Multi-site Church Road Trip

How to answer multi-site church questions

Spotted in Jim Tomberlin's ThirdQuarterConsulting.com Multi-Sightings e-newsletter:

"Hope Community Church in Raleigh, North Carolina is one of those churches seizing the opportunity by launching two campuses this fall. Check out the great video of the Multi-Site Town Hall meeting where senior pastor Mike Lee cast the vision with executive pastor Dave Patchin. They introduced the campus pastor and fielded questions from the congregation. One of the best multi-site envisioning experiences I have witnessed. Watch and learn!"

This is a great example of explaining to normal people in a congregation about launching a multi-site campus (aka satellite location). Watch the Town Hall videos: part 1 and part 2. The town hall presented a great deal of relevant details, covering the why, the how, the costs, and also answered people's questions, with a good dose of laughter and joy. Funniest comment I heard about why start a new location, in order to bring church to the people, instead of the other way around: "Jesus could be pastoring 30 minutes away and I'm still not going to go... I'd listen to the podcast."

In addition to the town hall, there's also a web page with frequently asked questions and more info about Hope's Multi-Site Initiative.

Know of other great online resources for how churches have communicated with a congregation about launching a second location, in essence changing from a typical one-campus church to a multi-site church? Add a comment and share!

// DJ Chuang is a Director at Leadership Network, launching digital initiatives, and connecting multi-site churches and Asian American pastors.

Could video mean the end of preaching?

The cover story of Next-Wave Ezine this month was an article by Bob Hyatt, "Video Venues: The Death of Preaching." This is an excerpt of his concerns:

The technology that once enhanced the preaching of others, influenced and enriched it? It's making it superfluous. Start up churches and smaller churches that used to have a team of three or four elders (or in our case, seven) who would be called on to teach on a regular basis now have a video screen and a "campus pastor" that gets to preach at most once a month.

... there will be fewer and fewer men and women (most certainly fewer women) who ever learn to preach, who ever get the experience of working with others to discern what God is saying to their local body through Spirit and Word and prayerfully struggle through how they can creatively communicate that as well over the course of weeks, months and years of life together.

We're talking about the death of preaching in evangelicalism by all but a small handful of Celebrity Communicators who have little knowledge about those they teach from such far distances.

... Please understand: I recognize that the vast majority of those engaged in video venues have, at their core, a passion for seeing people come to know, love, and follow Jesus.

Read the full article for the full context of Bob's perspectives. No doubt that video teaching is connecting with thousands of people all over, and it's proven to be an effective tool to reach many. And, granted, no single tool will reach everyone.

Should church leaders be concerned for the overuse of video teaching? What do you think? How can the next wave of gifted communicators be trained?

// DJ Chuang is a Director at Leadership Network, launching digital initiatives, and connecting multi-site churches and Asian American pastors.

a different kind of multi-site church

Last week, I attended the PCA Multi-Site Church Planters Conference hosted by Harbor Presbyterian Church in San Diego, California. The conference was an excellent opportunity to get a detailed look at the very unique multi-site model at Harbor.

Harbor describes itself as one church in multiple locations. Harbor is a "vine" (one church) with several "peapods" (congregations) and each peapod could have 2 or 3 "peas" (sites). Each church planting pastor starts a peapod that is connected to the vine. Harbor as one church has its leadership oversight by one board, and is organized as one corporation, one membership roll, and one budget.

The congregations are together in a movement with shared vision and values, while each congregation has a pastor that leads and shepherds its members in a community. And as one church with centralized administration, that frees up the (church planting) pastor to do the work of ministry.

Two of the biggest advantages I noticed as I learned more about this multi-site model is that each congregation's pastor is empowered to contextualize its strategies and tactics so that their congregation can more deeply engage its community. The pastor lives in the community, and the pastor provides live preaching and teaching. This means each site has a different look and feel, a vibe that fits the neighorhood, and yet a shared vision to love & serve the city, being a part of something bigger.

One more thing to note. When a site reaches about 150 in size, that a signal to explore launching another site. Harbor acts on its conviction that 10 churches of 150 is stronger than 1 church of 1,500.

And a comment about the conference. The schedule factored in more time between sessions so people could talk with each other. Conference materials were posted online for download, and there weren't stacks of xeroxed handouts picked up at registration. Power strips at every table and an open wireless internet connection made the conference very tech friendly.

Is this the only church with this kind of a multi-congregational + multi-site model? Please add a comment if you know of other churches that have a model like this.

[update] also see Sam DeSocio's notes from about Harbor's model

// DJ Chuang is a Director at Leadership Network, launching digital initiatives, and connecting multi-site churches and Asian American pastors.

Hitchhiker's Guide to Multi-Site event, April 4-5 in Chicago

Hitchhiker's Guide to Multi-Site

Take a look at multi-site church planting from the inside out. Know what it really feels like to be "one church with multiple locations".

April 4-5, 2009 at Community Christian Church (Naperville, IL)
Special Children / Students Focus

Get a closer hands-on look at their monthly all-leader gathering, campus visits, handling logistics, portable church setup, inner workings of a Celebration service, and more.

More info at New Thing's website >>

A Multi-site Church Road Trip

Recently Greg Ligon, Dr Warren Bird and I (Geoff Surratt) sat down to discuss our new book, A Mutli-site Church Road Trip coming out from Zondervan this fall...

A Multi-site Church Road Trip from Geoff Surratt on Vimeo.

full text of live blog from PCA Multi-Site Conference

The following is the full text from the live-blogging of the PCA Multi-Site Conference hosted by Harbor Presbyterian Church in San Diego. Posted here in its entirety for easier reading / browsing, in chronological order.

