Tag Archive - multisite

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10 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Thank you for making April another great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with you 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 posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

10 Insider Focused Ministry Names

Still my all-time most popular post in 5+ years of blogging: The language we choose to use is important because it both reflects and builds culture at the same time. And one of the most obvious ways to tell if a church is insider focused or outsider focused is the language that they choose to use. It either says that the church is “inclusive” or “exclusive.”

A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a Small Group Pastor

I’m pleased to announce a new Staff Search. Sun Valley Community Church, the church I have the honor of serving at, is beginning a national search for a Small Group Pastor to serve on our Tempe Campus. Sun Valley began as a church plant in 1990 in Chandler, Arizona. Over the years Sun Valley has grown into a large mult-site church in the Phoenix area. Currently there are four campuses located in Casa Grande, East Mesa, Gilbert, and Tempe and with a fifth campus opening in the fall of 2016 in Queen Creek. Together nearly 7,000 people attend a Sun Valley Campus each weekend.

Where there’s a Huddle there’s a Team

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.

Why Some Churches Win But Most Lose

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.

3 Expectations that Young Leaders Need to Change Today

A lot has been written in recent years about the Millennial Generation and young leaders; most of it negative. At the risk of sounding like the old guy in the room, I’ll admit, it does seem like the expectations of young leaders are a little off the mark. In fact, here are three expectations in particular that I think young leaders need to change today if they want to be successful in the future.

How Many People Should Your Church Have on Staff?

Before you buy into the idea that you need another staff person at your church, think again. That just may be the worst decision you make at your church this year.

Making the Assimilation Process Work at your Church

While there are a lot of reasons that churches get stuck and plateau or begin to decline the biggest culprit is that somewhere along the way new people stop getting connected or assimilated into the life of the church. It doesn’t have to be that way. Try giving the list below to the Sr. Leadership Team at your church to read and then come back and have an honest conversation about each point and identify opportunities to improve and islands of strength to build on.

8 Reasons Why People don’t Volunteer at your Church

I’ve never worked with a church that has said they don’t need more volunteers. But I’ve worked with a bunch of churches that have trouble getting people to volunteer and stay engaged volunteering. This is a critical issue for churches to figure out. The reason why this has to be a front-burner issue is because at the heart of it, volunteering is an essential component of the discipleship process in someone’s life. Plainly put, volunteering is discipleship. Understanding that, here are 8 reasons people aren’t volunteering in your church…and subsequently aren’t growing in their relationship with God.

4 Common Church Merger Mistakes

There are a lot of good reasons that two churches might choose to merge together. After being a part of two separate church mergers and both coaching other churches through the process and observing other mergers happen around the country I thought I’d take the time to share four common church merger mistakes that I see happening.

The 3 Most Important Responsibilities of a Leader and Why you Can’t Meet Them All

Should a leader be out in front charting the way forward? Should they be magnetic personalities who immediately change the temperature of the room they walk into? Should they be a great developer of others? Or do leaders simply get paid to make decisions? The truth is, there are three key responsibilities of leaders and unfortunately leaders are usually good at one of these…NOT all of them.

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

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4 Common Church Merger Mistakes

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

The thought of a church merging with another church had never crossed my mind 20 years ago when I started full time ministry. Mergers were something companies did, not churches. But if you’re paying attention to what’s happening in church-world, mergers are becoming more and more common. And I don’t think it’s a trend that’s going away anytime soon.

There are a lot of good reasons that two churches might choose to merge together. After being a part of two separate church mergers and both coaching other churches through the process and observing other mergers happen around the country I thought I’d take the time to share four common church merger mistakes that I see happening.

1. Trying to Blend the Culture of the Two Churches

Trying to blend the culture of two different churches is like trying to do a blended worship style on Sunday morning services. By trying to make everybody happy you end up making nobody happy. In the most successful church mergers one church culture leads the way and washes over the other church culture.

2. Not having a Plan for One of the Two Sr. Pastors

Many times in a church merger there are two Sr. Pastors involved, one from each church. When there’s not a clear plan for one of those to Sr. Pastors to exit it can lead to a conflict of loyalty and confusion of the vision. There needs to be a clear plan of what the Sr. Pastor who won’t be leading this newly merger church is going to do. Which one stays and which one goes, and why?

3. Keeping Staff that you Shouldn’t

Often times in a church merger the joining church has been stuck or in decline for a significant period of time and the lead church has momentum and has been growing for some time. The staff culture of those two kids of churches is significantly different. The kind of staff that can serve at a church that is stuck or in decline for a long period of time are not wired to serve in a fast growing church. Don’t keep them on staff longer than you should or you’ll unnecessarily slow the cultural transition of the merger and create disunity and conflict.

