Multi-site Church Road Trip

Lifechurch.tv in Motion

Lifechurch.tv in Motion Conference opens for registration tomorrow! Here's a little about Lifechurch.tv and their "conference"

Over the last eight years many of the methods, tools, practices, and technology have changed. So instead of taking time to write a stale book or to host some boring conference we thought it would be best to provide an intensely live experience of the “how.” This will allow our staff to focus on the huge vision God has called us to while giving you, pastors and church leaders, the opportunity to watch our team “in motion”. If you are passionate about – not just interested in – growing your church, want to explore what multi-site church and video teaching is like, or want to see a kids ministry that knows how to grab the attention of today's children, you'll want to see LifeChurch.tv In Motion.

Although we're deeply offended by the "stale book" and "boring conference" references, we HIGHLY recommend checking out this event. Get in early, it will sell out QUICK!

Free Multi-site Resources

Leadership Network is now offering all of their concept papers for free through 2006. Warren Bird has written several excellent papers that are must reads for anyone considering multi-site for their church. Resources available include a leadership development tracking tool, quick facts papers on a variety of multi-site topics and a survey of 1000 multi-site churches. You can find all these resources on Leadership Networks multi-site resource page. Let the downloading begin!

An Overview of Multi-site

(Excerpted from The Multi-site Church Revolution coming from Zondervan in May, 2006)

What is multi-site? It is one church meeting in multiple locations–different rooms on the same campus, different locations in the same region, or in some instances different cities, states, or nations. A multi-site church shares a common vision, budget, leadership, and board.

What do multi-sites look like? A multi-site shows itself through a wide variety of models. For some "doing church at multiple sites" involves only a worship service at the various locations; for others, each location supports a full range of support ministries. For some it involves videocast sermons; for others the teaching is on-site. For some, the worship atmosphere and style are similar at all campuses; and for others, it varies.

Who does multi-site? It works best for already-growing churches, but exists among all types of churches. The majority of multi-site churches are suburban, but many can be found in urban contexts, and in some rural contexts. Multi-sites are found among old churches and new, mainline and non-denomination, and in all regions of the country. Smaller churches (30-200 in attendance) tend to do multi-site as a niche outreach or a regional campus approach. Mid-size churches (200-800 in attendance) tend to do multi-site on only two or three total campuses. Larger churches (800-2000 in attendance) and megachurches (2000 and higher in attendance) are the most likely church sizes to do multi-site and to do it in a way that develops a large network of campuses.

Why become multi-site? The purpose is to make more and better disciples by bringing a church closer to where people are. The motivation is to do a better job of loving people, including different types of people, with an outcome of making significant advances in obeying Jesus' Great Command (Matt. 22:37-40) and Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20).

How long do multi-sites last? Several churches have been multi-site for up to twenty years, and a handful for even longer. Others use a multi-site approach as a transitional strategy during a building program or a seasonal outreach. For some, multi-site is intentionally temporary as a church-planting strategy to help a new congregation start strong.

Session 4: Creating Missional Velocity

Session 4 is being taught by Dave Ferguson of Community Christian Church in Naperville, IL.

The multi-site vision at CCC began as a sketch on a napkin at a lunch Dave Ferguson had with a leader in church. When Dave shared the vision the leader looked him in the eye and said, "You can do that." That's what God is saying to the leaders at the conference, "You can do this."

Alexander the Great sent an advance scout to asses their situation. The scout returned and said, "Sir, we have marched off the map." Alexander responded, "Great armies march off the map." How do we do that? How do we find the missional velocity to march off the map. The keys to missional velocity:

1. Spirit-led church
Where is God at work? Key to CCC is that God was already at work before they arrived. They were offered their first two offsite locations for free. They knew that God was already at work. As badly as you want it, God wants it worse.

2. Where is God still dreaming?
Next campus will be in largest hispanic community east of Los Angeles. They believe God is still dreaming of expanding his kingdom in this area.

3. Risk taking church
When is the last time your church clearly took a risk on God?  Two things will keep us from risking: failure and success. Two areas we have to take risks:
Risk it on Emerging Leaders
Risk it on Emerging Artists

4. Reproducing Church
Where is your Jerusalem? Where is your Judea? Where is your Samaria? Where is the Spirit leading you to the ends of the earth?

