The Franchise Is Not the Church

The word "church" once described a people. In the filings we reviewed for our Shell Ministries investigation, it increasingly describes a brand — one whose assets, trademarks, and even sermons are held by a central corporation that local attendees neither elect nor control.

This is not an argument against structure. The New Testament church appointed elders, counted money, and sent it where it was needed. It is an argument about who the structure serves.

When a campus pastor is an at-will employee of a distant board, when the deed to the building your grandfather paid for sits in a holding company's portfolio, when the sermon is a video licensed from headquarters, the congregation has become something the epistles do not describe: a customer base.

Defenders call this stewardship and scale. We call it what the incorporation documents call it. Read them. The language of the law is plainer than the language of the stage: members without votes, directors without accountability, assets without local recourse.

The franchise model may be legal. That is precisely the problem. Legality is the floor of civil conduct, not the ceiling of Christian faithfulness. The question for elders and members alike is not "is this permitted?" but "whom does this serve?"

We will keep publishing the bylaws. Congregations deserve to read what they have actually joined.