Multi-site Church Road Trip

First stop – Bourbannais, IL, College Church

Posted by Greg Ligon

I spent several hours Monday with the senior leadership team of College Church– Jeff, Bruce and Dave. College Church is, believe it or not, located near the campus of Olivet Nazarene College. There are long relational ties between the university and church.  Jeff Crossnoe, Senior Pastor, has been there for only about 3 years.  He has served in mega-churches all over the country and has been a long term friend of Leadership Network.  Bruce and Dave have fascinating backgrounds that play into College’s multi-site vision in significant ways.  Bruce Paul has a background in social work and is spearheading the work that they are doing at their third site whose primary focus is compassion ministry.  They are serving 700-800 families each week at that site and are in conversation about adding a worship experience there.  David Bach serves as the Director of Operations.  He has been a member of the church for over 8 years and came on staff a year ago from a career in multi-unit corporations in the family entertainment and technology areas.  His background and expertise are helping to shape the framework of the growing vision for multi-site ministry in their county.  The second site is located about 5 miles from the college location and the building design there will support a developing strategy for community center types of ministry.  The facility is already being used to house numerous kid’s sports leagues. 

Here are three things that we talked about that you may learn from and/or have insight into …

1. One of the current foci is clarification of the College Church DNA.  A great question that they are using to guide their discovery is – “What would be lost if College Church went out of existence?”  Might be a good question for your teams to ask as well.

2. In a changing culture as the suburbs extend into their traditional farming communities, how do you raise the line of quality, meeting the demands of the new constituency and providing adequate reasoning for the existing congregation who are satisfied with the current quality?

3. One of the often stated strengths of the multi-site church is the opportunity to create smaller worshipping communities.  How do you encourage the “feel” of a smaller church and still do the things that are required to “run” a church of 2000+?

Multi-site Revolution Road Warrior

Posted by Greg Ligon

I am often asked, “How do you discover what is new and innovative in the church?”  There are a number of ways that our team accomplishes that but probably the best way is through road trips.  On a regular basis everyone on the Leadership Network team spends time on the road with churches across the country, asking the questions – 1.  How can we serve you?  2. What are your greatest strengths, challenges and opportunities? This week I am on what my assistant Julia has pegged as my multi-site planes, trains and automobiles trip … ala John Candy and Steve Martin!  Over 3 and ½ days, I will be on 7 planes, in 4 non-descript white rental vehicles, meeting with at least 7 churches in 5 states.  On layovers and at night in the hotel, I will be posting some of the new insights and questions I receive from others that are a part of the multi-site movement.

On a Mission From God

Posted by Greg Ligon

I don’t know about you but I am attempting to recover from the abundance of a Thanksgiving feast and anticipating a sprint through a way-too-busy Christmas season. 

In the midst of it all, I re-read an article written by Eric Swanson, Ten Paradigm Shifts , and was reminded of the reason for both seasons.  The stories in this paper will warm your heart and stir your convictions.  My prayer is that they will also fuel a portion of your vision for what multi-site looks like in your context. 

More and more of my conversations with leaders that are employing a multi-site strategy include a growing missional focus – multi-site models are not just about reaching more people for Christ, they are about transforming entire communities for Christ.

I would love to know what you think.

'Five Keys to an Effecitive Multi-site Church

Tomorrow I (Geoff) am talking to several churches who are visiting Seacoast. I'm going to share what I believe to be five essential keys to success as a multi-site church; I thought I'd share them here first:

Five Keys

1. A Senior Pastor driven vision for multi-site
   In order for a church to truly become one church in many locations multi-site has to be the Senior Leader's passion.
2. The right campus pastor(s)
   No amount of technology, marketing or effort can replace having a leader who embraces the vision and builds the teams to see the vision happen.
3. The right environment
   From location, to worship leaders to children's ministry, effective campuses must create compelling enviroments
4. Finances that make sense
   Jesus said that before building a tower a wise man will count the cost. This is especially true of multiple campuses. Successful multi-site churches have figured out they can sustain the vision.
5. Stoke the fire
   Offsite campuses are like children; they need to be loved, cared for, and encouraged. Site visits, pep talks and all expense paid trips to the central office all help keep the fire burning.

Do these keys make sense? Which ones don't belong? What have I missed?

Leadership Community

We just finished the second meeting of Leadership Network's Multi-site Church Leadership Community Group Four (We're looking for a longer name, but we haven't been able to come up with one.) Its always great to get together with these churches, this time we had Saddleback, Fellowship Church, Life Church, Seacoast. McLean Bible, Calvary Chapel Ft. Lauderdale, Lake Pointe, The Chapel, Northland, New Hope and Willow Creek (North Point wasn't able to come) We met at Fellowship's Plano campus. Our focus this time was on Leadership Development; each church shared their model for producing leaders in a multi-site environment. We'll have some podcasts from the week coming up soon, but let me role out what were my personal highlights (in no particular order):

1. Hearing Fellowship's journey to becoming a multi-site church and experiencing their weekend tech. This was actually my second time through the story, I had the chance to do the same thing a couple of weeks ago at another LN meeting.
2. The rollout of Seacoast's new Online Learning inititive. Mac Lake did a great job presenting, this has huge ramifications for multi-site churches. Stay tuned to what happens next.
3. Hot breakfast at Fellowship on Wednesday morning. Julia Burk can bring it when it comes to setting up these meetings.
4. Meeting the team from New Hope Leeward in Hawaii. They sent five incredibly sharp guys who are rocking their island.
5. Hanging with the guys from LIFECHURCH.TV. The guys from Life always know what's next. Keep your eye on their new internet campus.
6. Dinner with everyone at Abuelos on Wednesday night. These dinners are always a major highlight of these gatherings.
7. Hearing from Willow Creek as they continue moving forward on opening a Regional site in downtown Chicago.
8. Sharing communion together at the end. There is no doubt that the bottom line for everyone in the room is fulfilling God's purpose in their time.

The last thing we did before communion was a time of open Q&A with everyone in the group. If you had been sitting in the circle what would you have asked?

Multi-sites as Branches?

Dave Ferguson of Community Christian Church has written an excellent article on the multi-site movement for BuildingChurchLeaders.com. He compares the rise of the multi-site church to the change in commerce we've seen in America during the last 50 years:

Remember the days when your bank had only one location and not multiple branches? Back then you could say, "I'm going to the bank" and everyone knew that you meant the bank at the corner of Elm and Main. Remember the days when your hospital had one facility and not multiple locations? You could tell people, "I'm having some tests at the hospital" and everyone knew you meant the hospital facility downtown. Remember the days when colleges had only one campus? If you told someone, "I'm taking classes at the state college," they knew not only the college, but also what town you were talking about.

Now, banks, hospitals, and colleges serve their communities with multiple facilities in various locations. And we can add to that list churches. There are now at least 1,500 multi-site churches in the United States. No longer does a church have to have only one branch, one location, or one campus.

What are the long term implications, good and bad, of Dave's analogy?