Multi-site Church Road Trip

Multi-site Kids

One of the most frequently asked questions we get about multi-site is ... how does it work with kids (aka "children's ministry").  Click here to go to a blog where you can get that question answered and connect with others who are asking it ...

Boxed Technology?

Just saw this article about the technology that Christ Fellowship Church (Palm Beach Gardens, FL) is using to broadcast to their multiple sites.  Geoff and I will be there in March for one of our multi-site church leadership community gatherings and will look forward to checking it out in person.  What other technology solutions are you using, wish you were using or wish you were not using?  :-)

Deciding to go multi-site

Christian Executive Magazine recently had an interesting interview with Cal Jernigan Senior Pastor, Central Christian Church in Mesa, AZ about their decision to go multi-site. (You can read the full interview here.)

What was the thinking of the elders in planning for the second campus that opens in 2007? Our former senior pastor, LeRoy Lawson, is a statesman in our brotherhood. He is a legend. We were very much known for him. He would absolutely deny this, but I would say that the reason this church grew so large under him was his preaching. What I realized was I inherited a really good church that is built around him, but the church doesn’t know it’s built around him.

As the youth pastor for 18 years, I was traveling all over the country speaking at youth events and conferences and camps; I’m seeing what God is doing everywhere else. What happened here is this church was becoming very complacent, because we had LeRoy Lawson as our senior pastor, thinking that all that God could do He was doing right here. I knew that was not true. I knew that God was doing a whole lot more elsewhere than he was doing here, but the church didn’t know that.

When I became senior pastor, I put a group of people together, and we traveled all over the country. We sat down with all kinds of churches and just picked their brains on what they were doing, why they were doing what they were doing, what’s their vision. We have had in our church a tradition of building another building about every three years. That’s the thinking I inherited. And I’m going, time out, it’s time for us to re-engage a vision of what the future is going to be. We are going to slow down and we’re going to see what God needs to do with us here.

And when we started doing that, there was something incredible that began to happen in these leaders. We would debrief after every one of these church visits, and it became very, very obvious to us that what we sensed what God had for us as a church was bigger than what this campus could accommodate. And it scared us to death.

What were you being told? We were doing all that travel originally just to decide what the next building should be. What should be the next thing we should do for this church at this site?  We were asking God about a building and we felt God was speaking to us about a church.  And that the church he was talking to us about building was not the building we were thinking. It became obvious to us, it was unanimous, that God is leading us to something different than we thought.

We asked ourselves, what could we do, if we were to step out in faith, and God would honor our faithfulness? And what ended up happening that so rocked our world was we discovered the church has a habit of doubling every nine years; it is just steady, slow, consistent growth. And the land we thought was so available in Gilbert and Mesa is incredibly rare.

We visited some 13 sites and we ended up at this lot that is on the same street as this church, about ten miles south of here. We prayed out there, and at the very moment we prayed, there was this overwhelming sense of peace.

Were you planning to abandon this current property?  How will you operate on a Sunday morning with two sites? This church has a history of growth, God’s been good. This is the third campus we’ve owned. Plan A was we’re going to sell this campus and we are going to move down there and just continue to grow.

As we announced that to the congregation, there was great elation that we were not going to run out of space. It is crazy here on weekends. We have five services and people are trying to get in and get out.

But there was also a tremendous sense of loss and a feeling of “Gosh, we love this place.” And I can’t overestimate how much people love this church.  It is the sweetness of this place.  And so there was an elation that we were going to keep growing and going, and there was a sense we were losing something that we cherished. And we don’t want to lose that.

We prayed for a year and a half, and there was just a peace that came over us. This is long before the multi-site venue that now is very common. The big difference for us is we are relocating the main campus while we are opening a second campus. Most second site worship venues are in a small strip mall or theatre start-up.  We are moving the heart of the church south down the road. Our whole goal is to keep this campus as nice as possible and that new campus with 160 acres allows us to grow. And as the city of Gilbert grows, the campus will grow.

How will you manage the different services? On a typical weekend we are going to offer eight services. We offer five now. We are going to have four here and four there.  We will have two Saturday nights and two Sunday mornings on the north campus; we will have two Sunday mornings and two Sunday nights on the south campus. They will all be the same message, but the service venues are different. You are going to get the same message from the same preacher at either site; the music will be a little bit different.

I do five weekend services now live and I will continue to do five weekend services live. The difference will be that the five I do live will be spread out between Saturday night, Sunday morning, and Sunday night. But I won’t do five in a row, like I am doing now. The teaching will come via video.

If your church is thinking about going multi-site be sure to check out the resources available on this blog. There's a paper available for free from Leadership Network called "Should Your Church Go Multi-site" There is a New Thing Multi-site Practicum coming up next week at Community Christian in Chicago. Two major resources to consider are Multi-site Coast to Coast conference coming in May and the Multi-site Church Revolution book also coming out in May.

Multi-site Coast to Coast

A quick reminder that the Multi-site Coast to Coast Conference is coming May 8th and 9th to Seacoast Church in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. The conference features North Coast, Community Christian, Seacoast and is presented by Leadership Network. This is the premier opportunity this year to learn from some of the pioneers in the multi-site revolution and to network with with others across the country who are doing church in more than one location. There also be several consultants and vendors who specialize in helping multi-site churches and opportunities to sit down with leaders from several churches for in-depth conversations about multi-site. There is a super early bird rate available through Friday, so sign up today. (There are over 200 already signed up and the last conference in October sold out. Past performance is not a guarantee of future success, however)

Multi-Mega?

