We go to church at Fig Garden

The Well Community Church (Fig Garden campus), Fresno, California
This may be hard for you to imagine, but sermon collections used to be a thing. People published books of acclaimed sermons from preachers such as Charles Spurgeon or even anthologies of several preacher's sermons. I had to purchase some sermon books for seminary, but back in the day, ordinary people bought them, and churches without pastors could read those sermons during their worship services.

Video has, of course, changed all that. Churches can bring the preacher into the church virtually by projecting it on a screen. Lots of churches make this technology part of their culture. Churches divide into a number of “campuses” (locations) and share the same sermon, either live or prerecorded.

Which raises a question: we aim to go to a different church every week, but did we go to a different church if we went to worship services at different campuses of the same church? Last April, we visited The Well Community Church in Fresno -- North Campus. This Sunday we went to The Well Community Church in Fresno -- Fig Garden Campus.

So did we go to a new place or did we cheat? (And can we cheat on the rule of going to a new church every week when we make up our own rules?)

Anyway, on Sunday morning, we went to Fig Garden, and they used a prerecorded video for the sermon. (We were sure it was “Memorex” rather than live, because Mike the on-screen preacher kept saying “tonight.”)

Still, I think it’s an interesting question. Are multi-campus churches just one church, or are they more? Do people who attend always go to the same campus or rotate around? From the way people greeted friends, my bet would be people stick with one campus. We were greeted with a hearty hardy firm handshake by the ushers at the door.

The campus has its own pastor who introduced himself at the beginning of the service. “Good morning! I’m Josh, and I have the privilege to serve as campus pastor.” Josh was live and in person, and he announced some things that were happening at The Well. The night before, the church had hosted other churches for the city wide 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting, and the night before they had also hosted a dessert for some missionaries. Those same missionaries were introduced at the end of the service we attended.

Along with everybody else, we were encouraged to fill out attendance cards as part of a “conversation.”

“I’m Chris, one of the pastors on staff. We’re going to bring back an old hymn, ‘Come Thou Fount’.” (Is it really an old hymn that needs bringing back when it’s covered by Mumford and Sons?) The worship team consisted of four men: two on guitar, one on bass, and one on drums. It was interesting not to have a keyboard of any kind, but I enjoyed the singing.

It was time for the sermon and time to watch the screen. “I’m Mike, one of the three teaching pastors... The Three Musketeers, The Three Stooges, depending on the week.” He introduced a new series on I Thessalonians (which Mike mostly referred to as “First Thess.”)

Mike began by “bragging on our artistic team.” Art is evidently an important component in the ministry; there are rather abstract paintings on the wall in the foyer, and some nice more representational stained glass. He told about how the teaching pastors tell the artistic team the Scripture themes they’ll be teaching, and the team runs with it (after asking follow up questions such as “What is the Greek word for ‘hope’?”)

As he started the sermon, Mike talked about the importance of setting in the stories, and he turned to the Book of Acts for the story of the founding of church in Thessalonica.

Mike talked about persecution the early church faced, saying that we don’t have to face such things in modern America. He said his one experience of “persecution” in his decades of faith was when a professor said he wouldn’t work with him because he was a Christian.

Nonetheless, there is still persecution and suffering for Christians in the world, as the missionaries who came forward at the end of the service know. They serve in a country closed to missions. So I can’t say anything more about them or their ministry, but I can say the Fig Garden Campus of The Well is a church -- even if it is a part of a bigger church -- because all of it is part of the One, Apostolic Church, and we were glad we visited.