Multi-Site Churches: Part 2
Following up from Part 1…
In my ministry, it is the getting there that has been the great thing, not the arriving. In the same way multi-site is a vehicle; it is not the destination. So, be careful not to covet multi-site. It is extremely complex. It is very draining. It is a ton of work.
Personally it has been a struggle to adjust to the diminishment of my role in shepherding a flock. I love the people that I am preaching to and frankly there is just something unsatisfying and not authentic about rushing away from the people that you just poured your heart out to so you can make it to another service at another site. It is also a challenge to feel like a pastor in a church that you never see and that only sees you on video.
Multi-site as a focus has a lot of merit and we have done it, but it is also important that it does not diminish the hard work of reproducing ourselves in the lives of others. Some people are uniquely gifted to preach, but I really believe that the principles of communicating God’s Word are transferable to other gifted people. We have to be careful that when we are perpetuating satellites that we are not really saying, “It is all reproducible except me.” That would be an abdication of our responsibility to do the harder work of raising up others.
Theologically I have no hesitation with multi-site. In fact, when I am up preaching, I will often say, “I’m glad that you are here today wherever you are worshiping. It doesn’t matter where I am. All that matters is where you are and where God is, and He is right with you now as we open God’s Word together.” The manifest presence of God in the corporate gathering of His people is significant, not the physical location of the mouthpiece, so to speak.
There is definitely a multi-location dynamic to the church in Acts. And I don’t see anything in Scripture that forbids it. And technology allows it and abundant fruitfulness tends to force it and church planting doesn’t protect us from it. We arrived at it reluctantly because we can’t discount it from Scripture.
As churches consider becoming multi-site, they must first be drawn into multi-site through an abundant fruitfulness at your single location. There should be evidence that there is demand for your ministry that exceeds the capacity of your current geographical location or facilities. If there isn’t enough demand for your ministry to fill one building, who are you kidding? There won’t be more demand on the other side of town either.
Second, if you are experiencing some kind of abundance by God’s grace, then you must consider the best way to steward that abundance. For Harvest, that stewardship meant doing several other things before we utilized multi-site. We had reached the limitation of a facility that was really full four times each Sunday, and we were planting churches and it still did not solve the growth of our church. Only then, when an opportunity came to continue to grow the fruitfulness that we were experiencing, did we become multi-site.
Without the experience of seeing the abundance and stewarding the abundance at your single site, just going into adding sites because everyone else is doing it could be a really bad decision.
Categorized as: From James, Harvest Bible Chapel, Ministry
