A multi-site church is very simply "one church in multiple locations." How explicitly and visibly a church decides to make itself known as a multi-site church varies from one church to another. From what I know, many multi-site churches leverage a shared branding strategy or consolidates its administrative and/or organizational structure. And yet, (practically) every instance of a church using a multi-site strategy is different and unique, in part or in whole.
Heard from a pastor friend who told me about a multi-site church in the Sacramento area called Bayside Church. Looking at its newly-redesigned website, I couldn't tell. Could you?
So I asked my friend about its multiple locations, and here's the list of links to the church's other location's websites:
Digging around for the story behind the story, I found this 2005 Christianity Today article, "High-Tech Circuit Riders", excerpted here:
Bayside Church, in Granite Bay, California, decided to try the multisite approach after a seven-year zoning battle over its first permanent building. The church's attendance has grown from 4,000 when the building opened two years ago to more than 7,000 today. But senior pastor Ray Johnston and other leaders had no interest in starting another battle over a building expansion.
Instead Bayside, which like Life Church is part of the Evangelical Covenant Church, launched a program to start 20 new campuses in the next five years. Their approach is a combination of multisite and church plant. Each Bayside location will share a common name and core values. But rather than each site having the same sermon, the preaching will be tailored to each location.
That's essential, Johnston says, because the campuses will be in distinctive demographic areas. The main campus in Granite Bay serves a community that is predominantly white, with a median household income of a little more than $100,000. Bayside of South Sacramento or "boss," on the other hand, serves a multiracial community where the median household income is $35,000. So Johnston partnered with his friend, Sherwood Carthen, an African American pastor and chaplain of the Sacramento Kings, to open the new campus. Launched last year, boss already has an average attendance of 500. A third campus averages close to 300 people.
I think Bayside Church shows that there are different ways to incorporate a multi-site strategy, and theirs is used in conjunction with its church planting strategy. This illustrates that a church doesn't doesn't have to duplicate everything at every location. In this case, it's a shared name and shared core values, with separate websites.
What alternative models of multi-site churches have you seen that's caught your attention?
// DJ Chuang, Leadership Community Director at Leadership Network
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