Leadership Network and Hartford Institute for Religion Research just released a new study that indicates many of the most widely held beliefs about megachurches couldn’t be farther from the truth.

I was fascinated by the study because members of my team were working on it ... and after all, Leadership Network has historically been about building peer networks for connection of leaders ... many from megachurches.

But I was especially intrigued by the stats on multi-site in mega-churches - over 50% of mega-churches either have, or plan to have, in the very near future at least two distinct campuses.  God is indeed up to something!

Check out the complete report at  Leadership Network.  You can also listen to a podcast with the authors that discusses the following 11 myths at Leadership Network MegaChurch Podcast. 

MYTH #1: All megachurches are alike.
REALITY: They differ in growth rates, size and emphasis.

MYTH #2: All megachurches are equally good at being big.
REALITY: Some clearly understand how to function as a large institution, but others flounder.

MYTH #3: There is an over-emphasis on money in the megachurches.
REALITY: The data disputes this.

MYTH #4: Megachurches exist for spectator worship and are not serious about Christianity.
REALITY: Megachurches generally have high spiritual expectations and serious orthodox beliefs.

MYTH #5: Megachurches are not deeply involved in social ministry.
REALITY: Considerable ministry is taking place at and through these churches.

MYTH #6: All megachurches are pawns of or powerbrokers to George Bush and the Republican Party.
REALITY: The vast majority of megachurches are not politically active.

MYTH #7: All megachurches have huge sanctuaries and enormous campuses.
REALITY: Megachurches make widespread use of multiple worship services over several days, multiple venues and even multiple campuses.

MYTH #8: All megachurches are nondenominational.
REALITY: The vast majority belong to some denomination.

MYTH #9: All megachurches are homogeneous congregations with little diversity.
REALITY: A large and growing number are multi-ethnic and intentionally so.

MYTH #10: Megachurches grow primarily because of great programming.
REALITY: Megachurches grow because excited attendees tell their friends.

MYTH #11: The megachurch phenomenon is on the decline.
REALITY: The data suggests that many more megachurches are on the way.

Building a band

Whether a church plant or a campus one of the challenges of starting a new congregation is putting together a music team. I recently saw this from Chris Surratt (my brother) on how to build a band and thought I'd pass it along:

We planted Seacoast Church in Greenville, SC just over 17 months ago. I have people all the time, after experiencing one of our services, ask me all how we put together such an awesome band in that short of time (and it is truly one of the best bands I have ever experienced in a church setting!). I usually just tell them that we offer half-off tattoos for new musicians, but I do think there are a few things that you can do to start strong with a band:

1. Find the connector. In every city, there is someone who knows all of the good musicians in town. He may not be the greatest musician or singer, but he has the gift of connecting them together. When we moved to Greenville to plant the church, we knew 2 people. I knew right away that I would have to get someone to help me find a band.

2. Don't be afraid to pay. At least at the beginning, you will probably need to pay a few musicians to get started. This does not have to bust your budget. Most guys do not gig on Sunday mornings, so a small amount of money is a bonus for them. All of the guys that we paid at the beginning are now solid members of our church, and a few them won't accept money for playing now.

3. Let them be musicians. All of us know that musicians are different. I know this because I am one! I have seen so many churches recruit guys and then try to conform them into what they think are proper church musicians. And then they ask me how we manage to have so many in our church! We happen to have guys who like to rock, so our music reflects that. Let your style of music be dictated by who you have, not by who you want to be. Once you get that reputation around town, you will attract more musicians. Good musicians attract good musicians. That is the stage we are at right now. It seems like every week I am introduced to a "new" hot guitar player in our church!

4. Buy a decent sound system. Good musicians love playing in a setting that does it right. That will be money that is well invested for the guys on stage - as well as the people in the audience. We have big speakers and big subs. We like to bounce baby! :)

5. Don't forget to pray. We have purposely prayed for a new bass player before. No need is too small for our God. Actually, this should be #1. Nothing will happen without it!

If you are a multi-site church or church planter how do you build your worship team in the beginning?

How crucial is your tech?

Anthony Coppedge recently left this comment:

I expect quite a few pastors will talk about culture, ministry groups, campus pastors and the like, so I'm not gonna go down that path. Instead, I want to chime in on what I think is an undervalued and underestimated part of the equation for making multi-site work seamlessly: technology.

Now before I get flamed for seemingly putting tech on a pedestal, let me quickly assert that I know the message is what matters. My point is to deliver the message so that the person in the audience forgets that technology is involved at all.

To this end, I see a lot of churches making the move to multi-venue (a prelude to multi-site for many) without the understanding of the costs of technology: Time; People; Equipment. Far too often, the technology "budget" is pulled out of thin air, only to result in shaky camera images that are shown on washed out screens with poor lighting and inadequate audio.

In my experience, the end result is what I call "Distraction on Display, where the issues of picture and audio quality do not allow for the full engagement of the audience. This is not to say that the solutions need to be Gold-plated, but it is a realization that without proper planning and a clear understanding of how the technology will be utilized (and by whom), we can have the best message delivered the wrong way.

Even the grand-daddy church of the multi-venue/multi-site, North Coast Church, is taking serious steps towards upgrading their technologies. Dennis Choy, their technical director and a friend of mine, commented to me recently that his church had "forgotten to re-evaluate the technology and have gotten behind the curve."

So, to answer the original question, I think that one of the key elements to making multi-venue and multi-site excellent will be to use technology that fully enables the "suspension of disbelief" so that the audience forgets they're watching video.

So what do you think? How important is technology to the success of a multi-site church? Is Anthony "putting tech on a pedastal" or is this a crucial issue?