Neil Cole, author of Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens (a Leadership Network publication), has recently started blogging again, and weighs in with a blog series on the multi-site church model. He describes what it is and some of his concerns regarding reproduction.
- The Multi-Site Church Model, Part 1
"One change that is sweeping through the Western church today is the multi-site model, where one church spins off several branches or sites. ... on a typical Sunday in 2009 some five million people—almost 10 percent of protestant worshippers—attend a multi-site church in the US or Canada. Leaders at some forty-five thousand churches are seriously considering the multi-site approach..." - The Multi-Site Church Model, Part 2
"The idea of satellite church campuses is not new. One could argue that the New Testament is one gigantic multi-site church. Certainly, there are examples of churches in the Bible that are meeting in a variety of locations. ... Could this be the first multi-site church?" - The Multi-Site Church Model, Part 3
"... friends who used to start lots of churches and lately they have resorted instead to starting video venue services with their own sermons beamed in... Where they used to spend a great deal of time training new church planters, now they train campus pastors, and there is a difference. ..." - The Multi-Site Church Model, Part 4
"... When you set out to start a church, if the church is dependent from the beginning upon outside resources and organizations, it is likely that it will never reproduce spontaneously and will not start self-perpetuating groups. ..." - The Multi-Site Church Model, Part 5
"There are some things to like about multi-site that raises up real leaders to actually teach and preach at the satellite venue. At least in that scenario they are still developing leaders, empowering them and sending them out. ... It is the video-venue approach that bothers me most."
What do you think? How can a multi-site church, one church in multiple locations, be a reproducing church?
-- DJ Chuang, a Director at Leadership Network
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