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You may be excited about a multi-site approach, but churches don’t change without good reason. Perhaps you’ve begun to cast a vision for becoming multi-site and have bumped into a skeptical elder, lay leader, or staff member. What follows are some initial steps I’ve seen church leaders take as they explored whether God was calling them to extend their ministry through additional locations.

• Link to history and Scripture. In some ways, the multi-site approach is not new. Some argue that the New Testament church was multi-site in many cities. A case can be made that as church history unfolded, the church had many multi-site expressions: from mission stations, to Methodist circuit riders, to branch Sunday schools done by bus ministry.



• Give your leadership team a firsthand taste. Nothing helps people get excited about a new idea like test-driving it for themselves. Why not give your leaders and congregation an opportunity to experience a multi-site church so that they’re part of the story? You could visit a multi-site model, bring in a guest who has been involved in a multi-site church, tour multi-site churches on the Internet, or try free online surveys and reports found in places like leadnet.org/multisiteresources.



• Emphasize what you're missing. Lyle Schaller stresses that an often-overlooked step in persuasion is to create dissatisfaction with the status quo. As people become aware that the present reality is inadequate, they will want and should receive an understanding of the why. Effective vision-casting clearly articulates the advantages of employing a multi-site strategy in ministry.



• Keep focus on the fruit. “If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves,” says Proverbs 29:18 in the Message paraphrase. Consider the angle Jesus took when John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the real deal. Jesus simply said, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Matthew 11:4-5 NIV). You also might talk about the fruit God is causing in multi-site models you've explored.



• Listen well to trustworthy critics – and pray for discernment. Ask if the criticisms you’re receiving reveal a blind spot in your planning. Whenever possible, pray with your critics. Distrust often melts away when people pray together with open, sincere hearts.



• Review your church’s risk tolerance. An advertisement for Electronic Data Systems shows a group of skilled workers building an airplane as it is flying, with one of them emphasizing, “We’ve got to get this airplane completed before we land!” That describes the multi-site approach of some churches. Others don’t want to launch without a well-mapped plan, from finances to staffing.
  

In assessing how much risk to take when spinning off multiple campuses, the self-diagnostic questions that church leaders tend to ask include:

• How far are we willing to extend ourselves? To other rooms on our campus? Across town? Across our state or province? Around the world?



• How much control will the original campus maintain? Will we birth a branch, a franchise, or a licensee?



• How much permission will we grant an off-site to fail?



• How many people (including leaders and volunteers) need to be in place before we launch a new site?



• How much momentum should we expect to see to determine if a new site is viable?



• How much money will it take to birth the new site, both for the launch stage and then to fund it until it reaches a point of self-support?

Three crucial questions about timing

Will multi-site work for you? While the key criteria is, “What is God saying for your church in your community?” the interviews conducted for our book Multi-Site Church Revolution identified three questions that often determine the success or failure of a church that is launching a new location:

• How healthy is your church? Is your church a great gathering place for people to find their way to God, to be discipled, and to find a place in ministry? Are the members of your church excited about bringing family and friends? Launching a second site will not bring health to an ailing congregation.



• Is there a driving impetus behind your desire to go multi-site? Churches that go multi-site do so because they see no better option for fulfilling God’s purpose for their church. At some churches, the building was packed, they had run out of viable service times, and constructing a larger facility didn’t seem to be the answer. At other churches, there was a sense of mission to go into the next city, into the next county, or across a cultural chasm they had been unable to cross. At still other churches, the congregation had a strong desire to take the ministry of their church into the neighborhoods of the members. In each case, though, multi-site was not seen as merely another program or strategy but rather as a key component in fulfilling a God-inspired vision. Starting a second site without a compelling drive behind it is like trying to give birth without being pregnant.



• Are key leaders behind the decision? Going multi-site can stretch the budget, invite criticism from other churches, and make new demands on church leadership; therefore, to be successful, it is vital that the church’s key leadership be unified and enthusiastic about the decision to go multi-site. While it is difficult to get 100 percent buy-in when moving in a new direction, if the senior leadership is not sold on the concept of being a church with multiple locations, it should be a major warning light.
  

If you’re ready to take your next step, here are a couple additional resources that may help:

• A free self-diagnostic tool, “Should Your Church Go Multi-Site?”
• “Should you plant a church or launch a campus?” from the Ministry Toolbox archive