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Small is the new Big: How multi-site can make you sticky www.chapel.org

They reached a crisis point where their church had grown large 3500 but they were not integrating them.

 – People were not experiencing spiritual transformation; For them a key was seeing a healthy church as having two key things: Reflecting Jesus Connecting to the broader culture

Their 1st discovery: Practical Atheism -the idea that we can believe that God exists and simultaneously behave as if He did not.

-true of those they connected with on the outside AND true for the Christians in their church.

-Did not need two streams of communication anymore, but one specifically targeted toward those who were living this way.

2nd discovery: Excellence and kingdom impact of a large church but the closeness of a small church

-Wanted what a large church provided but loved how a small church felt Could multi-site be used a church health strategy?

Multi-site

-Gives the large church experience

–high-quality ministry experience;

–part of a huge kingdom vision;

-Gives the small church experience

–a spiritual mentor most noticeably found in a small group leader AND campus pastor

–The campus pastor becomes that shepherd that compliments the small group leader’s role

–feel like part of a church family

–attend in their community; a part of a church where people could invite their neighbors

And then I got called out….

The stickiest thing you have in your church is close and tight relationships.

Holding on to people is about fulfilling the 2nd half of the great commission.
-teaching them to obey all things I have taught them

They don’t do marketing.  all word of mouth.

4 new priorities:
1. A healthy leadership team

• in an effort to reach out to new people he ignored his existing leaders

2. Shepherd the flock I already had

• no one likes to be used.  It feels that way if you only care for outsiders.

3. Believer targeted and seeker sensitive

• user friendly
• seeker expectant
• everything they do is aimed at Christians but it is always done in a way that a seeker can understand
• practical:

• remove in house jargon
• don’t assume they will understand

• seeker expectant:

• way they do messages
• approaching the church
• talk about how you expect visitors

4. Foster long-term, Christ-centered relationships

Lessons I’ve learned:
1. stickiness starts with church health;
2. Stickiness has two important aspects

• Visitor retention – assimilation
• Long-term retention – discipleship
• In a word of mouth church everyone is coming on the arm of someone else and they are being assimilated naturally.  but by marketing, they don’t have a connection.
• those who come for the event come back expecting it again.
• weak ties – fun or task specific which has the result of being high intensive with an end point
• strong ties – frequent, long term and vulnerable
• people are like legos – once all the connectors are connected, you will be friendly but won’t connect; a church full of people like this feels friendly at first but you could hit a wall;
• answer is new groups for new people

3.  A fancy front door can hide a leaky back door.

• After 10 years  of a front door church you have more that used to go there than do go there.

4. Most of our programming is designed for casual and short-term relationships.

5. We get what we measure and celebrate. Retention seldom makes the list.

• retention is one of the best measurements for health

6. It’s increasingly difficult to reach and keep people with a one-size-fits-all approach to ministry.
7. Spiritual growth is seldom linear.

• velcroing to the Bible and community
• You then have what you need in a need to know or need to grow moment;

8. New relationships need easy on and off ramps

• if you don’t have an easy off ramp, they will try it and weasel out and not try it again

I recently read in a church’s newsletter the statement that God wanted them to be a successful church.  I seriously doubt anyone at first glance would take issue with that statement, but the more I pondered it, the more I disliked the statement.  Before this begins sounding judgmental you should know that I would have prayed that very statement at one point in my life.  But something over the last several years has changed in my thinking.

I’m not sure what WE mean by successful is really what God means by successful.  In the church world, what is typically meant by successful is butts in the seats and money in the offering.  These are two easily quantifiable metrics.  The assumption is made that if you grow in numbers then you are being successful.  That is certainly not always the case.  You could just have the best show in town on Sunday morning.

Now I think numbers are important.  The book of Acts record more than once how many people assembled or how many people were saved.  So numbers are important, they are just not everything.  They never tell the whole story.

I remember a comment made during a “revival” at a church I served.  A revival is an old church term to describe having church services for 3 or more nights in a row to reach out to those who are not saved.  “Revival” became the fashionable name for this outreach event even though “revival” was originally a description of the Holy Spirit’s movement and not the name of an event.  Anyway, one of the leaders in looking at the attendance that day said, “If we are not careful, we are going to be a big church.”

He ws bragging about the attendance that day and missed the point.  In attendance was a lot of people from the church and a lot of people form other churches but NO ONE new and NO ONE who was not already a Christian.  He would have said that “revival” was a success when in reality it was a horrible failure for its purpose.

So does God want us to be a successful church?  Well of course He wants us to succeed at HIS mission.  But HIS mission is not getting people into a building.  His mission is making disciples, however that needs to happen.  And sometimes we can gauge our success with numbers, but they never tell the whole story.

Monday morning rant is now officially over.

I can’t believe I’m 36.

By the time this is published I will be home from my trip to the New England area.  I’ve had some good birthday experiences.  This year I celebrated next to the ski slopes of New Hampshire although I didn’t ski.  Last year I celebrated in Seattle while participating in a church planting workshop.  The best trip by far was 3 years ago when I celebrated on the Sea of Galilee in Israel.

These have been very unique experiences in which God gave me a sense of clarity each time that I was not expecting.

• In Israel I gained this clarity about my relationship with Him that I hadn’t had in some time.  The essence of that clarity was that Jesus really is all that matters.  If my focus is on Jesus everything else is secondary.  Nothing matters as much as Him.
• In Seattle I gained clarity that God really was working with the new campus we were planting.  I received such a confirmation that God was already at work ahead of us and that He indeed wanted Suncrest-East to succeed even more than I did.  Probably more important was the confirmation that I was the one He really wanted leading it.
• And this year…well the experience is still fresh so I will wait to reflect on it in this arena.

All in all, good birthdays over the last several years.  But I still can’t believe I’m 36.

I’m standing in the Manchester, NH airport, heading home after the Rhode Island church plant partnership team retreat.  This was a great two day experience getting to know the church plant and partnership team.  This is a first for me so I’m really excited on two fronts.

First, I love church planting.  My time at Suncrest has lit a fire under me for church planting.  I believe that church planting is the very best evangelism tool we have as churches.

Second, I have always wanted to get to know Restoration House Ministries (RHM).  RHM is the church planting group for New England sponsored by Christians Churches around the nation.  With only 1 independent Christian church per 876,390 people (as compared to 1 per 50,000 people in other areas of the United States) it is easy to see why they are needed.

The newest plant and the one I will encourage through the partnership team participation on behalf of Suncrest is going to be in Providence county, Rhode Island.  Less than 18% of all residents in Rhode Island attend any Catholic or Protestant Church.  This is prime territory for a new church.

The launch will be October of this year, so pleae pray for this new church work as there is huge potential for hundreds upon hundreds of people coming to Christ as a result.

“Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady.” – U2 in “Stand up Comedy”

I love that line in the song because that is what we try to do with God way, way too much.  We think God needs our help.  We are SO sure of something that we over rationalize our reasons, in effect trying to help God out.

Sometimes we act like we even know God’s business more than He does.

We want to do a good work for God instead of joining God where He is working.  We can forget that God is always at work.

“My Father is still working, and I also am working.” – John 5:17

Our job is not to make something happen, but to look for where God is already working.  I like what Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost have said:

“Those who are taken captive by Jesus see mission not merely as a practice preferred by God but as an aspect of his very character. He is mission (ReJesus).”

A classic way of talking about the missio Dei is to say the “mission of God” but it is also just as correct to say the “God of mission.”  Central to who God is, is mission.

God does not NEED our help.  But He does ask us to join Him where He is working to accomplish His mission.