All About Multisite &#8211; unSeminary

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Use code SHERPA10 through January 6, 2019 for 10% off Greg’s new “Climbing the Assimilayas” video course.

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All About Multisite // Tips for Adding a 4th Location & Campus Pastor Essentials

Rich Birch — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 09:44:43 +0000

Welcome back to our new podcast all about multisite! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows:

And I, Rich, have been involved with 14 different campus launches over the years and enjoy helping churches that are thinking about multisite.

We are here to answer your questions about running a multisite church and are excited to be here today with our eighth episode.

Opening question: We tend to think about gifts as we go into this holiday season, so if you could give one gift to every church leader who was tuning in, what would that gift be?

Natalie – To go and take a Sunday to visit another church.
Greg – A minimum one-month sabbatical (or a weekly sabbath if you don’t have a sabbatical policy at your church)
Ben –Greg stole my answer! But my back-up would be a subscription to Audible.
Rich—to give people a chance to have actual friends in ministry to connect with and have those real conversations with

Q1: We’re about to go to our fourth campus, and it will be a mobile campus at a school where we have to set up/tear down each week. As the communication director, what am I in for?

Two campuses from Natalie’s church meet at school locations, and most of the campuses hold mid-week youth programs at schools. She finds that signage is the essential key for success when launching a portable site. Signs that point out where to go and what to do are so important for new guests and for parents who drop their kids off at various classrooms—you want to make sure people don’t feel lost. Natalie strongly encourages your guest connections people or host team to bring those new guests all the way through the site—not just once but throughout the beginning of new-here vistors’ journey with your church. Lastly, be sure to keep your signage up until parents have picked up their children from a classroom. That should be a given, but since signs are so easy to pull down so quickly, we usually take them down right away so we feel like we’re ahead of schedule in packing up. This is a real no-no—you want to help parents know where their children are so they can pick up their kids!

Natalie’s tip of the day: Have a small label at the end of a rolled-up sign so that you know what the sign is for! It might sound silly, but it’s the ultimate timesaver. Laminate small signs—and always be sure to use wall-safe tape when you’re using a rental site.

Ben says to make sure all of your communication pieces are all portable, minimal, and storable—storability is key! Don’t cheap out on your portable solutions. Sure, in your permanent locations, you can spend less since you worry less about wear and tear, but that doesn’t work when you’re setting up and tearing down every weekend. He advises enlisting the help of an agency that can help you navigate the process and avoid otherwise costly mistakes. Also, be aware of any communications limitations and zoning laws from your local municipality and local host site. Lastly, be ready to invest in A-frames—you’re going to need those things all over the place, so budget for them now!

Ben’s best tip: Design your communication for a new guest that is a parent running late and they forgot their coffee. If you design your signage for that person then you’re going to hit everybody. Once you feel like you’ve gotten all of your signage needs identified, double them.

From a guest connections point of view, position your welcome desk critically and invest in proper signage. Ensure the right people are available to guests during teardown. A lot of the best communication and connection moments happen right after a service. If you color code signs, make them loud and clear. Greg also suggests that portable sites learn to leverage social media in a specific, powerful way—always make sure you announce how to find out more! Move away from the personal phone call to texting and the benefits of using a service like Google Voice.

Greg’s best tip: Have a great all-access tour as part of your assimilation program. Invite your guests to see what happens behind the scenes at the portable site—they want to be familiar and see how everything works together.

Q2: We all know that campus pastors are a critical piece of the whole multisite journey, so how would you describe the perfect campus pastor?

Since Greg’s church brings in the teaching via video from the hub, he eliminates teaching ability from his description of the perfect campus pastor. Greg focuses on qualities from the StrengthsFinder book, believing that the ability to “WOO” (winning others over) is critical. In order to win others for Jesus, he says campus pastors should be trustworthy, sincere, and believable. The ability to be a communicator, think strategically, and be a team player who represents the community he or she serves—these are all traits to look for in a great campus pastor.

At Meeting House where Natalie serves, they have lead pastors, not campus pastors, but that’s just a change in terms. Overall, Natalie agrees with Greg. She discusses some changes she’s seen in the job description and hiring habits at her church over the years: campus pastors teach several times a year at their own location—this didn’t used to be a requirement, but now the church seeks that teaching ability more than in the past. Natalie feels like a strong campus pastor should clearly communicate through writing as well as through verbal articulation of thoughts and ideas. She also finds that a campus pastor should be someone who looks for, equips, and empowers other leaders to support and encourage. A campus pastor with a rich prayer life is a huge gift to the church as well!

