Sermon Central
|
The Coming Multi-Site Church Revolution
At least 1,000 churches across North America could currently be described as multi-site—churches (one vision, one staff, one board, one budget) that extend themselves to more than one location—across town, the state or around the world. On Sunday morning at Seacoast Church in Charleston, S.C., (seacoastchurch.org) a worship band launches into a hard-driving chorus as a video projects lyrics and background images on screens and TV monitors throughout the auditorium. The congregation stands to sing along with the worship leader. The experience describes a typical contemporary church’s worship service on any given weekend in America. However, in South Carolina, this scene happens 17 different times over the same weekend in nine locations around the state. All sites are known as Seacoast Church. Using numerous bands and worship leaders, Seacoast’s 17 near-identical weekend services represent the new look of a church that chose not to fight city hall to construct a bigger building. Instead, the church has continued to reach new people by developing additional campuses. The unifying factors to these six on-site venues are the message (one venue features in-person preaching, and the rest use a videocast) and weekly adult “growth” groups whose discussion questions center on the sermon everyone heard, regardless of the venue they attended. North Coast has now developed multiple venues on additional campuses, so that on a typical weekend this month, worshippers chose between 20 (fact ck) different services spread across four [fc] campuses. At Community Christian Church in Chicago (communitychristian.org) , six different drama teams perform the same sketch at six different suburban locations. Then up to three different teachers deliver a message either live or by video they've all worked on together. Across the country, these churches, and hundreds more like them are discovering a new model for doing church. Going beyond additional service times and larger buildings, churches are expanding into multiple venues and locations—and as a result are reaching people they’d never meet otherwise, including diverse ethnicities and age groups. According to Dallas-based Leadership Network’s (leadnet.org) research, at least 1,000 churches across North America could currently be described as multi-site—churches (one vision, one staff, one board, one budget) that extend themselves to more than one location—across town, the state or around the world. And early indicators show that these multi-site models are more evangelistic than single-site campuses, says church researcher Thom Rainer. In the July/August issue of Outreach magazine, Rainer called this move to multiple services a “new American Church trend.” WHAT’S FUELING THE TREND? On several Leadership Network surveys, lack-of-space issues was the most cited trigger reason for launching multiple campuses or venues. Churches have discovered or are starting to discover that the multi-site model can be the solution to meeting space and parking issues for churches that don’t want to launch a massive building campaign or find themselves landlocked. Space issues were the primary reasons North Coast launched its first venue. “We wanted to create an overflow room that would be a reward rather than a punishment” Osborne explains. “We hoped that a few (5%) of our current attendees would prefer it over the sanctuary environment. By the second week, we realized we had a tiger by the tail, and our church would never be the same.” In addition to space, lack of human resources is also fueling the trend. Growing churches that must add services to make room for people soon discover they don’t have the manpower to accommodate numerous services. Weekends start to spell burnout for pastors, worship teams, children’s ministry volunteers, tech crews, etc. Launching simultaneous services, such as video venues, or building leadership teams at other sites can give overloaded staff and volunteers a much-needed break through new talent that emerges. Still, the multi-site revolution continues to be motivated by an increasing number of churches desiring to reach the unchurched around them. Results from Leadership Network’s 2003 survey of 1,000 multi-site churches showed that “evangelistic outreach” is the dominant motivator for employing a multi-site or multi-venue approach. For Community Christian Church, its first site launch was motivated by a desire to reach more of its community when a new Christian in the congregation asked the leadership, “How can we get the kind of community we have here in church into the real estate developments I’m building?” The answer? Take the church to the people. NOT JUST A MEGACHURCH THING The multi-site movement isn’t confined to the suburbs or to the opening of new locations for growing churches. From rural to urban settings, churches facing the prospect of closure due to dwindling membership are being revitalized as they become a satellite