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Going Multi-site
Photo credits: One church, three sites
King's Church London currently holds five services in three locations. I am often asked what are some of the lessons we have learned through the process of having one church on multiple sites.
I recently posted the following paper on my blog, and hope you will find it a helpful tool.Before outlining some of the lessons we are learning at King’s about our transition to being a multi site church, it is probably helpful to place our journey in context. Following a period of growth that has lasted for over a decade, two major building projects on our Catford site and the establishment of three Sunday meetings (two in the morning and one in the evening), our morning meetings became full again. We considered starting a third meeting on a Sunday morning on the Catford site and concluded the logistics would be very challenging. Such a step would not have been ideal on many counts.
So the impetus to become a multi-site church was initially driven by a lack of space to contain the growth we were seeing - not primarily as a strategy to stimulate further growth. Ideally, as with the move to multiple meetings, multisite initiatives should rise from the need to manage current growth rather than as a means to start growth from a static position.
It was interesting to see that six months after launching two sites, our overall attendance was up 30%, but further, to note that 50% of our new people still came to our Catford 11.30 meeting first - confirming that particular meeting as our current major growth point. At the same time the other two sites also showed encouraging growth signs as they were established. If King’s Church has growth momentum, then becoming a multi-site church has increased the rate of that growth. By launching two new locations 15 minutes’ drive from our existing site, we have opened up a sphere of operation to reach thousands more people.
It would also be helpful to read alongside this the Move to Multiple Meetings paper as many of the principles included in the move to becoming a multi-site church are similar. For example, we aimed to have 140/180 people on the ground in both our Lee and Downham sites at launch just as we had when we began our second and third meetings at Catford.
To see our three sites, take a look at this short video clip from our website.
Why multi-site – why not a church plant?This is a good question and one which needs a good answer! During my sabbatical I had the privilege of shadowing Nicky Gumbel of Holy Trinity Brompton for the day. He took me round his nine meetings on three sites (soon to become four sites) all within cycling distance of each other in West London. Known around the world as the birthplace of the Alpha course; this is an impressive church. It was fun to cycle between the sites in Nicky’s wake and to discuss at length with him the reasoning around going multi-site. While totally committed to church planting, Nicky Gumbel has concluded, as I have, that particularly in urban centres, where appropriate property is so rare and so expensive, the multi-site concept provides a large church with the opportunity to continue to grow, and therefore to build a resource base for its wider vision for reaching the nation and those nations beyond our borders.
Quote from Good to Grow by Steve Tibbert with Val Taylor – published in July 2011 by Authentic Media.
What is the ideal location for a multi-site?
All our reading and research, plus the advice of others with experience in this area, tells us that the ideal location for a further site is 15 minutes’ drive away from the sending church. The new site should have about 140 people attending and ideally living in the area - on the ground as it were - who will carry your DNA into the new site. This gives a core of people to work with, who can provide the care and support for all the new people coming in.
The key issues to consider were:
- distance from the sending/’mother’ church
- critical mass (around 140 people)
- a group of people who know your ways in Christ.
Multi-site: what is the most important decision you will make?
The most important decision is - who is going to be the site leader/ campus pastor. This person needs to own the whole Vision, Values and Philosophy of Ministry of the one church and should be a good team player. This should not be someone who is looking for space to carve out their own thing, i.e. a church planter - or even a frustrated preacher!
What are the critical components that make a new Sunday meeting in a different location work?
As you are encouraging existing attenders/members to relocate from your existing facility to another one, the greatest appeal for them is a location which is close to their home address. This should not be underestimated in urban centres, where travel time is major factor of life. However, the four key components that require attention are:
- Worship
- Preaching
- Kids’ and youth work
- Welcome!
If any of the above do not compare positively to the experience within the sending church context, people will quickly revert back to attending the sending site.
Lastly, don’t forget the appearance of the venue itself. It’s a very important factor - we spent over £200,000 getting both new sites refurbished.
Multi-site: a word about preaching - live or DVD/ live streaming?
At Kings we decided at this first stage to do all the preaching ‘live’ on a Sunday – yes, that’s five times on one day! We stagger the start times for the five meetings so the preacher is able to travel by car between the sites. These cars are driven by trusted helpers so that parking time is not an issue! We are now in the process of installing cameras, recording and projection equipment and our view is that we will move to a combination of live and video preaching when we move to a fourth site or a multiple meeting on our Lee or Downham sites, whichever comes first!
We operate with a preaching team of 4 people, who speak at 42 of the Sundays in a year; on the other 10 Sundays the site-leaders preach. We believe a preaching team provides a more balanced and sustainable teaching experience.
Multi-site: team development
One of the areas we underestimated in the move to multi-site was the impact on our full-time staff and how they operated. As a large church we had transitioned to a place where most of our staff members were specialists. Moving to being a multi-site church has required us to redefine every single role on the pastoral team, and each site is now run by a team who have to operate once more as generalists – at least in the site context. This is a massive change for all involved. It has also meant we have had to review our weekly leadership meeting structure and clarify our lines of authority.
Multi-site: We Are Kings Church…
We are one church, with 3 sites and 5 meetings.
We have one name
We have one vision
We have one set of doctrines and values
We have one eldership
We have one staff team
We have one budget
We have one legal identity
We have one philosophy of ministry
We have one website
Multi-site: where to go for practical help and advice!
On our multi-site journey Jim Tomberlin from Scottsdale, Arizona has been extremely helpful. He is a recognised expert in this area having seen Willow Creek Community Church successfully through its own multi-site strategy. Look at this link – there’s even a free e-book!
FAST FACTS ABOUT MULTISITE – from Jim Tomberlin
• Multi-site churches outnumber megachurches.
• Two-thirds of multi-site churches are denominational.
• Multi-sites reach more people and mobilize more volunteers.
• One in three multi-sites added a campus through a merger.
• One in four multi-sites has a campus in another language.
• One in five multi-sites birthed a “grandchild” campus.
• One in 10 has an Internet campus.
• In-person teaching is utilized more than video.
• Average size of a church going multisite: 850.
• Eighty-five percent of multi-site churches have three or fewer geographic locations.
• Average attendance of a multi-site church: 1,300.
• Multi-site campuses have a 90 percent success rate
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The full version of this paper, including reflections from the leaders of each of our sites, can be found on my blog.
About the author
Steve is the senior pastor of King’s Church in Catford, South East London, UK. Steve started to lead King’s in 1995 and since that time the church has seen continued growth in both size and diversity. He has led the church through two major building projects and they started a second Sunday morning meeting in 2005. As part of the UK team, Steve oversees training and many of the larger Newfrontiers churches in the UK. Steve and his wife Deb have three sons.
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