Nearly 27,000 people attend LifeChurch.tv’s 13 locations, known as campuses, scattered from Arizona to New York. Headquartered in Edmond, Okla., LifeChurch.tv is the second-largest Protestant church in the United States, according to Outreach magazine. It’s also one of 2,000 multisite congregations that use satellite technology to unite worshippers meeting in different locations.

Welcome to LifeChurch.tv — one of the biggest churches in America.

Church leaders say multisite congregations are the wave of the future. But critics fear this approach turns churches into mega-chain worship centers void of the personal relationships that church members build with one another and their pastors.

Multisite campuses like the one in Hendersonville, TN function a bit like chain store retail locations. The central office provides all the content, from sermons to the Sunday school materials, which are shipped in every month.

Each site has a group of campus pastors who lead Bible studies, mentor and pray for church members, organize community service projects, conduct weddings, baptisms, and funerals — all the normal pastoral tasks but preaching.