Dave Ferguson on Multi-Site Churches

I recently attended at a multi-site church conference. I found a session given in part by Dave Ferguson, the Lead Pastor at Community Christian Church in Chicago, Illinois, particularly helpful. During his portion he explained the seven moves they want to see happen before they launch another church site (they now have 8 operating in the Chicago area). These are good principles for adding venues, adding new sites, and planting churches. In my opinion, every church should be doing at least one of these in order to be biblically missional.

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THE SEVEN MOVES

1. A GOD THING

Be observant to where God is at work in the lives of your people and then join him there. If the “God thing” comes first, then that makes the vision compelling. One example of this is if you have a work that is particularly fruitful in a specific region of town (perhaps a free medical clinic, social program, or small group network) then that is where you should consider adding a new site.

2. VISION

Here are three ways to communicate vision to your people…

• STORIES: Tell lots of stories about how God is at work
• SLOGANS: Their slogan is “Helping people find their way back to God.” Slogans like this unify and motivate people around a specific vision.
• STUMP SPEECH: When you are preparing to pitch a new site addition to your congregation, train your leaders to present a 2 minutes speech, which explains the vision behind adding this new site. This way all communication is unified and informed.

3. LEADER

Lyle Schaller says there are 2 questions every newcomer asks when attending a church:

• Whose in charge?
• Who can answer my questions?

These questions are answered with a campus pastor. You need a face with the place. They are the emcee, the cheerleader, the quality manager, and the talent scout. They are always looking for brand new contributors. The first step in the count-down to launch is identifying the campus pastor.

4. TEAM

Don’t recreate your main campus team. Start with campus pastor and then add a specialist who can work with both locations (by this Dave means there will be a Campus Pastor specifically focused upon the site and then supporting staff (like a Small Groups Pastor) who would actually oversee small groups for both church locations).

We need spiritual entrepreneurs. We want 100 key volunteers to start a new location. We tell our people starting a new site, you’ve got to either lead or serve. You can’t just take-up a seat.

5. FINANCES

$150-200,000 to start a new location

6. ALIGNMENT

In Dave’s opinion, in the future there will be a lot of churches with 2 sites, a few with 3 sites, and an abundance of churches with 4 or more.

You may be asking the question, “How can multiple-site (and venue) churches stay unified as one church movement?” Here is Dave’s answer:

The Four 1st Are What Unite Your Multiple Sites:

• 1 Vision – shared mission, vision, slogan, purpose, DNA, etc..
• 1 Budget – oversee and maintain one church budget
• 1 Eldership – one elder board oversees the entire regional network
• 1 Staff – though there are some dedicated site staff, the teaching is the same (usually video from Senior Pastor), the small group oversight is the same, the worship/arts oversight is the same, etc…

Once a month CCC has a leadership community meeting. During this time they train all the leaders from the different sites. The purpose of this training is to impart vision, have discussion huddles, teach leadership skills, etc… (This is where they taught the stump speech for strategy shifts)

CCC operates with the “Big Idea!” – This big idea guides thier teaching topics, small group focus, etc…

7. UNSTOPPABLE

Good to Great – is a good book. It teaches that Level 5 leaders are other centered and have an unwavering resolve to do whatever needs to be done. There will come a time when you say, maybe we shouldn’t have done this, but the Level 5 leader will press on.