We can "draft" off of each other. Check out these opportunities:
North Coast Training Network
New Thing Multi-site Practicum
Seacoast Hands On Edition

Session 2: Larry Osborne

Session two is taught by Larry Osborne of North Coast Church. After opening their first venue in September of 1998 NCC grew every 12 months from 173 to 493 to 1392 to 2300. In that time their strategy morphed from on-site to off-site venues, a temporary fix to a long-term strategy, from California weird to mainstream. Larry identified two reasons the big get bigger; they have quality and options and they stay large through personalization. He the outlined three things that megachurches have missed:
1. The drive time barrier
2. Leaders like it big, people like it small
3. Cultural changes

Larry identified four major cultural changes that have impacted the church:

1. Automobile
The neighborhood is no longer the neighborhood because of mobility. People no longer go for local, they go for best.

2. Service industry
Quality is no longer a luxery- its an expectation. Quality for a worship experience is determined by:

a. size of the room
b. community standards
c. past experiences of the attenders

3. FM Radio and cable TV
People no longer have universally shared experiences.

4. Mass customization
People expect everything to be personalized

Do you agree with Larry's take on the major cultural changes? How do you think they impact your church?

New Building Design

Posted by Greg Ligon

I recently connected with Bob Adams, a consultant with National Association of Church Design Builders (NACDB).  In preparation for a presentation at the NACDB national conference, Bob conducted some research about design challenges and issues associated with multi-site facility design.  Here is what he discovered:

Design features necessary for successful multi-site

1) Friendly, flexible worship space with high-quality AVL package

2) quality nursery/child care space

3) intimate fellowship area

Things to do differently “the next time”

1) more space, especially foyer-fellowship area

2) build more venues on-site

3) better space planning

Most important thing to tell design/builders: Think outside the box, creating “wow” space for ministry

What are the most important things that you are discovering regarding facilities as it relates to multi-site?

Session 3: Seacoast Story

Greg Surratt is leading this session of the Mulit-site Coast-to-Coast conference. (Be sure to check out Greg's notes on the session at www.gregsurratt.com) Seacoast began in 1988 with 340 people. Seacoast "grew" to 150 over the first three years, but then God showed up and over the next 10 years grew to over 3000. They tried to build a new building but were turned down by the city. That's when they began exploring the multi-site concept by looking at North Coast, Willow Creek Wheaton and Heartland Community Church.

Their first attempt at multi-site was the annex, a site for young adults. Next they went to church start up in Columbia that was struggling. They transitioned the church to a campus. The pastor eventually left and a small group leader in the church became the campus pastor. The Columbia campus has since grown to 350-400 and multiplied another church in the Columbia area which has grown to about 500.

They began opening campuses in the Charleston area. (They soon learned not to use the word "main" and satellite.) Now, three years later, they have about 7000 people every weekend with about 3500 offsite.

Five multi-site myths:

1. Multi-site is always the best option

a. Add another service
b. Add a venue at your current location
c. Add an off-site campus within 10 minutes of your current site.
Needs to have a reason people will go
d. Add an off-site campus within 20 minutes of your current site
e. Add an off-site campus one hour or more from the current location
f. Add an off-site campus in another state or country
g. Plant a church in another community.
80% of church plants fail within 5 years. After 5 years average attendance is 60
New churches are four times more effective at evangelism
h. Help to revive an existing church in decline

How do we make the decision. At Seacoast they look for high impact, low regret. They use a 2X2 matrix of small payoff, big payoff, easy, hard.

2. Multi-sites are only for large megachurches

Shell Harbor church has a vision to plan 200 campuses across the country, but no churches will be larger than 50.
Church in Freeport Illinois has planted a campus in community of 1500 people. The campus is over 200 in weekend attendance.
Any healthy, growing church can plant a campus. Its not about size, its about health. Ultimate size for Greg is about 300-500 people.

3. Multi-sites have to cost a lot of money

It has more to do with vision of what God has called you to do. Cost is driven by staff and technology. Some campuses start with six full time staff and some start with all volunteers. Seacoast starts with one full time staff member and two part time staff members.

A second question is technology. A good resource is http://www.anthonycoppedge.com/blogs/index.php.

