5 Articles that will Help your Church Make Vision Real

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5 Articles that will Help your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Thank you for making February an incredible month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with readers through social media and hearing that these articles have been helpful. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top 5 Posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

#1 Why People Don’t Volunteer at Church Anymore

I’ve never worked with a church that said they had enough volunteers to accomplish the vision that Jesus has given them. In fact here are some of the most common reasons why people may not be volunteering at your church…

#2 10 Principles to Building a Great Guest Experience at your Church

Do you know how to build a great guest experience at your church? Are you starting with the right building blocks? This top 10 list has been built from my experience of working with churches across the country the past couple of years with the Unstuck Group.

#3 How to Keep your Best Staff Members from Leaving

One in two church staff members is open to new employment. At the Unstuck Group were shocked to learn this during our latest research on church staffing and structure. At the same time, our experience confirms that many church staff members are simply unsatisfied. If it’s true that half of staff members are willing to leave, how can you possibly build and retain an effective ministry team?

#4 The Humility Test: Can you Admit when you’re Wrong?

The look on Richard Sherman’s face near the end of the Super Bowl last night is priceless. You know the moment. The score was 28-24. Seattle had the ball, 2nd and goal from the 1 yard line with 24 seconds left on the clock. Score a touchdown (gain just 1 yard in 3 attempts) and they go down in history as repeat Super Bowl Champions…

#5 Should your Church go Multisite? An interview with Jim Tomberlin & Tony Morgan

Recently I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Tony Morgan and Jim Tomberlin about multi-site strategy in 2015. Here are a few of the highlights:

There are now 5,000+ multi-site churches in our country.
37% of all multi-site churches start through mergers.
Most multi-site churches (85%) never grow beyond three total locations. Jim says most still act like a single-site church by not re-structuring to handle more campuses. But trying to add a 4th campus without changing your systems and structure rarely works.
Multi-site is not a growth engine. It will accelerate growth in a healthy church, but if you’re not already outreach-driven, multi-site probably won’t work to help you grow.
The average size of a church that adds its first multi-site campus is 1,200.

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

7 Multisite Myths

Sunday, March 1, 2015

The church I lead at has been multisite now for more than 3 years and we’re currently working on opening up our 4^th campus. I also work with churches across the country with the Unstuck Group and often field questions from church leaders about going multisite. In those discussions I’ve come to realize there are a whole list of misconceptions floating around out there about the multisite movement. Here are a couple of the more popular ones I get.

#1 Multisite is only for Mega-Churches

Currently in America there are just at about 1,600 mega churches (churches of 2,000+ in weekend attendance), but there are more than 8,000 multisite churches across America. In other words the multisite movement is outpacing the mega-church movement. And the average size a church goes multisite is when they hit 1,200 in attendance. That’s 800 short of the mega-church label.

#2 Multisite means Video Teaching

Not so fast. Early on in the multisite movement video was the way many multisite churches were delivering weekend preaching. That number has shifted and now it’s at about a 50-50 split of multisite churches that use live teaching and churches that use video.

#3 Multisite will Grow our Church

As my friend Jim Tomberlin likes to say, “Multisite is not a growth engine, it’s a growth vehicle.” In other words it’s a strategy to deliver growth, not drive it. If you’re not already healthy, multisite will not make you healthy. If you’re not already outsider focused, multisite will not make you outsider focused. Multisite will just make you more of what you already are. In other words, get healthy first…then go multisite.

#4 Multisite is Cheaper than Church Planting

Not so much. At the church I serve at we do both church planting and multisite. When we begin a church plant we typically fund it at $100k. I’ve seen the average number to start a multisite at $250k and higher. However multisite campuses grow faster and have a higher survival rate than church plants do.

#5 Multisite only works in Large Towns & Cities

A friend of mine, John Fuller, pastors Prairie Lakes Church, a multisite church in Iowa with 6 locations. They’ve got a campus in a town of 40,000 and campus in a town of 3,000 and everything in between. So yea, it works in small towns too.

#6 Multisite will never work for people Over 55

Today I was over at our Tempe Campus and stepped into our traditional service. When I say traditional service, I mean a full on traditional service with a choir, hymns, and a more traditional chapel environment. As you can imagine the demographic of the room is older and is marked by mostly grey hair (at least they have hair, I’m envious). That service just like the modern service on the Tempe Campus this weekend was video teaching, and it’s working.

#7 The Campus Pastor needs to be a Rock Star

You’re looking for a Campus Pastor not a Church Planter. They’ve got to bleed the DNA of the existing church not want to live out the DNA of their dream church. Based on your teaching model they may not even have to have a preaching gift. You’re looking for a leader not just a shepherd, they have to be able to build something.

What are some other common misconceptions you’ve heard or have had about the multisite movement? Leave a comment!

Interested in learning and growing as a leader in a multisite church? Don’t miss the opportunity to be a part of my next Leadership Coaching Network focused specifically on multisite church leaders. Follow this link to learn more!

Photo Credit: kevin dooley via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

Should your Church go Multisite? An Interview with Tony Morgan and Jim Tomberlin

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Recently I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Tony Morgan and Jim Tomberlin about multi-site strategy in 2015. Here are a few of the highlights:

There are now 5,000+ multi-site churches in our country.
37% of all multi-site churches start through mergers.
Most multi-site churches (85%) never grow beyond three total locations. Jim says most still act like a single-site church by not re-structuring to handle more campuses. But trying to add a 4th campus without changing your systems and structure rarely works.
Multi-site is not a growth engine. It will accelerate growth in a healthy church, but if you’re not already outreach-driven, multi-site probably won’t work to help you grow.
The average size of a church that adds its first multi-site campus is 1,200.

If multi-site is part of your focus this year, consider joining me for The Unstuck Group’s first-ever Multi-Site Leadership Coaching Network. It starts in April, but the deadline to apply is March 6. We only have 12 spots for this network, and they go quick. Find out more and register at TheUnstuckGroup.com.

Posted in Leadership

Launching Multisite Campuses is the Easy Part

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Jim Tomberlin, a strategic partner of the Unstuck Group and the nations foremost leader in the multisite movement recently said to me that, “Launching multisite campuses is the easier part of multisiting. Managing the inter-campus relationships and the restructuring necessary to accommodate a growing multisite strategy is the more difficult part. Multisite is not for the faint-of-heart!”

He’s right. Every parent knows that the process of making a baby is fun, but once the kids arrive on the screen everything changes. It’s one thing to start a new campus or two. That’s the exciting part. But multisite changes everything. That’s why only a handful of multisite churches ever get past 2 additional campuses. In fact, in their research, Leadership Network discovered that:

“Only 15% of multisite churches get beyond 2 additional campuses.”

You can’t launch new campuses and expect everything to stay the same. It takes courage to restructure and adopt new systems to accommodate a growing multisite strategy. Successful multisite churches are willing to live with the tension between their campuses being both centralized and decentralized at the same time. Decentralization doesn’t mean complete autonomy, and centralization doesn’t mean complete control. It’s a both-and solution.

1. Decision Making

Effective multisite churches push strategic decisions up and implementation decisions down.

2. Accumulation & Transference of Organizational Knowledge

You’ve already paid the dumb tax of learning and leveraging your “ministry best practices.” Great multisite churches take the time to write them down and replicate them.

3. Efficiency

Multisite churches that get past 2 additional campuses learn how to cut out the redundancy in the organization and develop “central service teams” that serve all campuses (for example: one centralized business department, among other things).

4. Innovation

Multisite is an innovation rich undertaking. It’s a nimble and flexible approach to “new markets” where innovation can take place in the smaller risk embracing culture of a newer campus and then learning passed along to more established campuses.

Interested in learning more about multisite? Join the first Multisite Leadership Coaching Network that starts in April!

Photo Credit: JustinJensen via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

Join a Multisite Leadership Coaching Network

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

I’m excited to share some big news with you! At the Unstuck Group we’ve successfully been coaching Pastors and other Ministry Leaders at churches across America for years. This year we are taking new ground and offering our first ever MultiSite Coaching Network. This network is designed for leaders of multisite churches, to help them grow in leadership and succeed in addressing the unique challenges they face.

The coaching experience at the Unstuck Group is built around simple and practical systems and tools to help you take your next steps as a leader. We’ll take a look at best practices in growing, healthy churches. Together, we’ll press into tough conversations to help you get unstuck in your leadership and ministry impact.

Our coaching networks are focused on helping you discover the shifts that need to happen in your leadership and your ministry strategies and systems. The only way to get different results is to engage different systems. These coaching networks will challenge you to take those next steps.

In addition, in this unique first of its kind network you will also:

Discover how to identify and develop Campus Pastors.
Gain exposure to different Multisite Models.
Learn how to know if you’re ready to go multisite and how to you launch your first campus successfully.
Learn how to restructure your staffing and systems successfully to support a multisite model.
Dig into Mergers, Hive-offs and Parachute drops.
Get access to experienced multisite leaders like Jim Tomberlin the nations foremost multisite expert and founder of Multisite Solutions.

This is not an opportunity for someone who is looking for inspiration: This coaching network involves work. You can’t just show up. You will have to commit to six months of reading and engaging exercises with the ministry team at your church.

This experience isn’t for people looking for leadership theory: Yes, you’ll learn some leadership skills, but this experience is designed for you to put those skills into action. Every month you will leave with new tools to implement in your ministry environment.

This is not a conference experience: In a conference, you can sit and soak in the teaching without engaging anyone else. In this coaching experience, you will be encouraged and challenged by other leaders who will be counting on you to participate fully.

Location: The Multisite Coaching Network will meet in Phoenix once a month, for six months, on Fridays from 9:00am-3:00pm.

Dates: April 17, May 15, June 12, July 24, August 21 and September 18

This network is limited to just 12 spots, so if you want to get in, register asap! The deadline to apply is March 6, 2015.

To register and get all of the details you need to be a part of this opportunity follow this link.

Posted in Leadership

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