On the 13th, Robert Morris told his 10:45 am audience that he is cutting back on his preaching at Gateway to the 4 pm service. In August, he told the 12:30 pm Sunday crowd the same thing. Watch:
Transcript:
You’re not seeing me as much as you used to, live that is. But I wanted to actually explain that to you. And so I’ve told the technological guys to not send this service to the other campuses, to go ahead and play the 4 o’clock service from yesterday at the other campuses right now. I’m doing something a little differently, and I’ve found that if someone just explains it to you then you can say, oh, OK, we get that. For a long time as the church began to grow — I started the church when I was 38 — and we grew and had three services and then four services and then five and then we had six services a weekend. Three on Saturday night and three on Sunday morning. Thomas would lead worship for all those services. It just got very difficult to preach the same message with the same burden and the same intensity, six times a weekend. Ya know? And so we began video messages. And then that led us actually to begin our first extension campus which was North Richland Hills. Which is completely video messages. And as we’ve gone along, then we started to say we even we had the uh opened this campus here at Southlake, we said, ya know, Pastor Robert will never preach,this came out of the eldership, no, he’ll preach no more than three times a weekend. And so even though we had five here I would preach the 4 o’clock and then rotate to the rest of the services. Uh, but that ‘no more than three’ actually in my mind was at least three. And again, I started the church when I was 38. I am now fifty (fake cough) years old (laughter) hu-huh, fifty-four and um,I don’t have the strength I used to have. I don’t have the energy I used to have.
And then, I’m doing other things, like right now I have a, a book deadline. I preached last week , during the week for vid- on video for them to show to the largest church in America uh, which is Pastor Craig Groeschel Life Church. They have about 72,000 in attendance each week. Ya know I’ll speak in a while, I mean I’ve got lots of things on my plate you, you understand that. And I know that God’s called me to not just be the pastor of Gateway Church, but to somehow affect and change the world. And uh, ya know, this past Thursday was uh a conference call with Dr. Tony Evans and Dr. Ronnie Floyd who’s the President of the Southern Baptist Convention. And we’re talking about bringing pastors together, I think I’ve told you this, to bring pastors together next July to have a solemn assembly where we meet in Cowboy Stadium. We’re asking 75,000 pastors to come together to pray for our nation. And uh obviously our nation needs prayer (applause). So, so there is uh a national and international call on my life as well, and I know that.
But the other thing I realized is, is it sometimesI’ll come at 4 o’clock and I’ll preach and I feel like God puts his hand on it. And it’s got the anointing of the Holy Spirit on it. I’ll come back then to another service such as maybe let’s say 10:45 and preach and I think to myself that wasn’t near as good as yesterday. I just wasn’t uh as clear uh, I, I didn’t have as much of a burden as I did yesterday. I kind of left my burden. I couldn’t get it back. And so I wanted you to know if you don’t see me live as much as you used to it’s not because I love you less. I want you to know that. It’s because I love you more. And I really wish you’d hear the guy who spoke yesterday at 4 o’clock because he did a much better job, than I did, ya know, today. So ya understand what I’m saying? So I’ll be, you will not see me as much, even at the Southlake Campus as far as live, but you will hear the word. And we’ve seen this. Ya know we have five campuses, 24 services a weekend and we’ve seen these extension campuses grow and some of them I’ve never spoken there live. But we’ve noticed that God’s Word is not limited by whether the person is live there or not. God’s Word can come through technology just as strongly. So I just wanted to explain that to you. So if you want to, if it’s important to you to see me live, uh then come to the 4 o’clock service. Or Walmart. I’m at Walmart a lot (laughter) uh those are my okay so. One of those you’ll see me alright.
I reported on the “solemn assembly” previously.
This post is a follow up on the earlier post where he announced the same news to the 12:30 pm service. It seems odd to me that he waited a month to tell that audience essentially the same thing.
One wonders what happens to his burden when he is preaching at the other churches (e.g., at Bayside Church in FL on Sunday). No wonder he doesn’t have the energy for his church since he has so much on his plate.
Having said all of that, I know it is not my business how elders of Gateway Church want to spend the tithes of the members who are compelled to give.