4. Multi-sites are impersonal and culturally irrelevant

After the first 30 people it becomes impersonal. Either have to stop growing or multiply leadership. There is a campus pastor at every campus for the personal touch
How a pastor can speak to the needs of all the campuses
1. Become a student of culture
2. Feed your campus pastors (Take them to lunch, learn what is happening at the campuses.)
3. Build campuses on community. Seacoast builds all campuses on small groups
4. Remember who you're talking to. Mention the campuses in the messages.
5. Take advantage of technology. Seacoast uses blogs extensively. You can also use podcasts. Since Seacoast started giving away their messages on ITunes they've had 8000 downloads.

3. Multi-sites don't produce leaders.

If you want to succeed at multi-site you have to excel at producing leaders.

What are the myths you believe or can demythologize?

Mother ship … main campus … big church

Posted by Greg Ligon from the Mult-site Coast-to-Coast Conference

Watch what you say.  This week, the teams of Seacoast, North Coast and Community Christian Church have reminded us of the importance of language.  When you are committed to multi-site, not as one strategy among many, but rather a framework for doing church, it is important to be intentional about what you call each campus.  Use of references like mother ship or main campus don’t work.  Think about it … would you want to be a part of something that, by inference, is second class?  What do you call your campuses?  What other issues of language are important?

Multi-site Session 1: Crossfire Discussion

Session 1 is a panel discussion featuring Larry Osborne of North Coast Church, Greg Surratt of Seacoast Church, Dave Ferguson from Community Christian Church and Greg Ligon from Leadership Network moderated by Eric Bramlett. Here are the highlights...

Eric: How would you describe the Seacoast model?

Greg Surratt: We were zoned out of doing a building about 4 years ago, heard about what Larry was doing in California and what Dave was doing in Chicago, so we started our first site. We now have 9 sites.

Eric: Tell us more about how you began transporting the message.

Greg Surratt: Our second site was in Columbia, SC, so we began by sending our message overnight on Greyhound bus.

Eric: Tell us about CCC getting started

Dave: We started with the idea of being a reproducing church, everything we did had to be reproducible. We began starting new services even though we weren't out of room, it was just in our DNA to reproduce. It eventually led to multiplying campuses and eventually churches.

Eric: Larry, tell us about your model

Larry: We were totally reactive. We were out of space and decided to try an overflow room that would be a reward rather than a punishment. For us it was about reaching different demographics. Some of these guys took what we did on site with venues and went out and started new campuses. We then saw what they were doing geographically so we began starting other campuses as well.

Eric: Greg Ligon, what have you been seeing from Leadership Networks viewpoint in the multi-site movement.

Greg Ligon: Its definitely a God thing. There are churches across the country making this happen. Often they don't know anyone else is doing multi-site.

Eric: What is the number question you get asked about multi-site?

Greg Ligon: The questions have changed. They used to be about viability, now the questions aren't about does it work to how can make it work in our setting.

Greg Surratt: I never heard the comment from staff or members, "That sounds like a really good idea." You have the advantage of pointing to other models and seeing that it works. The video element is really a non-issue. Authenticity comes across on video.

Larry Osborne: We had the same experience, everyone thought it was a bad idea. The vote was 9-2 against the idea, but it turns out the twos won the vote. Afterword those who were most adament that it wouldn't work became the biggest advocates.

Eric: What do you think churches should take away from the other two churches?

Dave: North Coast knows how to do video venues really well, they also do an incredible job getting people into small groups. Seacoast has adapted the multi-site model so rapidly. Its very impressive.

Larry: Seacoast quickly puts together systems and them corrects the systems on the fly. And what they do are reproducible. Dave has a laser-like focus on being multi-site and reproducing.

Greg: I was amazed by the vision at Community Christian; 1000 churches and 100,000 people in the Chicago area. And to watch the Big Idea concept come together. Larry has been an inspiration to all of us. Excellence has become almost deified in the church world. Larry has tought us that there is a limit to excellence and opened the door to the rest of us. We have learned the concept of good enough from Larry.

Greg Ligon: All three churches have very different DNA. Explore with them how they came up with their DNA and how they replicate that.

For more on this session be sure to check out Monday Morning Insight.

Touchdown

We just landed in Chicago, the conference starts in abouy 5 hours. I just found out there are 115 churches coming: I think we officially have a movement. Stay tuned...

Geoff Surratt Seacoast Church