While Ben also agrees with his colleagues, he also takes the perspective of what he would look for on a resume. It might seem counterintuitive, but he suggests that a multisite or new portable church hire somebody without preaching experience if they already have video teaching in place. Then you won’t have to pull them back from a road they’ve already been down. Ben also points out the benefits to hiring someone with a pastoral heart but pastoral experience and how that might serve a multisite church better than a pastor with single-site pastoral experience. Single-site pastors are used to leading the organization rather than being number two and that can create baggage. Lastly, Ben would look for someone who may have run a franchise before since a multisite church shares the franchising model and perspective. He also mentions the need for schools of education to better train and equip people to serve multisite churches.

Contact us at our websites:

Got a question for us? Record it and send it to rich@unseminary.com

Thank You for Tuning In!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

All About Multisite // Model for 2 Location Multisite? A Very Multisite Christmas?

Rich Birch — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 08:44:44 +0000

And I, Rich, have been involved with 14 different campus launches over the years and enjoy helping churches that are thinking about multisite.

We are here to answer your questions about running a multisite church and are excited to be here today with our seventh episode.

Opening question: If you could switch out your role for any other role in your church, what would it be?

Natalie – Either a lead pastor role at one of our campuses or (if we had such a role) some kind of guest connections role.
Greg – I would switch places with our teaching pastor.
Ben -I would say something like a junior high or a grief share role—for me, those are the opportunities for some pivotal moments in people’s lives.

Q1: After several years of having a second campus, we really need a model for staff interaction. Is there a good starting point to begin to put a model in place?

Natalie said that a model is more than who reports to whom; it begins with an overarching vision. What is shared, what isn’t? What makes it a multisite other than two churches that share finances or branding? Make a list of essentials that helps guide your church to understand its identity. Get to a place with a shared program, shared structure, and shared resources. Connect on training times and create a common list of everything from setting up a classroom to supplies and toys. Natalie also advised that when you plan, don’t just plan for a few locations—plan for many locations and consider what the sites would look like ten years down the road.

Ben offered insights from a service programming perspective. First, evaluate the following: how do you help teams from a creative point of view? When you go from one to more than one, start planning your preaching calendar further in advance (e.g. plan it out in the fall for the upcoming year, and roll it out to the staff around December). To streamline communications, standardize your announcements and your events, and consider hosting just one event as a whole church instead of several smaller events which vary per site. Ben also suggested that churches move from live to video announcement, have a consistent playlist for the worship teams, and standardize social media.

Greg responded to this question with a series of questions for the executive team to reflect on. Where in the spectrum between a church plant and a campus is that church? If you’re referring to one site as the “main campus,” are the sites the same size or is one significantly larger than the other? Is there any vision for another campus? When it comes to assimilation, make it the same experience for guests at both campuses. Greg also agrees with Natalie’s praise for the power of bulk supplies—do the same thing at all campuses for economy.

Q2: With a big day like Halloween here, we figured what better thing to talk about than one of the biggest days in the church calendar—Christmas! What are you doing to get your particular church ready for this Big Day and what advice would you give with other churches as they prepare for Christmas?

Natalie said she began planning for Christmas eight months ago! When she looks at Christmas, she thinks about guests and guest families. Consider how Christmas Eve is going to be experienced by those who have never attended church before, or who may have attended church services but never attended with kids. Natalie says it’s also important to remind our communities of things like junior high—how old are your middle schoolers, and how can you reach out to them? Her church also budgets more around Christmastime as an investment that shows how they value this time of year. Lastly, Natalie reminded us to pray for people to have a meaningful experience of being reminded of who “God with us” is, being reminded of the incarnation, and being reminded of those who will be impacted in a new way by the story of the birth of our Savior. Likewise, Rich points out that Christmas still has a culture touchstone and that does push us to question how we should be preparing spiritually for that.

