Multi-site Church Road Trip

Fellowship Church's new Uptown location

Fellowship Church in Dallas moved into their new building this past weekend. Campus Pastor Terry Storch gave me a tour a few months ago and I can't believe what they were able to accomplish in such a short period of time. (This building was UGLY) Terry said they almost 2000 on their first weekend in the new building with standing room only at the second service. Here's a report of the first weekend from www.creativepastors.com. This past weekend at Fellowship Church we witnessed a literal move of God, as our Uptown Dallas Campus moved from rented space at a local high school to its brand new home in Downtown Dallas.

What began as an abandoned warehouse has been renovated into a modern church with high ceilings and concrete floors, bustling with singles and young families. We stepped out in faith and purchased the building located in the heart of the booming Arts District of Dallas - we certainly didn't have the cash to do it at the time! But God worked through our church members as they responded generously to the vision of our Town and Country capital campaign and provided the necessary funds.

You can see the story in action with this video clip from a local news station. Taking in the skyline filled with high-rise buildings in each direction gives us a humbling view of the mission field God has placed before us.

Was America’s Earliest Church Multi-Site?

You’ve perhaps heard of Norman Vincent Peale, a minister who popularized a “positive thinking” approach to Christianity, and served as long-time pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. That congregation, formed in 1854, is part of the Dutch Reformed Church – the first and oldest corporation chartered in America– and dates back to 1628, when New Amsterdam was a struggling colony with a population of 250. The name “collegiate” doesn’t refer to a university but to a system of leadership that today we might call a multi-site preaching team. In New York City’s early days four worshipping congregations comprised the Collegiate Church. In those early days the four senior ministers shared the pulpits as “colleagues.” After a 200-year run, the church discontinued this “collegiate system” in 1871 and each congregation stood fully on its own.

Posted by Warren Bird

New Resources

Check out the following two new resources on the Leadership Network website.

Quick Facts: Staffing and Structure
An Overview of Five Approaches to Staffing and Structure used by Multi-Site Churches

A quick comparison of the basic staffing strategies of five multi-site churches. Who does the campus pastor report to? How are new staff found or recruited? These questions and more are illustrated through five specific examples.

AND

Quick Facts: Transferring the DNA
An Overview of Five Different Approaches Taken by Multi-Site Congregations

An at-a-glance comparison of five different churches' s of transferring their DNA - the values and ure of the church - to new sites. Profiles of each church include comparison of their approaches, examples of a major DNA quality, and how leaders learn the DNA.

Video Venue Nothing New

Posted by Warren Bird

One of the most fun aspects of writing a book is the conversations and discoveries that come out of it, many of them after publication. We're delighted to report that the book’s first printing sold out in six weeks, which affirms to us that a lot of people are interested in multi-site.

In one recent conversation about the book Steve Sjogren told me the following. If you don't know him, back in 1983 he was founding pastor of the Cincinnati Vineyard church (www.cincyvineyard.com), he's the author of many books on servant evangelism and most recently "The Day I Died" (Regal, www.dayidied.com), and he is currently a church planter in Florida (www.CoastlandTampa.com) slated for a February 2008 launch.

He's a great person to use technology for the Kingdom. He's actually the first person I knew who created a webpage (this was back in the early 1990s).

When I first visited the church, the Cincinatti Vineyard was holding 8 services a week in an old Baptist church that was built to seat a maximum of 500 people, but they figured out how to fit over 1,000 people (including children) in each service, if necessary, praying that the local fire marshal wouldn't make a surprise visit one weekend (he never did in the 9 years they were there).

One way they made it meaningful for all their worshipers was something they called a "Video Cafe."  They put a high powered LCD projector in their basement which held about 300 people, and they provided fresh bagels, freshly squeezed orange juice, a variety of cream cheeses and other extras not available in the main sanctuary. Many actually preferred to go to the video service instead of coming upstairs where the speaker was in-person.

That was in about 1994, which means the video venue idea has been around for longer than we realized. Maybe we'll learn of even more examples of early video venues as people contact us!

