Robby Gallaty, Long Hollow, Baptisms, and Discipleship

I’ve been a fan of Pastor Robby Gallaty for some time now. I first heard him speak at a youth camp where I took a group of students in the summer. Since then, I’ve read several of his books, I use his HEAR journaling method in my quiet time, and I even started a Discipleship Group based on his model. The Lord has truly used him to bless both me and the Church at large.

At this current moment, no one can deny that God is doing some amazing things at the church Gallaty pastors—Long Hollow Baptist Church in Tennessee. At the time of writing this, Over 400 people have been baptized in the past few weeks. People are watching online and coming from out of state to be baptized at Long Hollow. There is no doubt that God is using Gallaty’s ministry to change lives.

What gives me pause is how Long Hollow is stewarding this massive move of the Spirit. They have totally bought into the online campus model. They consider their live stream a literal online campus. They have prayer groups meeting online, they are pushing online children’s and student (youth) ministries, and they even have an online campus pastor. For all intents and purposes they consider online just as much a campus as the main campus people are physically at when you’re watching online.

I find this highly problematic and for a full treatment of the reasons why, I recommend Jonathan Leeman’s book One Assembly. In the book he dives into the meaning behind the Greek word ekklesia, which is translated into what we call church. I am Scripturally convinced that church in the Greek is in reference to a physical gathering of people in one place at one time. But I want to dive into some reasons that aren’t in Leeman’s book.

There is an article from Baptist Press featuring Long Hollow and Gallaty where they discuss the emphasis of an online campus. In the article they also make mention that they are still emphasizing the local church as they are starting small groups in each city where there are “members” watching online. This strikes me as problematic for several reasons.

1. The emphasis seems to be on Long Hollow and Gallaty rather than the Universal Church.

It’s hard for me to understand why Long Hollow would want to expand their “church” across the United States rather than help these people find solid churches in their area where they can be baptized and be a contributing member in person. How much more impactful would it be to see Long Hollow working with and strengthening other churches and expanding the Kingdom beyond themselves?

As I watched their service online, the first person baptized was an older gentleman from Kentucky. He had traveled from Kentucky to be baptized at Long Hollow. The question I can’t help but ask is, “Why?” Living in Kentucky, I know we have a wealth of great churches that would have been much closer for this gentleman to go to and many of them don’t even need help. Why wouldn’t Long Hollow use this as a discipleship moment to point people to the fact that our churches are on the same team?

How much more powerful would it be to see Long Hollow sending people out of their church to plant churches in areas people are coming from? Maybe that’s the long term goal, but the article certainly didn’t read that way. Instead, it makes Long Hollow seem like a figurative Mecca that people are traveling to in pilgrimage.

2. It seems Long Hollow is failing to consider alternative options apart from online.

In the article, Gallaty is quoted as saying, “The churches that are predominantly dependent upon a building are going to have a hard time transitioning into the future.” I think Gallaty is right here for multiple reasons we are witnessing right now in our culture. However, is online the right answer?

We already see many churches take alternate routes than the traditional building. They may rent a building from someone. Starting a house church is also an option that I think will become increasingly popular. Some churches have taken to meeting outside because of the pandemic. All of these options keep people together.

As I stated earlier, I am Scripturally convinced that being physically together is right. But also being physically together may become absolutely necessary in the future. If the culture becomes increasingly hostile to Christianity and the church is taken offline then what happens to the sheep Long Hollow are trying to shepherd from afar? They are essentially lost. We need to be together physically.

3. People are being robbed of the ordinary means of grace that comes with being in person.

The church is meant to be together. We address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19). What a blessing and encouragement it is to actually know the person in the row next to you and to know the hard things happening in their life and to see them singing in faith to the Lord! This doesn’t happen in online church.

What a blessing it is to actually get to pray for that person before or after the service where you gather and to be the body of Christ to them. We certainly aren’t meant to do life by ourselves in front of a screen—we are meant to do life together. We are the body of Christ and the body is joined together and built up in love (Eph. 4:16).

We of course can’t forget the blessing that comes with going to the Lord’s table together for communion and being physically present for the baptism celebration of a new brother or sister in Christ. These are things that are not meant to be done in front of a screen and if we do them there then we are truly missing out.

Conclusion

This is not me “cancelling” Robby Gallaty or Long Hollow. I have been blessed abundantly by them and I hope the best for them. I wrote this out of genuine concern because I didn’t see anyone else talking about it. My hope they may reconsider the current method they’ve employed for expanding the church and making disciples. I think Gallaty has been a pioneer in discipleship, but I am currently worried he may be discipling people toward Long Hollow instead the global Church.