Ben’s church is currently employing communications strategies with his staff to keep everyone in the loop. From the service programming perspective, Ben encourages churches to continue to look outside and leverage relationships and research to prepare. It’s easy for multisite churches to see their expansion and feel like they can rest or even become lazy, and if you do that, your experiences will suffer. Enter the season with a spirit of humility and do that by looking outside your walls and keep on learning from peers at other churches. Ben also offers ideas on having a mastermind group, being transparent about creative influences, and the significant value of brainstorming meetings (and how to creatively consider who you can bring to the table.)

Greg likens Christmas to the church’s version of the Super Bowl since there is no other weekend where we have as big an outreach and as high attendance as this. He gives practical tips on how to utilize lighting and sound properly in the common areas at holiday time so they aren’t distracting, how to involve children and families, how to avoid lines at guest services, and how to give a gift that matters. Greg points out that Christmas guests are different than regular guests, so you have to engage with them differently as well as use a different follow-up process and procedure. Remember that Christmas guests didn’t necessarily come on Christmas because they are looking for a church, they came because it’s Christmas and perhaps family invited them. He explains how his team handwrites a notecard and sends a gift to arrive after New Year’s Day rather than immediately after Christmas when people are more focused on spending time with loved ones than looking for a church. Follow up with a great series and start advertising that series on Christmas, with a reminder in the guest follow-up after New Year’s Day.

Contact us at our websites:

Got a question for us? Record it and send it to rich@unseminary.com

Thank You for Tuning In!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

All About Multisite: New Service or New Campus? Explaining Matrix Leadership Model

Rich Birch — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 08:44:17 +0000

And I, Rich, have been involved with 14 different campus launches over the years and enjoy helping churches that are thinking about multisite.

We are here to answer your questions about running a multisite church and are excited to be here today with our sixth episode.

Opening Question: What was a highlight from summer?

Natalie – My daughter had an awesome week at Camp Mini-Yo-We and then we traveled to a lot as a family. It was great to travel and relax a bit.
Greg – I came back from a Sabbatical in Italy and went to San Francisco. I took my adult kids on a National Park tour and then hung out at the beach.
Ben – Professionally I transitioned in positions. I used to be the Creative Arts Pastor at Liquid Church in New Jersey. But just recently I came on board as the Weekend Experience Director at Christ Fellowship in Miami.

Q1: When do you know it’s time to go multisite, rather than adding another service?

Multisite isn’t a growth strategy, it’s a multiplication strategy. Going multisite won’t kickstart your church to grow, but if your church is growing, it’s a way to take that growth and multiply it into new areas. So what factors need to be present for you to launch a new campus?

Natalie recommends that you think about the economic point of view. A lot of the costs can be easily minimized and measured in launching a second service at the same site rather than launching a second campus. In kids’ ministry, Natalie thinks about all of the classroom supplies, the volunteers and investment needed for new classrooms and youth groups, youth activities, and so on. If parking is an issue at your campus, one alternative would be moving your original campus instead of launching a second site.

When asked, “Should I add another service or another site?” Ben says the answer is yes. “If your church is growing don’t you as a leader be the bottleneck because you have a small vision; release it as much as you can.” Start with a big vision. Maximize your current space before you look to launch another campus. The top three bottlenecks for service growth are parking space, auditorium space, and kid space. Parking is tough, but the way that they got around it at the Liquid Church broadcast campus where Ben previously worked was by offering a shuttle service with one of the local businesses. They offered the business use of their auditorium if they could use the business’s parking lot for their shuttle service on Sunday mornings.

When the cost of expanding capacity at a service is greater than the cost of launching a campus, then launch a campus. Greg recommends looking at the costs of property in your area and the building codes and construction costs as well. Compare the two and see which one would cost less. Launching an entirely new campus may cost less than expanding or remodeling the current campus based on building codes in your area.

From an assimilation standpoint, make sure you launch your campus or service only when you have the place, program and process for placement ready. The average church assimilates 1 out of 19 guests. When you launch a new site, you want to have your assimilation strategy fully expressed at the kick off, even for the practice services. Those early weeks will be your biggest numbers for a full season, so why loose 3 out of 4 visitors because you’re not prepared? You want the assimilation strategy fully ready so you can be collecting those guest cards and heavily promoting whatever guest program that you’ll be sending them to.

Q2: Can you explain to people how your “central team” vs. “campus teams” interact with each other? Explain it to us as if you are talking to a team member in a campus for the first time. Help us understand how to clarify the “matrix model” in a way that is transportable and easy to understand.

Central has systems and content, while the campus has relationships with people. