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Top Posts from 2016 #6 “Campus Constants for Multisite Churches”

The Multisite Church Movement continues to be one of the most popular topics on my blog the last couple of years and this year was no different. This post about Campus Constants came in at #6. Hope it’s helpful!

Last week the Unstuck Group hosted a successful webinar, “Making Multisite Work” with Tony Morgan, Warren Bird and members of the Unstuck Group. During that webinar I mentioned a “Campus Constant” document that we use at Sun Valley, a large multisite church in the Phoenix Metro area that I have the privilege of serving at, that helps us remain clear on our multisite model. During the live chat on the webinar we received multiple requests for me to share that document. So to make it easy I figured I’d just share it here for you. Feel free to learn from this and adapt it for your context. We’ve found that this document along with our leadership distinctives and “playbooks” developed by each Ministry Development Team member for each of their ministry areas has really helped us define, stay on track, and provide clarity to our multisite model.

Make sure you scroll to the bottom of this post to find the link to the replay of the webinar if you missed it and other multisite resources!

Mission:   Helping people meet, know, and follow Jesus.

Vision:   To help as many people meet, know and follow Jesus as we possibly can by growing a movement of reproducing Campuses and Churches.

By 2020, we believe God is leading us to:
– Experience 3,000 baptisms
– Expand to 7 campuses
– Start 7 new churches
– Start Residency Program
– Grow to 10,000 people in attendance

Strategy:   This strategy serves as the foundation for spiritual growth.

  • Meet: We help people meet Jesus through Weekend Services.
  • Know: We help people know Jesus through Small Groups.
  • Follow: We help people follow Jesus through opportunities to Give, Serve and Share

Cultural Values:   These values are what keep us on target as we move towards our vision.

  • Authenticity: Trusting Jesus and others with the real me.
  • Community: Learning from Jesus through strong friendships centered around God’s Word.
  • Generosity: Living like Jesus through giving, serving and sharing.

Leadership Distinctives:   This is what we expect from those in leadership and what makes the Sun Valley Staff Culture so unique. Follow this link if you’re interested in seeing these distinctives written out.

Leadership Structure:   At Sun Valley vision is global and leadership is local. Leadership authority and responsibility flows through the Campus Pastors and influence flows through Central Services and the Ministry Development Team. Every ministry of the Church at each Campus will operate under one leadership structure that ultimately comes under the authority of the Board of Servant Leaders and the Lead Pastor.

Campus Pastor Team:   Campus Pastors are responsible for executing the Sun Valley Mission, Vision, Strategy, Values and Leadership Distinctives on their respective campus. The Campus Pastor role is a Management and Shepherding role at Sun Valley. They manage SV Kids, SV Students, SV Groups and Guest Service ministries on their campus. They also shepherd the staff, volunteers, and congregants at their campus.

Ministry Development Team:   The Ministry Development Team influences the ministries on each Sun Valley Campus. They help to ensure that the following takes place on each Sun Valley Campus:

  • Content: Curriculum and teaching in each sub-ministry environment is the same on each campus.
  • Consistent: Ministry practices, behaviors, and experiences are consistent on each campus.
  • Communication: Clear lines of communication exist between ministry counterparts on each campus as well as between the Ministry Development Team and the Campus Pastors.
  • Coach: Observe sub-ministries and staff members on campuses and coach them towards effectiveness and Sun Valley cultural consistency.

Weekend Teaching:   The Teaching Team will set the teaching schedule and will serve as the primary communicators either in person or by video.

Branding:   Every Campus will operate under the same branding and communication strategy including a centralized website for the church representing all Campuses.

Financial Model:   Every Campus will share these financial goals:

  • Within 12 months, offerings from the Campus will cover its ongoing ministry expenses including staffing costs.
  • Within 24 months, the Campus will also contribute its prorated portion of central service expenses.
  • Within 36 months, the Campus will also contribute towards expansion endeavors.

Alignment:   We choose to align the best practices, behaviors, and experiences on each of our Campuses, including SV Kids, SV Students, Groups, Missions, Guest Services, Weekend Services and Business Services.

SV Kids:   We create safe environments for kids to experience fun and exciting ministry programming, create trust and partnership with parents, and provide a great guest experience to everyone.

  • Early Childhood: Birth-Pre-K
  • Elementary: K-4

SV Students:   We create safe environments for students to experience fun and exciting relationally based ministry, create trust and partnerships with parents, and provide a great guest experience to everyone.

  • Preteen: 5-6 Grade
  • High: 7-8 Grade
  • High School: 9-12 Grade

SV Groups:   We help people get to know Jesus through strong friendship centered around God’s Word because we believe that life-change takes place best in the context of community. SV Groups provides leadership to move people through the spiritual formation pathway at Sun Valley including Yes Weekends, Starting Point, Baptisms, Bridge Groups, Small Groups, Recovery & Support Groups, and Local Outreach.

Guest Services:   We provide an exceptional experience to every guest who attends a Sun Valley Campus every time. Each Campus builds and utilizes the following strategies and teams:

  • Parking Team & New Here Park Here
  • New Here Start Here
  • Greeters
  • Ushers
  • Info Center
  • Coffee Shop / Refreshments
  • Campus Safety

Missions:   Our strategic passions are 1) Church Planting 2) Leadership Development 3) Social Justice. Every mission partner we support and each short-term project we participate in will pass the filter of our strategic passions. Each Campus will participate in the same short-term projects and support the same partners. Each Campus will also participate in the generosity offerings annually.

Weekend Services:   There is one centralized process to build the weekend worship experience from concept to completion and then deliver it to each campus. Beginning with biblical content, including creativity, and resulting in an exceptional and engaging Christ-centered experience.

Business Services:   There will be one centralized process or system for administrative services including banking, budgeting, staffing, payroll, benefits, capital expenditures, I.T., church management software, facility management, lease agreements, legal needs, etc.

Multisite Resources from the Unstuck Group:

  1. Download our free White Paper: “One Team. Multiple Locations. How Staff Teams at Effective Multisite Churches Overcome Distance and Lead Together.”
  2. Watch a replay of our recent webinar: Making Multisite Work, with Tony Morgan, Warren Bird, and members of The Unstuck Group team.”
  3. Multisite Consulting: If your church is thinking about going multisite, need help clarifying your multisite strategy, or stuck at a couple campuses and want to move forward we offer consulting solutions designed specifically for multisite churches!

Photo Credit: kevin dooley via Compfight cc


Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

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Top Posts of 2016 #7 “How to Keep Easter Guests Coming Back”

I wrote this post right before Easter 2016 and it struck a cord. Apparently a lot of churches are trying to figure out how to get guests to come back after they come for the first time. This post came in at #7 this year.

In a couple of days churches all across the country are going to be hosting guests at their Easter services, hoping they say yes to following Jesus, and hoping that they come back the next week and get connected in the life of their church. I hope that happens too. But hope is not a strategy.

Here’s a couple of ideas that should help you develop a strategy to keep those guests coming back well after Easter.

1. Help Guests Self-Identify

Instead of head hunting for guests, create simple ways for guests to let you know that they are there. Guest parking, children’s check-in, a physical guest services location, and a communication card located in your church program or bulletin are all simple ways to create avenues for guests to let you know they are there, when they’re ready to let you know.

2. Don’t Spam People

Please don’t show up on people’s doorstep or bombard them with multiple emails and letters the week following Easter. Many of the companies out there that are the best at guest services don’t overtly pursue guests. Rather they are available to guests and their needs when their guests engage them and express a need.

3. Make the Next Step Easy

People come to church on Easter for all kinds of reasons, but they’ll stay at a church because of relationships and responsibility. What is the one, clear, simple, and easy step you want all of your guests to take…and why should they take it? How are you going to get guests quickly and easily connected to relationships and responsibility at your church?

4. The More Personal the Better

Instead of sending the same generic follow up letter to everyone make it personal. If guests are giving you personal information such as their name and the names of their children, and if someone is personally greeting them and hosting them then reach out to them in the same personal manner. Why not have the person that greeted them and hosted them write a hand-written card thanking them for being a guest at your church and that they’re looking forward to seeing them again next week.


Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation

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Top Posts of 2016 #8 “Why Some Churches Win But Most Lose”

Church growth doesn’t have to mystical, magical, or mysterious. There are real tangible things that growing churches do differently. This post came in as #8 in 2016.

Not every church is winning. In fact Thom Rainer, President and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources has stated in his research that: “Eight out of ten of the approximately 400,000 churches in the United States are declining or have plateaued.”

There are a lot of reasons why 80% of churches in America aren’t winning and there’s no “silver bullet” fix. But there are a couple of things that winning churches consistently do that losing churches don’t.

1. They make Decisions based on Who they are trying to Reach Instead of Who they are trying to Keep

The primary filter for winning churches is “What can we do (short of sin) to reach people who are far from Jesus?” You may think that all these churches care about is evangelism and helping people meet Jesus (Is that so bad?), and that leads to the church being a mile wide and an inch deep. But surprisingly these churches are usually very sensitive to helping people who have recently said yes to following Jesus take their next steps in their spiritual journey with Him. If a church isn’t reaching new people then it’s already dying, it just hasn’t shown up yet.

2. They Embrace Change

Winning churches embrace change. They change their staff and organizational structure. They change their worship style. They change their strategies. They change what ministries they offer. They are incessantly tinkering to try and improve what they do to reach new people with the Gospel. They take big risks because they have a big God and they trust Him for big results. They are not afraid to try new things. They’re not afraid to fail.

3. They don’t just Shepherd People well they Lead People

While the staff at winning churches care deeply about people, they don’t view themselves as simply caretakers and they don’t view their role as simply taking care of people. They view themselves as leaders and feel a responsibility to lead people where Jesus wants them to go even if that means it’s going to be uncomfortable. After all, when was following Jesus ever comfortable?

4. They Help People take Steps not get into a Class

Most winning churches I’ve been around aren’t as interested in biblically educating people as they are challenging people to become obedient to the biblical knowledge they already have. They view discipleship as obedience not information. Winning churches have a clear plan to move people from guests to fully involved and people that say yes to Jesus to following Jesus. Their goal isn’t to simply get people into a class.


Posted in Leadership

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Top Posts of 2016 #9 “Where there’s a Huddle there’s a Team”

I’m counting down my Top 10 most popular blog posts from 2016 and one of the topics I write about that gets the most traction is building and developing volunteer teams. Here’s one that focuses one small practice that can make a really big deal at your church.

How do you know if the volunteer teams at your church are really working? I don’t mean are they getting stuff done and meeting objectives, I mean are they developing people. After all the point of building volunteer teams at your church isn’t just to use people to accomplish objectives but rather to create opportunities and relationships to develop people.

Team huddles are one of the most overlooked opportunities by many church staff, and yet they are one of the easiest tactics to implement and they bear a disproportionate amount of fruit.

Simply put where there’s a team there’s a huddle. No huddle…no team. So go looking for huddles at your church. If you don’t see any you may be using people instead of developing them.

Team huddles are evidence of…

Leadership

When you see a team huddle that means someone is leading. Someone is getting the team together and calling the plays.

Planning

When you see a team huddle you can rest assured that someone is doing some planning. They’re sharing that plan with the team and helping everyone know how they’re going to accomplish what they’re going to accomplish that day.

Coordination

When you see a team huddle you can know that people are working together in a coordinated fashion. Yes someone has planed the plays and called the plays but it takes everyone blocking the right scheme, picking up their individual assignments, running the right routes, and putting the ball where it needs to go at the right time for the team to win. That’s called coordination.

Development

You know people are being developed when you see a team huddle. Tasks are being delegated and people are being empowerment to make decisions. Responsibility is being shared and young growing leaders are learning to build trust.

Encouragement

You can know that people are being encouraged when you see team huddles. People are celebrating what was accomplished on the last play and individuals on the team are being called out and honored for doing a great job.

If your church isn’t using team huddles try having each volunteer team start and end with a huddle using the tactics above. Try it for 30 days…you may be surprised by the results.


Posted in Leadership, Staffing, Volunteers

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Top Posts of 2016 #10 “If it’s Not on a Screen it’s Not Multisite”

For the next couple of days I’m going to be counting down the top 10 posts from 2016 here on Helping Churches Make Vision Real. These are the posts that generated the most traffic, comments, and were the most shared on social media. The most popular topics this year had to do with developing young leaders, multisite, volunteers, church growth, and church leadership. We start off with a post about the multisite church movement, one of the most popular topics on my blog this year.

Being a part of leading a large multisite church, I’m frequently asked by church leaders about my thoughts on various multisite models and how we do it at the church I’m a part of. In this post I’m going to answer that question (to an extent) for everyone reading this article and here’s a little warning, I’m going to say it in a bit of a straight forward matter of fact manner. Here’s the way I look at it, and I reserve the right to be wrong…

“If it’s not on a screen, it’s not a multisite.”

It may be multi-congregational or even a family of churches, but it’s not a multisite church. The simple reason why is teaching. Nothing else in your church has the power the build the unique culture of your church in so much as teaching does. This is why people say the organization always takes on the characteristics and personality (culture) of the leader. When you have different people preaching at different locations, no matter how similar they are, no matter how good of friends they are, no matter how hard they work to be on the same page with the presentation, you’re going to get a different culture. You’re going to get a different church. And like it or not, people who attend churches look to the primary communicator of that location as the leader. Here’s a really quick overview (obviously there are slight variations).

Multi-Site

Big Idea: “One Church Multiple Locations”
Preaching: Preaching is delivered via video. No matter if it’s one primary communicator or a teaching team approach, whoever is preaching is preaching the same message at every location via video.
Governance: There is one Board of Elders that provides oversight to the entire church; all campuses no matter the location. The Board is not put in place for the representation of the campuses (it’s not congress).
Ministry Practices: These churches have a tendency to be more identical in their ministry practices and staffing structures (based on scale). Ministry practices are typically overseen by a Central Ministry Team that coaches and influences each campus towards best practices and objectives

Multi-Congregational

Big Idea: “One Church Multiple Congregations”
Preaching: Preaching is delivered live at each location. Often times the main communicators on each campus collaborate to ensure that they are generally covering the same content.
Governance: There is still some kind of directional team making high-level decisions that have some affect on each congregation, but each congregation has their own Board of Elders making local decisions.
Ministry Practices: Often these churches will share branding and some communication (print & visual media) resources and a centralized Business Department may support all congregations. However each congregation has much more freedom and independence as to what ministries they build and start.

Family of Churches

Big Idea: “Multiple Churches with One Cause”
Preaching: Preaching is live at each location, each church may even have it’s own teaching team. They may share their best teaching series with each other, and speak at each other’s churches from time to time, but that’s about it.
Governance: Early on often these churches will have a Board of outside Pastors from the Family of Churches govern the new church until it is mature enough to have it’s own Board. Similarly often another stronger church in the Family of Churches may manage the business function of the newer church until it has the capacity to do so on their own.
Ministry Practices: Families of churches typically organize around a theological ideal or a common cause such as church planting. While these churches certainly learn from one another and even pick up best practices from one another they are autonomous in their approach.


Posted in Leadership