Book excerpt on Pastors.com

  Rick Warren's Ministry Toolbox reprinted an excerpt from The Multi-site Church Revolution this week. You can read the entire article here at pastors.com. If you don't already get the Ministry Toolbox you can subscribe here. It is one of the best free resources on the internet for anyone who is involved in ministry. (And not just because they quoted our book. But it helped)

Multi-site Student Ministry and Arts Ministry

A while back we introduced you to a new blog for kids created by the Community Christian Church team.  In recent days the gang at CCC have launched two new blogs - one for multi-site student ministry and one for multi-site arts ministry.   Hope you'll join these conversations as well.

Ministering to the Masses

How do you reach the people in your city with one church when your city encompasses the largest land mass of any US city?  That's the challenge that Celebration Church faced when they decided to go multi-site.  Celebration currently has three locations and will soon launch a fourth.  For now, Celebration is NOT cramped for space at the original campus like many churches that adopt this approach.  Instead they are driven by a vision to reach their entire city and realize that can't be done through a single location.  Celebration currently serves 5000 people in 7 services with 3 venues at 3 sites.  Important to note - conversion growth at the satellite campuses is higher than the original campus.  So indeed, they are reaching the masses not just consolidating them!

And I thought Texans took football seriously!

Another of the churches that is participating in the fifth group of the Multi-site Churches Leadership Community is RiverTree Christian Church in Massillon, OH.  At our recent meeting, the staff at RiverTree was only joking a little when they said that their multi-site strategy was predicated on the fact that people won't drive to another part of the city to attend church if it means crossing over into rival football territory.  Of course real football fans totally get that.  RiverTree's original campus provides apostolic oversite for the movement of mid-size faith communities they plan to multiply throughout their region using video venues.  Currently, RiverTree serves 2600 people in 5 services with 2 venues at 2 sites.  Written on the whiteboard next to their church name - "We want to make it hard to go to hell in Ohio!"  You go RiverTree!

Others talk about "boundaries" that define areas of their community - in Charleston at Seacoast it is the bridges that cross from one area of town to another; in Denver at Pathways, Ron Johnson speaks of distinct neighborhoods that have differing needs and therefore differing styles of ministry that can be addressed through use of a multi-site program.

How and why does it work in your world?

What about "traditional churches?"

We recently got this question from one of the folks that attended the recent Multi-Site Coast to Coast Conference. "The one thing we had trouble getting a feel for was track records for traditional churches going multi site.  We are 175 years old and many in the church are very set in their ways.  However, we really feel the Lord pulling us into multi site.  Is there any information out there for established, traditional churches that will give us a true insight to what we may be headed for? 

Our thoughts: 

1. Draw from your heritage as you pitch multi-site. For example, one of the United Methodist endorsements of the Multi-site Church Revolution (opening page) makes an analogy between what John Wesley did in taking the church to the people and what multi-site represents. Another quote in the book by Craig Groeschel, who grew up Methodist, likens horseback circuit riders of yesteryear to video "closed circuit" riders of today.

2. Emphasize what will not change. For many people, changed is spelled L-O-S-S. There is understandable fear of what will be taken away. You can give many assurances that will help people know that they will not lose certain relationships and patterns that are meaningful to them. 

3. Invite the existing congregation to have first-hand involvement in the excitement of the new. Don't position your multi-site initiatives as being disconnected from your existing ministries. The closer you bring your existing leaders to the front lines, the more sense of ownership they'll sense.

4. Tell stories of traditional churches that went multi-site with success For example, retell the touching story from the book about the United Methodist Church in Sedalia,  Missouri. We purposely told many stories of established, denominational churches in the book to affirm that established, traditional churches can become multi-site with good success.

5. Go forward only as fast as you can go on your knees in prayer. People want to have confidence that they are not going ahead of God. Don't wait for unanimous consensus, but do enlist your opinion leaders to be primary prayer champions of your multi-site dream.

These were our thoughts.  What advice would you offer?

How the Questions Are Changing

What multi-site questions are being asked now that weren't being voiced two years ago? Answer: lots! Current hot topics range from leadership DNA to organizational design, according to Troy McMahon, campus pastor, and Jon Ferguson, community pastor and teacher, both at Community Christian Church, Naperville, IL (www.communitychristian.org). This interview, Download how_multisite_questions_are_changingccc.mp3 conducted in May at the Coast-to-Coast Multi-Site Conference, occurred just after a message from Dave Fergson who is lead pastor at Community Christian, and refers to it. Leadership Network's Dave Travis conducts the interview, and the first speaker is Troy McMahon. Length -- 4:36.