Tag Archive - multisite

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Has your Church Hit a Growth Barrier?

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Growth barriers often leave leaders feeling like they’ve exhausted their options and resources for growth and that they are stuck. But, here’s the good news about growth barriers: they can be broken down by changing your ministry routine.  Shifting the way you approach leadership, structure, and methods can provide a huge boost to your church’s growth.

For many years now, we’ve been hosting coaching networks. The Unstuck Team continues to put on these networks for many reasons, but the primary would be this: we want churches to get unstuck. We’ve seen these networks challenge and encourage leaders to break growth barriers by learning insights and strategies to take their church to the next level.  

In these networks, you’ll learn best practices from healthy, growing churches and begin applying them in your church environment from day one. The Unstuck Team will walk alongside you as you take your next steps in leadership by fighting for healthy growth and learning how to establish a healthy church structure.

Each church is unique in its strategies, methods and practices. This is why we believe in the power of coming together to discover ways to explore outside of our ministry routine to experience growth.

This fall, we’re hosting 3 leadership coaching networks. Each will consist of a 7-month, collaborative coaching experience that includes 3 gatherings in Atlanta, 2 exclusive webinars, and 2 one-on-one coaching calls. Here are the options:

The Unstuck Church: Reaching 1,000 Coaching Network

This network is designed to help you move from reaching hundreds to reaching 1,000 in attendance by clarifying what’s working and what’s wrong, defining an action plan for next steps, and establishing a staffing and ministry structure that supports growth and health.

The Unstuck Church: Growing Beyond 2,000 Coaching Network

This network will help you develop strategies to tackle the unique challenges of larger churches including leadership development, staffing, communications, discipleship and establishing healthy growth engines.

Multisite Leadership Coaching Network

This experience will set you up to more effectively lead a growing, multisite church. We will help you navigate Common Pitfalls in Multisite, Refining Your Model, Clarifying How You Structure and Operate, Best Practices for Launching a Campus, Managing the Tension (Central vs Campus), and more!

We have space for only 7 churches in each network — some of which are already gone, so make sure to follow this link secure your spot soon!

Posted in Leadership

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New Coaching Networks from the Unstuck Group

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

One thing is true of strong church leaders: they fight for healthy growth.

Are you willing to explore beyond your ministry routines to discover the strategies that will help you lead your church at a higher level?

This fall, we invite you to take your next steps with a community of like-minded church leaders. In our new Leadership Coaching Networks, you’ll learn best practices from healthy, growing churches and begin applying them in your church environment from day one.

In October, Tony Morgan and ministry consultants from The Unstuck Group will host 3 coaching networks designed to help you engage the strategies you will need to fight for healthy growth within your church:

The Unstuck Church: Reaching 1,000 Coaching Network

Clarify what’s working and what’s not to define the best action plan to support health. This network is designed to help you move from reaching hundreds to reaching 1,000 in attendance by clarifying what’s working and what’s wrong, defining an action plan for next steps, and establishing a staffing and ministry structure that supports growth and health.

The Unstuck Church: Growing Beyond 2,000 Coaching Network

Discover how to address leadership development,discipleship and more through healthy growth engines. This network will help you develop strategies to tackle the unique challenges of larger churches including leadership development, staffing, communications, discipleship and establishing healthy growth engines.

Multisite Leadership Coaching Network

Learn the best strategies for leading and growing a multisite church. This experience will set you up to more effectively lead a growing, multisite church. We will help you navigate Common Pitfalls in Multisite, Refining Your Model, Clarifying How You Structure and Operate, Best Practices for Launching a Campus, Managing the Tension (Central vs Campus), and more!

We have space for just 7 churches in each network — and, we’re offering $1,000 off registration to the first 4 churches who register for each! Check out the details to decide if this is the right next step for you.

Posted in Leadership

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10 Articles that will Help your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Thank you for making June another great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! June in Arizona means no more sitting outside and blogging…it’s so hot they’re cancelling flights at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport because the smaller regional jets can’t get enough lift with the excessive heat to get off the ground! So thank you Jesus for air conditioning!

Besides that…it’s still great to stay 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!

By the way…if you look closely you’ll notice that 3 out of the 10 most popular posts this month have to do with volunteering…hopefully churches are catching onto the fact that volunteering is their “leadership development program” at their church.