4. Taking a Ministry Menu Approach

Again, in an attempt to keep everybody happy I’ve seen some churches that merge refuse to stop doing the ministries that they were doing before the merger took place. Instead of taking the best of both merging church ministries and maximizing those ministries, they simply add to the ministry menu by offering everything that each individual church was previously doing. I know that shutting down a ministry can be difficult to lead through, but leading a church that is overextended and trying to be all things to all people is even more difficult to lead. Strategically choose which ministries will continue after the merger happens, before the merger happens.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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How to Choose your Next Multisite Location

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Thinking about going multisite? Is your church already multisite and trying to determine your next location? At the Unstuck Group we help Multisite Churches build effective strategies and actionable plans to lead into the future. This past week we had a quick email conversation about helping churches determine their next location. I thought I’d give you a bit of a sneak peak into some of those thoughts.

1. Go Where You Already Are

Do you already have people in that new community making the drive to one of your current locations? Do you already have a solid base and core group to start with? The ideal distance between campuses is somewhere between a 15-30 minute drive time.

2. Stay in a Culture that fits You

Is the new community similar to the one you’re already in? Are you going to have to make significant changes to your core strategies, ministries and style of presentation? If so, you may not want to try and break into that new market. If that new area requires making significant changes to who you are then you may be better off planting a church there instead of a multisite campus.

3. Location, Location, Location

Ever try and find a church that was tucked away in a neighborhood that was off the beaten path, difficult to find, and no one ever drove by it? Simply put, location matters. Is the location strategic?

4. Facility Fit

Space tells us how to feel and behave; it really matters (it’s why God was so detailed when He gave instructions about the temple in the O.T.). Does the facility fit you? Does it look and feel like you? Or can it be renovated to reflect your culture? Practically speaking, does it have enough parking, space for kids, and space for your style of weekend worship services?

5. Financial Stewardship

Does the location make sense financially? Does it fit your financial model? No, the church isn’t a business, and we’re not in this for a strong bottom line or for shareholders. We’re doing this so that more people will know Jesus. There’s much more at stake than money, eternity is at stake for many people. That’s all the more reason that this decision should make financial sense, because there’s more than money at stake.

Posted in Leadership

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Managing the Tension between Culture and Control in a Multisite Church

Sunday, March 20, 2016

One of the greatest challenges of leading a Multisite Church is maintaining alignment across campuses. Regardless of how proven your ministry model may be, many campus leaders still desire space to make it their own. While this drive can be evidence of their leadership capacity, it can also create tension and disunity on your team. How can you keep a diverse group of leaders in different communities focused on the same mission and ministry wins?

When you break it down, there are only two core approaches to multisite alignment. You can either lead through culture or you can lead through control. Which approach is best for your multisite team? Understanding their five differences can help you decide:

1. Approach to Decision-Making

Culture: Campus leaders are developed to make decisions
Control: Centralized decisions are leveraged across campuses

In a multisite church that is led through culture, campus leaders understand how to make decisions. Values are clear and shared at every location. Each leader knows what should be considered important when they are at a decision point.

In a control-driven approach to alignment, everyone understands how decisions get made. Campus leaders regularly take issues and ideas to centralized leaders for approval.

2. Focus of Central Leaders

Culture: Driving the right questions
Control: Providing the right answers

In a culture-driven church, central leaders focus on communicating values and asking the right questions. They spend their time developing the organization’s mindset for ministry. For example, at NewPointe, I worked hard to focus campuses on one driving question: “What is the absolute best thing for the unchurched family in our community?” I knew if that was always in the minds of our leaders, we could trust them to move forward and make great decisions.

Control-driven central leaders focus more on policies and standards. They spend their time developing the right plans to get the results they desire across locations. They lead with answers more often than questions.

3. Leadership Empowerment

Culture: Empower growing leaders
Control: Equip new leaders

Culture-driven churches empower growing leaders to develop. As long as they operate within the mission, values, and strategies of the church, campuses have the opportunity to develop and implement plans. This gives them greater ownership and experiences for growth.

Control-driven churches equip new leaders with clear plans. They can more quickly involve younger ministry leaders, knowing they’ll be set up with proven approaches in every area.

4. Operational Pace

Culture: Requires slower pace
Control: Allows faster pace

Culture-driven churches require a slower pace. Because each leader has more flexibility, it takes them more time to develop and implement plans. Additionally, organization-wide decisions require greater input from campuses, leading to more conversations and meetings.

Control-driven organizations can move at a faster pace. With every campus utilizing the same plans, leaders do not spend time reinventing them. Campuses can also be launched at a faster rate because the approach is not being adjusted for each new location.

5. Rate of Innovation

Culture: Creativity at campuses
Control: Innovation at the top

Culture-driven organizations encourage creativity at the campus level. This widens the number of people trying new approaches and gives entrepreneurial leaders faster ground-level feedback. With that, innovation may take place at a faster rate.