• 2:11 PM: djchuang I'll be live-blogging from the PCA Multi-Site Conference at North Coast Presbyterian Church in Encinitas, CA
• 3:54 PM: djchuang on stage now: Russ Kapusinski bringing the devotional today and tomorrow
• 4:02 PM: djchuang Russ: we've got to maintain a Gospel imagination... dance & celebrate what Christ has done for us
• 4:12 PM: djchuang (Doug Swagerty now on stage; he is senior pastor of Harbor Presbyterian Church in San Diego - a multi-congregational multi-site church)
• 4:14 PM: djchuang conference materials are available online for download at harboruptown.org/conference-materials-for-download/

How to develop an affordable multi-site strategy

Geoff Surratt's article, "How to develop an affordable multi-site strategy," was featured in a recent edition of Rick Warren's Ministry Toolbox. Here's some highlights:

... Over the past seven years Seacoast has been able to open 12 sites by holding to an economical (i.e. cheap) model of opening new sites. During this process we have discovered several factors that determine the financial model for a multi-site church.

Factors to consider:

1. How far will the new location be from the original site?
2. How many locations do you plan to open?
3. How large is the auditorium at the new site?
4. How many people do you expect to come from the original site?

In addition to these factors we have also discovered several practical ways to make multi-site affordable for almost any church. ... Here are several money-saving ideas:

1.  Discover the good enough line.
2.  Stretch existing staff rather than making new hires.
3.  Utilize part-time staff.
4.  Find creative facility solutions.

Read the full article to get the context and examples of how these factors and ideas can play out. What other factors or ideas do you have for doing multi-site "on the cheap" ?

Live-blogging from PCA Multi-Site Conference

I'm live-blogging from the PCA Multi-Site Church Planting Conference today and tomorrow.

// DJ Chuang is a Director at Leadership Network, launching digital initiatives, and connecting multi-site churches and Asian American pastors.

distinctives of denominational multi-site churches

For a denominationally-affiliated church to launch additional campus locations, as in a multi-site church, there may be particularities of denominational governance and polity that makes it different than non-denominational churches. From what I know, there are multi-site churches in many denominations, including United Methodist, Presbyterian (both PCA and PCUSA), Southern Baptist, Evangelical Covenant, and others.

Yet, there are times when a church's leadership may decide to change its denominational affiliation to be more strategic or more effective for its ministry vision. Of course, transitions and changes are rarely ever easy when it comes to churches and denominations. Some people will misunderstand.

One church's leadership decided to leave its denominational ties under apparently good terms. This is an excerpt from The Wichita Eagle article, "Worshippers attend two GracePoint churches after congregation splits":

Two GracePoint churches worshipped in buildings three miles apart Sunday.

Several hundred people -- church leaders said more than 700 -- attended the first worship "experiences" at GracePoint Community Church at Northwest High School. The non-denominational church formed when leaders of GracePoint United Methodist Church left the denomination last week.

Meanwhile, GracePoint United Methodist church had its service as usual in the auditorium of Maize South Middle School. More than 150 people attended, including visitors who came to support the church. The church had a Sunday attendance of about 700 before the split.

The Methodist congregation greeted its new minister, the Rev. Steve Spencer, with applause.

"I can tell you today there is going to be a solid foundation for ministry at GracePoint," Spencer told the UMC congregation. "Good things are ahead."

At Northwest, the Methodist church's former pastor, Bryson Butts also received applause when he talked about a "special day" of coming together for the first time as GracePoint Community Church.

On another note, Pastor Bryson Butts of the new GracePoint Community Church blogged about his thoughts behind the change:

We want to reach people far from Jesus Christ and have plans for multiple locations. A non-denominational structure will allow us the liberty to spread the message of Jesus - and our campuses - across the city.

... We are all on the same team when it comes to reaching people who do not know Jesus Christ. ... our competition is all the other things people have to do with their time, not other churches! There is well over 60% of people in Wichita who are not in church on Sunday mornings. No one will reach all of them.  We want to partner with anyone and everyone who has a passion to reach people for Christ. Let’s work together to set off a revolution by starting more new churches all over this city.

Each denomination does have its own distinctives. This might be over-generalizing, but it seems to me that denominations often provides additional resources and support, yet may not have as much flexibility or fluidity as an independent non-denominational church.

What success stories have you heard of denominational churches effectively launching additional multi-site locations? How can a local church that's going multi-site better navigate within a denominational structure?

// DJ Chuang is a Director at Leadership Network, launching digital initiatives, and connecting multi-site churches and Asian American pastors.

Know of multi-site churches at the YMCA?

My colleagues here at Leadership Network are working on a new multi-site book, and want to mention multi-site churches that have a campus at a YMCA. Do you know of a multi-site church that meets in a YMCA as one of its campuses?

Replies received by Monday, March 9th, will be included in the new book! Add a comment here or email greg.ligon@leadnet.org -- thank you!

[photo credit: lobstar28 @ flickr]

// DJ Chuang is a Director at Leadership Network, launching digital initiatives, and connecting multi-site churches and Asian American pastors.

My colleagues here at Leadership Network are working on a new multi-site book, and want to mention multi-site churches that have a campus at a YMCA. Do you know of a multi-site church that meets in a YMCA as one of its campuses?

Replies received by Monday, March 9th, will be included in the new book! Add a comment here or email greg.ligon@leadnet.org -- thank you!

[photo credit: lobstar28 @ flickr]

// DJ Chuang is a Director at Leadership Network, launching digital initiatives, and connecting multi-site churches and Asian American pastors.