It would be Easier if your Church Didn’t Grow

Ministry would be a lot easier if your church didn’t grow. I know that most church leadership books, blogs, and conferences are designed to give you the inspiration, principles, training, and tools to help your church grow; but If you really knew the truth about how hard it is to actually grow a church, you probably wouldn’t want to do it. Just think about how much easier it would be if your church didn’t grow. There’s all kinds of difficult things you wouldn’t have to do.

6 Signs that you’re Leading a Healthy Church

Healthy churches produce results and you can know if your church is healthy by the results it’s producing. And while I’d quickly admit that none of the items on this list guarantee a healthy church, you probably can’t lead a healthy church without these things.

Dumbest thing that Emotionally Intelligent Leaders Do

But just because someone has a high E.Q. doesn’t mean they’re necessarily going to be a good leader. They may be talented but that doesn’t make them good. Those are two very different things. No amount of emotional intelligence will compensate for a fatal flaw of character. Void of character a high E.Q. will drive leaders towards manipulation instead of leadership.

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.

10 Keys to Managing Change in a Church

Many churches I talk with want different results; they actually want to see more people meet Jesus and follow Jesus this year than last year. Unfortunately, they just aren’t willing to change, let go of old tactics and take a different approach.

The Difference between a Shepherd and a Leader

I love helping churches and leaders get unstuck and make vision real. In fact out of all the stuff I get to do with churches and leaders one of the things I enjoy the most is Leadership Coaching. Recently I had the incredible opportunity to spend a day coaching a group of Pastors and Church Leaders from Australia (unfortunately their cool accent didn’t rub off). One of the topics we spent time digging into was the difference between shepherding and leading in relation to why some churches are stuck while others move forward. Here are couple of thoughts from the conversation.

5 Foundational Leadership Lessons I Learned from my Dad

Father’s Day always provides a great opportunity to reflect on the kind of Father you had growing up and of course the kind of Father you would like to be yourself. In thinking about my Dad this weekend there were so many lessons that he taught me that came to mind, and fortunately, many things I still have to learn from my Dad. And while every father and man has their deficiencies to be sure, my dad has been an accelerant in my life and leadership by consistently allowing me to stand on his shoulders. Dad, I love you, and I’m so grateful that you’re in my life! So here are a handful of leadership principles that I learned from my Dad.

Should your Church Start New Campuses or Plant New Churches?

Church planting has been a time-tested strategy to reach new people in new cultural contexts. Church planting works best to reach people who are culturally and/or demographically different than us, where a different approach than the way we do church would be the most effective. Starting new multisite campuses on the other hand works best for people who are geographically closer, and both culturally and demographically similar to us where the same approach to the way we do church would be the most effective. In other words, it’s not one or the other, it’s both-and. It’s about what approach is going to be the most effective in reaching people with the Gospel. However, there are some significant differences between adopting a planting or a multisite model.

Leadership Lessons I Wish I Understood as a Young Leader

5 Leadership Lessons for Young Leaders based on my experiences training for a triathlon.

What is a Campus Pastor?

In August, 2012, Leadership Network released a report stating that over 5,000 churches are now multi-site churches (churches that meet in more than one location for worship). It’s a growing trend that first began with mega-churches, but has now expanded to churches of all sizes. With this new trend a new staff role has emerged, that of “Campus Pastor.” While a lot churches are still trying to figure out this new role, here are 6 things that great Campus Pastors do:

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

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Should your Church Start New Campuses or Plant New Churches?

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

“Multi” doesn’t mean “Mega” anymore. According to a study conducted by Leadership Network there are more than 8,000 multisite churches across America and more than 1,600 megachurches (churches of more than 2,000 people in weekly attendance). While both are growing, the multisite church movement has outpaced the megachurch movement in America. What was once seen only as a Band-Aid solution for space issues at megachurches has become a vehicle for growth in local churches of all kinds and all sizes (the average size that a church goes multisite is around 850).