In a control-driven church, innovation primarily takes place at the top. Central leaders develop new approaches for all campuses. This can decrease the number of new ideas and increase the amount of time it takes to get ground-level feedback. However, it also reduces the amount of staff required at each campus.

While each approach to alignment has advantages, it is critical to lean toward the one that supports your vision as well as the wisdom of the moment your church is in. If you’re trying to launch new campuses at a fast rate, control will often be required. If you’re more focused on developing your current locations, leading through culture will likely be a better fit. In either case, be clear with your campus and central leaders about how you are staying aligned. Otherwise, they will always be on different pages.

This is a guest post by Ryan Stigile. Ryan is the Director of Strategic Resources for The Unstuck Group. Previously, as Director of Expansion at NewPointe Community Church (NE Ohio), Ryan led the launch and development of new multisite campuses. With Mount Paran Church (Atlanta, GA), he guided the leadership team through a strategic change initiative to simplify and align its ministries. Ryan has a Master of Business Administration from Kennesaw State University and degrees in business administration and discipleship ministry from Lee University.

Photo Credit: kevin dooley via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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10 Keys to Making Church Mergers Work

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Church mergers are becoming more commonplace, and for a lot of reasons it’s a movement that I believe we’ll see more of in the future. In fact Sun Valley Community Church, the church I have the pleasure of serving at, has experience beginning two new campuses through mergers in the last couple of years.

There are a lot of things that can go right…and wrong in a church merger. But if your church is considering a merger in the future make sure the Sr. Leadership Teams from both churches consider and discuss the following 10 potential deal breakers, and get on the same page before bringing the idea to your individual churches.

1. Doctrine

Is there theological alignment between the two churches? Do they share the same views on potentially contentious issues such as sign gifts, drinking alcohol, divorce, or the role of women in ministry? What do they both believe about the Bible, baptism, salvation, and other theological issues?

2. Culture

This is a step further than just addressing mission, vision, and values. Many churches go into a merger idealistically thinking that they will merge their cultures. This very rarely works out. While it’s possible to build on strengths and adopt best practices from both churches one culture will and should overtake the other if it’s truly going to become one church. Is the culture of each church similar or does one need to “wash over” the other one? How is that going to happen?

3. Staffing

What is your strategy to merge the staff of the two churches? Is there redundancy in staffing between the two churches? If both churches have a Sr. Pastor what will happen to the Sr. Pastor of the joining church? Are the pay and benefit structures comparable between the two churches or are there major adjustments that need to be made? What severance packages need to be built for staff that may not have a job as a result of the merger?

4. Governance

How similar are the two churches form of church governance? Are they staff led or board led? Will Board Members of the joining church serve on the existing Board? What does the congregation vote on and not vote on? Is each church a denominational church or non-denominational church? What committees are in place at each church if any?

5. Budget

Is the budget from each church similar? Does each church design the same percentage of their budget to go towards staffing, missions, ministry, weekend services, facilities, and administration? What about debt? What is the cash position of each church?

6. Ministries

Are the functional ministries of each church similar? Which ministries are considered “untouchable” at each church and why? Which ministries will be replicated at both churches and which ones won’t? Which ministries will you stop doing after the merger and how will you close those ministries down? What strengths and best practices at each individual church need to be adopted and built on after the merger?

7. Preaching

Who will be the primary communicator of this new church after the two churches merge to become one? Will the teaching be the same or different on each campus or location of this new church after the merger? Will you deliver teaching in the weekend services live or via video?

8. Leading the Congregation

Logistics are where most people go to when it comes to the conversation about church mergers. “How are we going to do this?” But one of the most overlooked and perhaps most important issues is leading each congregation through the merger. How will the Sr. Pastor and Sr. Leadership Team of the leading church build trust with the congregation of the joining church? Will they preach over there multiple times, will you conduct town hall or “ask anything” meetings with Sr. Leaders? Will you provide a written set of FAQ’s for each church? How will you communicate with each church so they know what to expect through this process? How will you gain their buy-in?

9. Vote

How will this decision to merge actually be made and ultimately who makes the decision? What do the by-laws of each individual church require? If a vote needs to take place by each congregation, how will you conduct the vote? What is the lowest percentage of a positive vote that needs to happen at each church for the merger to take place?

10. Launch

Another often-overlooked area to consider is the launch phase. Once the merger is voted on, how will you launch and “grand open” this newly merged church? Will one church adopt new signage and branding? Will both churches go through a “re-branding” to a new “brand” that each church will adopt? Will one church shut down to be physically renovated to add technology and interior design features to look like the other church and then reopened? How will you market to and let the community know about this new grand opening?

If you’re interested in learning more about church mergers I’d encourage you to pick up a copy of Better Together by my friends Warren Bird and Jim Tomberlin.

Posted in Leadership
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