The Wall Street Journal has this interesting article about church “franchises,” based on “brand” models — the pastor is at one location, and appears at the franchises through DVD or video-link.    The focus of the article is Flamingo Road Church, in Florida (f/k/a Flamingo Road Baptist Church), “loosely affiliated with the Baptists.”  Flamingo Road hopes to have 50 churches and a $150,000,000 budget.   That would be equal to the entire 2008 Lottie Moon offering given by 42,000 SBC churches.

We’ve discussed this model before, but this article focuses on international franchises.  Are we on the verge of a global, branded evangelicalism?  Is that a good or bad thing?