Reflections

Multi-Site Exposed--The Leadership Pipeline

I caught Greg Surratt, Sr. Pastor of Seacoast Community Church, in the hallway in between sessions at last month's Multi-Site Exposed conference. I had to confirm something that I heard in a break-out session. "Greg, did I hear Chris correctly? I thought he said you have planted 68 churches and started 13 multi-sites in the last 6 years?" To which Greg replied, "Yep. That's correct!" He went on to say that they started ARC (Association of Related Churches) to oversee the church planting portion of what they are doing. Greg's vision, together with a number of churches and leaders who have joined the network is to start 2,000 new churches as their life's work.

68 church plants. 13 new multi-sites. 6 years. This has become way more than a dream. It is a vision. A picture of a preferable future that is attracting people to participate, sacrifice, and make a reality. There are many contributing factors to this success, but to me there is none greater than their ability to intentionally inspire and prepare leaders to move out courageously to make this vision a reality. 

At Seacoast they have developed "The Leadership Pipeline". They ended up moving all of their leadership training to on-line modules that leaders could go through at their own pace. The program is designed so that the "trainee" meets with his or her coach after completing a module. They discuss the topic and explore ways to apply what they have learned to their specific situation. The strength of this approach is obvious. The church enjoys a standard curriculum, that is easily accessible, that can be completed at the "trainee's" own pace, that is application oriented, and is done in conjunction with coaching!

In this case a "high tech" solution actually moves us closer to a Biblical model. As John Maxwell said Jesus had an "IDEA" for preparing leaders. "Instruction" in a life-related context. "Demonstration" in a life related context. "Experience" in a life related context. And "Accountability" in a life related context. Mark puts it this way, "And Jesus chose who he wanted to be with him, that he might send them out to preach." (Mark 3:14). Ministry was learned by being WITH him. With the Seacoast model, the instruction is something they can apply as leaders. And by being "with" a coach, leaders in training get the benefit of demonstration, experience, and accountability. Cool. A 21st Century approach, with 1st Century results!

Multi-Site Exposed

Monday and Tuesday my wife, Jill, and I attended the Multi-Site Exposed conference held at Seacoast Community Church in Charleston, SC. I really enjoyed learning from some of the pioneers of this strategy. I particularly was encouraged to hear that Seacoast has started 13 multi-site locations and has started 65 new churches in the last 6 years. Whoa.

I'll be posting some of the take-aways. Today, it's about leadership. This is a consistent message in everything I hear and read about multi-site: The single greatest correlating factor in a successful site comes back to the Campus Pastor. Here is what Seacoast staff have leaned about the characteristics of a successful Campus Pastor...

5 Behaviors of Successful Campus Pastor

• Enthusiastic visionary leadership, inspires others to own the ministry, and someone who can carry the church DNA
• Great team builder who spends time with people 
• Self-starter, resourceful, and has a managerial work ethic 
• Genuine care for people 
• Good communicator (shares about 5 times per year live). Must be able to sell the vision. 

5 Behaviors That Will Sink the Ship

• Unavailable to people or other staff
• Non-delegator 
• Inflexibility 
• Laziness 
• Lack of passion

Obviously, to have started 13 multi-site locations and 65 new churches in 6 years, Seacoast is doing something very intentional about developing these kinds of leaders. They shared what they do in the session they called "The Leadership Pipeline". That will be the next entry... 

And for those interested, the presenters suggested that the main difference between a Campus Pastor and a Church Planter came down to their gifting and desires in the area of teaching. While Campus Pastors need to be very good communicators, the church planter's need to be gifted (to lead an attractional style church.) 

I would suggest it also comes down to two other things. First, are they passionate about teaching weekly? (Which often comes hand in hand with gift.) A campus pastor may simply prefer to take the 20 hours of sermon prep time and pour that into people and ministry development. Another reason seems to me to be the leader's level of desire to either stick with the ministry style/ brand of the sending church or to branch out with a different ministry strategy, approaches, theological emphasis', etc. A new ministry model will likely mean a new church. Either way, more churches get started, and more people are being reached. 

 

Keys to Successful Church Plants & (Multi-sites?)

I spent 17 years in a church planting movement and eventually served as its President for 9 years. I had the opportunity to recruit, train, mobilize, and coach (and learn from) church planters from all over the world. In addition to coaching others, I was personally involved in starting 4 new churches. Out of these experiences, I created a training program for church planters and taught it around the world. I believe there are Five BIG Areas that contribute to successful launches. Here's what I've learned:

1. LEADERSHIP. I like this quote from Erwin Raphael McManus in the book "The Multi-Site Revolution"; “The challenge, of course, is leadership. No matter what your strategy, leadership is always the primary issue.” It is imperative for the leader to be affirmed as someone who is gifted, trained, and ready for this challenging endeavor. I've also seen how coaching can play a big role in helping support the overall effort.

