In Episode Three of our podcast, Lance Wigton - Communication Director at Real Life Ministries, and Jim Putman - Senior Pastor at Real Life Ministries, come together to discuss having Church Campuses- What does the Bible say about that and why did we choose to have 4 different Real Life locations in one community?

Here are some of the things the leaders of Real Life Ministries considered when making the decision to go with four campuses rather than one.

1.      Finances: Being a good steward of the money God provides is very important to our leadership, and it is better financially to either buy or build smaller buildings in different areas, rather than continuing to try and make one main building big enough.

2.      Traffic: When Real Life started 25 years ago there was not much traffic in the area, and having to drive a distance to get to one location did not take long. With the increase in population we have here now and the traffic that goes along with that, it can take a lot longer to get around. We want to put the ministry in the middle of the place it is serving. That way people can go to church in the same neighborhood that they and their friends live in. That is the example we see in the Bible of the 1^st Century Church.

3.       Philosophically, we are trying to GO, as Jesus commissioned us to do in Matthew 28:19 – and that doesn’t mean just building a building and waiting for people to come to us. We want to go into the different areas of our community. 

4.      We believe in getting people involved in serving in the church as the body of Christ, and we also believe in raising up leaders. More campuses mean more places for people to serve and lead – more parts of the body getting involved. (Eph 4:15-16)

5.      Continuing to get larger in one location does make it harder for relationship to happen, and we believe that relationship is the method that Jesus gave us to make disciples. This is why we encourage all of our people to be in small group – where deeper connection and transparency can happen. This is not to say that a big church is a bad thing – God desire is for all to be saved! A big church is able to do some things that a smaller church can’t – and vice versa.

Thank you so much for joining us today! Please subscribe if you would like to be notified when we put out a new podcast!

If you would like to access more resources about discipleship, including podcasts, sermons, books and blog posts you can go to the link below:

https://realliferesources.org/

You may also be interested in:

https://realliferesources.org/podcast/what-is-a-disciple-the-real-life-discipleship-podcast-episode-002/

https://realliferesources.org/podcast/small-group-vs-bible-class-whats-the-difference-and-do-i-need-both-podcast-small-group-vs-bible-study-whats-the-difference/

https://realliferesources.org/the-disciples-journey/

Have more questions or something you would like Jim and Lance to address?

Contact us at realforlife@reallifeministries.com