GARNER -- A new church was born Sunday morning, but, like an increasing number of congregations, it has no preaching pastor.
In what has become one of the most popular church growth methods across the country, a large white screen unfurled in front of the stage with the preacher's image projected on it, preempting the live sermon and the pastor's physical presence.
Welcome to the satellite church, a 21st century phenomenon that owes its success to advances in technology. These days, instead of starting new congregations, churches are reproducing the successful ones, franchise-style.
The newest to join the club is Living Word Family Church, a non-denominational church in Wake Forest. The congregation, with about 1,000 people attending each Sunday in a building off Capital Boulevard, opted to grow by duplication. When an older pastor with strong ties to Living Word decided he wanted to retire, he turned over his Garner congregation to the Wake Forest church. On Sunday, Living Word South Campus was launched on Mechanical Boulevard in Garner.
"I definitely think if Jesus was walking the earth today, he'd be using all this technology," said Steve Caronna, pastor of Living Word Family Church. "Jesus was the master storyteller and taught everything by illustration."
Over the past five years, nearly every megachurch in the Triangle has done the same. Hope Community Church in Raleigh, Cleveland Community Church, or C3, in Clayton, and the Summit Church in Durham - all have at least one satellite location where the pastor's message is recorded and then streamed live or hand-delivered on a DVD to an ancillary site where it's screened for a different audience.
Though there are varying methods to the satellite concept, they share many of the same characteristics. Each satellite has a live praise and worship band and a local "campus pastor" who makes announcements, leads in prayer and tends to the needs of the congregants throughout the week.
Way of the future
But the heart of the service - the sermon - is given over to the big screen.
David Ginyard of Raleigh, a member of the congregation that used to meet at the same location, said it took no big leap of imagination to get used to the idea.
"When I committed my life to Christ, I got it through television," said Ginyard, who used to watch megachurch pastors such T.D. Jakes of Potter's House Church in Dallas in the comfort of his Raleigh living room. "It stuck."
In some ways, the franchise concept is not new. Historically, a rural preacher may have expanded his franchise by galloping horseback from one small congregation to another to deliver a Sunday sermon.
More recently, churches began putting emphasis on training new pastors and sending them out to start new congregations from scratch.
Caronna, a Tennessean who has led Living Word since 1995, said he had considered a satellite location for several years.
"I've always had this sense that it was in our future," he said. "But I was slow to move on it."
Then, in January, he got a call from Graham Holland of Raleigh, one of the early members of Living Word, who started leading his own church, Faith Zone, in Garner in 2002.
A former businessman, Holland moved his fledgling 150-member congregation into an old furniture showcase on Mechanical Boulevard.
But recently, Holland, who will turn 74 in August, felt he was not strong enough physically to minister to the congregation full time. Over lunch, he offered Caronna the building. Within a few months of that lunch, plans for a Living Word satellite were launched.
Just press pray
Before he signed on to the idea, Caronna wanted to experience what it would feel like to see a sermon on the screen, so he took a DVD of his own preaching and drove to Garner.
As he sat watching the sermon, he turned to an associate and asked, "Would you go to a church where the pastor was on the screen?"
The answer surprised him: "I do it every week," the associate said.
That's when Caronna realized that most people attending a large church are already used to watching their pastor on the big screen, even if that pastor is there in person. Jumbo screens are a fixture at large churches, where they are used for projecting Bible passages and praise lyrics, too.
A congregant's praise
Caronna also knew something else. His church-going community was spending most of its waking hours in front of a smaller screen, whether at the office or at home. The leap to a large screen at church was not going to take them out of their comfort zone.
"Raleigh is a high-tech area," said Caronna. "People love technology here."
At Sunday's service, a seven-member band performed contemporary praise music for nearly 20 minutes. Campus pastor Bruce Dial got onstage to introduce himself and his wife to the 100 or so participants assembled for the official church launch. Then people settled in to watch the Mother's Day sermon, given by Caronna's wife, Connie.
Gail Honeycutt, a member of the older church, said she was satisfied.
"It's the future," she said. "I don't see a problem at all."