But multisite is not the only way to reach new people. Church planting has been a time-tested strategy to reach new people in new cultural contexts. Church planting works best to reach people who are culturally and/or demographically different than us, where a different approach than the way we do church would be the most effective. Starting new multisite campuses on the other hand works best for people who are geographically closer, and both culturally and demographically similar to us where the same approach to the way we do church would be the most effective. In other words, it’s not one or the other, it’s both-and. It’s about what approach is going to be the most effective in reaching people with the Gospel. However, there are some significant differences between adopting a planting or a multisite model.

Location

Unless a new church plant is specifically designed to reach a different demographic in a current community, church plants typically take place outside of a 30-minute drive time radius of the sending church. New multisite campuses are typically launched within a 15-30-minute drive time of the sending church.

Leadership

The prototypical Church Planter is entrepreneurial, has a unique culture they are building, a specific vision they are chasing, and acts as the team owner. Great Campus Pastors on the other had embrace an existing vision, implement that vision in their unique campus context, shepherd the local congregation, and are great at coaching the team.

Finances

In a typical church plant, it’s not uncommon that the plant team raises financial support outside of the budget to fund their salary and to fund the public launch of the ministry. Often this financial support may come from individual donors, sending churches, or sending organizations. In a multisite setting, the original campus or existing campuses fund the new campus including salaries, facilities, and start-up costs (usually with more significant funding than a church plant setting). Once that new campus is financially healthy they also typically begin funding central services with a fixed percentage of its budget.

Genesis

In a church plant, everything is starting at the beginning. Everything is new by nature, hasn’t been done in that unique church and context and by necessity must be created. In a multisite setting things aren’t being created as so much as they are being contextualized and replicated. After all, one of the reasons churches go multisite isn’t to create something new but rather because they have a culture worth replicating.

Governance

This one seems to be a bit of no-brainer, but church plants are typically self-governed and have their own board, even if they have a connection to a denomination. Multisite campuses, on the other hand, are governed by a central board of elders whose decisions influence every campus.

When it comes to managing the tension between church planting and multisite, it’s not a matter of either or, it’s both-and. They don’t have to be competing strategies. After all the goal is to lead more people, in more places, into a relationship with Jesus.

If your church needs help taking the next step with your multisite strategy I would encourage reaching out to the Unstuck Group. Our team has 40+ combined years of experience leading in successful multisite churches. Our proven multisite services are designed to help multisite churches clarify their strategy and effectively lead one church in multiple locations.

Posted in Leadership

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4 Reasons Why Multisite Costs More Than Church Planting

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

It would be easy to think that a multisite church is more cost-efficient than church planting. However, there’s more to consider than meets the eye. For the past 6 years I’ve had the opportunity to serve at Sun Valley Community Church in Arizona and see the church grow from one site to five during that time. As we’ve gotten those campuses launched and running, one of the things that I’ve learned is that multisite is usually the more costly option of the two.

Thinking about launching a multisite church? Here are some things you should consider:

1. Technology:

The quality of the teaching is what brought your church the ability to go multisite; now, it is important to deliver that same quality experience – this time through video. Video teaching technology is more expensive than the typical cost outlay that a church plant would incur. Additionally, the replication of the worship service with lights, sound, musicians and more calls for a larger investment than that of a church plant.

2. Branding:

For a church to experience the amount of growth needed to go multisite, it has likely been operating for a couple of decades. This provides many years to build the brand, figure the dos and donts, your audience and your quirks. As you go multisite, it is important to maintain the same personality and culture. Simply, this calls for a higher financial investment to provide the same experience as a church that has functioned for a number of years.

3. Staffing:

In most church plants, the staff is required to raise support for the first one to three years. In multisite, the financial model must pay the salary of the staff members, in addition to the public launch of the church. The initial costs for one year of multisite operations could easily range in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

4. Consistency:

In a church plant, everything begins from scratch. It is a fresh beginning. However, in multisite, environmental consistency needs to be replicated. After all, you have created a culture worth replicating.

Most church plants have the support of a partner church or denomination over a certain scope of time. In multisite, once you birth it you’re on the hook for the operations, staffing, technology, etc. until that new campus can become financially self sustaining.

Wondering if you’re ready for multisite? There’s more than cost to consider. Follow this link to learn about the Unstuck Group’s multisite consulting process and get our 9 Multisite Readiness Checkpoints guide for free.

Posted in Leadership
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