Multi-Site MegaChurch Pastors to Share Secrets to Success
The ‘One Church, Multiple Locations: New Models to Promote Church Growth’ at Willow Creek Community Church features 10 mega-church pastors.
What is a multi-site church? For the hundreds of pastors around the nation, multi-site ventures have become a fresh new outlet to meet, evangelize and reach thousands more in cities, counties and states outside their own. Tomorrow, some of those leaders will share their success stories and teach others how to effectively build their own multi-church, mini-denominations.
The “One Church, Multiple Locations: New Models to Promote Church Growth” is a one-day forum hosted at the Willow Creek Community Church campus near Chicago, that features 10 mega-church pastors across the country who have gone to a multi-site model to accommodate and encourage growth. Each of these pastors have adopted a unique approach to the multi-site model – digital church, extension sites, video-café congregations, multiple campuses, satellite ministries – and will teach how, why, and when these models are useful.
According to organizers of the event, the forum will help curious pastors “explore why and when a church might consider a Multi-Site approach, take away six principles every multi-site church must consider before launching, evaluate which teaching and programming formats might be best for your church, and determine your next steps in creating a workable financial model and business plans”
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Bill Hybels, pastor of the 17,500-member Willow Creek Community Church and host of tomorrow's forum, is among the featured pastors who will share the secrets of a “multiple-campus” approach to the ministry. In 2000, Hybel’s church began a regional strategy of becoming “one church in multiple locations,” and soon after extended its campus to Wheaton, the North Shore, McHenry County and Chicago. These regional congregations complement videocast messages with live worship as well as small groups and other ministries designed to meet the needs of people. Each campus has its own Student Ministries for high school and middle school students, as well as a children's program.
According to Ed Young, pastor of The Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas who videocasts messages to three satellite locations across the state, one of the greatest difficulties with multi-site ministry is “feeling disconnected” from his flock. However, he said, seeing from the explosive growth of his churches – together they boast 16-20 thousand Sunday Service attendants each week –church members "don't seem to feel disconnected.”
“We have a pastor over at each satellite church, and they have a staff taking care of everyone’s needs,” Young told the Christian Post on Monday. These churches also feature a “life-size high-definition image of the speaker” that feels so real that at times “people wanted to talk to [Young] in the satellite offices.”
“I really feel this is a great thing, and we have incredible potential,” said Young, who plans to open his fourth satelite church in Florida soon.
While Young will not speak at the One Church event, other mega-church pastors will share their stories about the potential of the multi-site approach to church growth. In addition, experts on church technology, such as Leadership Network, Portable Church, Percept, Clark ProMedia and Regal Cinema, will consult attendants on the type of tools they will need to build a multi-site church.
For more information on the One Church forum, visit: http://www.willowcreek.com/events/leadership/multisite/index.asp
