices, rather than the traditional denominational structure" or association of churches. "It has a single government for all the parts (churches) and a single staff to promote a unified ministry, unified vision and unified identity."
For example, when one part of a perimeter church ministers to unwed mothers or evangelizes a new suburb, "it is as though the whole church is operating through the one part."11
Towns points to the book of Acts as the biblical basis for the extended geographical parish church. The church at Jerusalem was one church (Acts 8:1), yet it was made up of several parts, or units: "All the believers were one in heart and mind" (Acts 4:32).
"Thus the large group in the Jerusalem church met for celebration, preaching, motivation and testimony . . . and in small cells for fellowship, accountability, instruction and identity (Acts 5:42)." From these observations, concludes Towns, "the norm for the New Testament church included both small cell groups and large celebration groups."12
Today this model seems natural because of sophisticated communication and rapid transportation. It's quite possible to plant a perimeter church with multiple congregations linked by easy travel and common information. And the perimeter church is well-suited for innovative, nontraditional styles of ministry.
Pope sees his role as equipping others for ministry, but in a pew-driven rather than a pulpit-driven mode. Instead of doing all the ministry himself or delegating his staff to do it, he equips the laity for these tasks. His intent is to involve every person in the church in ministry, helping them to identify and use their specific spiritual gifts.
Like Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church, Pope is oriented toward the "unchurched." He feels that hymnals, chancel and choirs, singing the Doxology, and standing behind a pulpit to preach are put-offs to all but traditional pew people.
But Pope doesn't go as far as Hybels, who jettisons church
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tradition altogether. Pope maintains the historic heritage of the Presbyterian faith. Once a month, on a Sunday evening, a traditional communion service is held for Christians at the 2,000-member Perimeter Church. Hymnals appear from a storage closet, a pulpit is dragged to the front of the chancel, and worshipers follow typical Presbyterian liturgy.13
Southern Baptist Satellite Churches
In the Southern Baptist version of the satellite church, worship may be contemporary, traditional, or a blend of both. Ordinarily, the satellite church staff and financial support are supplied by the sponsoring church or churches already established in the region.
Satellite churches studied in 1990 by the California Southern Baptist Convention were all "target focused" — that is, they sought to evangelize the unchurched population that existing area congregations hadn't been able to reach.
"Sponsoring churches learn from watching their satellites grow, and may make slower, less 'radical' changes in their own congregations," explained Harry Williams in the California Southern Baptist newspaper. "This, in turn, may make them more accessible to the California culture."14
One satellite church pastor, Mike Malody, left the staff of Grace Baptist Church in Antioch to form Lone Tree Community Church. A year later, the satellite, meeting in an elementary school, had an Easter attendance of 221, with 100 first-timers. The average age of the church's members was twenty-six, and the congregation had already purchased five acres of prime property to build its own campus.
And First Southern Baptist Church of Fresno launched Van Ness Community Church on Easter, 1988. Two years later, the congregation, meeting in a junior high school cafeteria, had grown to 188. It's a young group too: 81 percent under fifty years of age and 62 percent under forty.15
Wider Orbit of Satellites
As perimeter and satellite, or "hub-and-spoke," churches proliferate in the 1990s, a variety of adaptations and modifications will spring
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up to suit regional demographics and the preferences of leaders. Some of these emerging multicampus churches will become or remain connected to existing denominations; others will evolve into new "denomination-like" associations or fellowships.
Splinter and breakaway groups will be part of the constantly shifting paradigm. Strong voices in the embryonic denominations will establish their own Bible schools and conferences, and differing methods and expressions of missions and ministry will come into sharper definition — and division.
The organizing principle or hard core of these movements isn't doctrine, but "the standards by which effective ministry is measured."16
The day of the denomination is not dead, but the new passion, says Towns, is for "like ministry" as denominations change the way they play the game. "The new day . . . emphasizes moving toward a community of churches that are of like function and ministry."17