campus of a growing congregation elsewhere in their city. “There is no one type,” says Community Christian’s Ferguson. “They are large and small churches, established and new, denominational and non-denominational, urban, suburban and rural. The common denominator is a missional mindset and a reproducing apostolic ethos.” Osborne adds that North Coast has worked with hundreds of congregations of all sizes and denominations at the church’s annual video venues conference. “We’ve seen all types of churches using this model,” he says “The only necessary ingredient is a ministry that’s growing and vibrant enough to reach out beyond a single service or a localized neighborhood.” MULTI-SITE CHALLENGES In their book, Beyond the Box (Group), church growth researchers Bill Easum and Dave Travis identify some of the most common and critical obstacles, but staffing issues, they say, top the list. “In every case we’ve seen, staffing the multi-site church is a significant challenge…. Multi-sites also require a higher competency level among all staff than is found in most single-site congregations…. The core staff must be more like ‘athletic directors.’ They aren’t just coaches or great athletes. They know how to oversee coaches who run teams.” Church leaders agree with the authors’ assessment. While leadership development seems to be in the top five for churches of every size, style and stripe, it’s especially crucial for multi-site congregations. Bobby Gruenewald, pastor/new campus development leader for LifeChurch.tv in Edmund, Okla., which runs 23 services on five campuses, is fairly typical in this observation. “The leadership aspect has been by far the most challenging for us, and we initially thought that other dimensions would be more difficult,” he says. In Orlando, Fla., the second site for Discovery Church (discoverychurch.org), Discovery South, struggles with volunteer recruitment, says Jay Mander, director of operations. Technical volunteers are spread thin, as well as children’s ministry volunteers. “Here, it’s hard to find technical volunteers; they’re usually working for one of the theme parks,” Mander explains. “And our children’s ministry happens during the service, which means that volunteers miss the service completely or have to go to an earlier service on the main campus. They’re real issues you have to commit to struggling with if you’re going to do this.” For Fellowship Missionary Church in Fort Wayne, Ind., ( early technical problems were the greatest challenge, and those glitches resulted in low turnout for the church’s video venue initially designed to reach an emerging generation. “We weren’t really technically there before we launched,” says Kirk McKinley, the church’s technical director. “People said they felt disconnected from the rest of the congregation, but I think it was the technical glitches we had.” Some churches have discovered that a multi-site approach just doesn’t work for their church’s culture. Since 1992, Northwood has daughtered 87 autonomous churches throughout the Fort Worth, Texas, area. Roberts often reminds his leadership and congregation: “Our goal is to church the area—not be the biggest church in the area.” “That revolutionizes everything we do,” Fowler says. “Instead of additional sites, we plant churches.” THE POWER OF MULTIPLICATION From all early indications, the “one church, multiple locations” model is, as a whole, evangelistic in nature. Reports of conversion growth from numerous multi-site churches indicate that something is working well. The story is the same from those wary of “established religion” and large, polished services, but are willing to come back to these same churches in one of their multi-site expressions. As they begin to grow beyond the four walls of the box they built, churches are discovering the power of multiplication. “Previously we had two options for accomplishing the mission of Jesus—church growth or church planting. Multi-site is now a third option,” says Community Christian’s Ferguson. The Chicago church is seeing people come to Christ as it extends its arm farther into the surrounding community. When Community Christian launched its third site at the active senior adult lifestyle community, the church added a senior ministry specialist. The whole church (every location) benefited from the added expertise. “Last year at our Carillon site, we celebrated the baptisms of more than a dozen people; all of them more than 70 years old,” he says. Water of Life Community Church in Fontana, Calif. (wateroflifecc.org), has also looked for ways to serve its community since the church installed its video venues equipment, says Zac Coaston, director of media technology. “By offering our video capabilities to our community, we think we’re serving people well with what God has given us,” Coaston says. “We’re introducing them to our church—more importantly we’re showing them Christ.”
|
|
Submit your response to articles@semoncentral.com and we'll take it from there! |