2. TEAM. While some, like Rick Warren, are able to show up in a new city "all by their lonesome", the likelihood of a successful launch increases dramatically by having a core team of proven and gifted individuals on board from the start. Let me qualify this by saying: A bigger core team is better ONLY IF the team members are at a point of spiritually stability and health. In the early days, everyone has to be very outward in their focus and will be called up to lead the various ministry functions. If they need some special TLC at this point in their lives, it's best to NOT be a part of the initial launch.

3. MINISTRY STRATEGY. This is all about how church is done. Does the ministry strategy flow from the Scriptures and does it really meet the need of the people in the community?

4. FACILITIES and LOCATION. It's important to be in a facility that "fits"...Not too big...Not too small...Has adequate children's ministry space...Is accessible...And is in a location that is growing and/ or has a need for a new church.

5. BUDGET. Too often new church starts are under-funded. This ends up resulting in all kinds of strains on the church planting effort, like not having enough equipment or children's ministry props. Or it limits the options for finding the right facility in the right location. Or even worse, it doesn't allow the pastor to be freed up time-wise to focus on the work of starting the church.

This is a pretty good summary of what I've learned from my church planting days. Now I have the challenge of leading the multi-site effort for Summit Church. While I don't have multi-site experience; I sense, based on all that I am reading, that there are many parallels to what we have learned from the church planters. I'm looking forward to this new challenge and application!

Multi-site Webinar

I'll be heading to the Multi-site Exposed conference later in September. To prepare us for the conference, they hosted a Webinar with the speakers from the Chicago conference. (I will hear three different speakers at the Charleston conference.) A few things stood out to me...

When asked what their greatest challenge was, Dave Ferguson answered said, "The challenge of raising new leaders and artists." He's learned their church has to be very intentional about that. They do this in two ways. First, they encourage all staff and volunteers leaders to have an apprentice--to be intentional about replacing themselves. Second, they have a monthly leadership community for vision casting and equipping.

When asked what they would do differently, Dave Fergusen's answer stood out to me. "I would start with 6 campus pastors and 6 artisans who were all ready to go from the beginning of the church and start a new campus within the first 18 months." Here it is again. Leadership. Also I see in this response, once you learn how to do one campus, seems like the next campuses are not far behind.

When asked are they reaching more people as a result of multi-site, Mark Jobe made a great point. He differentiated between multi-site strategy and the value of evangelism and discipleship. The point is that if you own and practice the value you will carry evangelism and discipleship into the multi-site strategy. If you don't own the value in your DNA, it won't show up in the multi-site. Multi-site simply gives us access to new and more people.

When asked about the characteristics of a campus pastor, as Mark spoke this is what I typed: "Campus pastor vs. Teacher. Oversees operation. Connects people into small groups. Administrative. Yet, shepherding. Connecting, integrating, overseeing ministries. Test them: faithful, available, spirit-filled, teachable. Guys who have a trail of God activity. Proven people. Vision buy in. High energy and self motivated."

When asked if they are all using video teaching: we got three different approaches (which emphasizes that there is no cookie-cutter formula to multi-site.) Dave said that it depends. If the demographic of the campus is similar to the place of the live teaching, then yes. However, in their Spanish-speaking locations, they have a Spanish-speaking pastor live. Mark said that currently, they are all live teachings at each campus, given by the campus pastor. The teaching team prepares the SAME message all together during the week. Finally, Jim Downing said that he preaches four services at the different locations on a weekend.

Leadership Factor

Leadership. It is often the difference maker.

I am beginning to get educated about a relatively new phenomenon for church expansion. It is called multi-site. Although new, multi-site church is rapidly moving beyond a "new phenomenon" and is quickly becoming a "revolution"--with over 2,000 churches currently doing some form of multi-site today.

I'll be posting thoughts, musings, and reflections as I work my way through various material in hopes of leading Summit Church toward its first multi-site.

Everything I have read so far is confirming an old axiom that has served me well in both church and marketplace endeavors: leadership is a major difference maker--and often the determining factor in success.

"The selection of the campus pastor is the single most important decision that will be made at each campus." --Jon Ferguson (Founding Pastor at Community Christian Church in Naperville, Ill.--Willow Magazine Spring 2008).

In this edition of the Willow Magazine they featured 8 case studies. Here is what some of the church leaders identified as essential characteristics of effective campus leaders:

- Spiritual maturity
- Leaders who already are influencing people
- Proven effectiveness in multiplying themselves into other leaders
- Committed to small groups and have multiplied small groups
- Entrepreneurial with strong leadership gift (outward focused, self starter and willing to take risks)
- Pastor's heart for people
- Team builder who can rally people to a cause and engender participation
- All the characteristics of a church planter (See Dr. Charles Riddley)
- Someone who understands and has caught the overall culture of the church and its DNA
- Able to communicate and inspire, but willing to NOT be the weekly teacher
- Loyal, teachable/ coachable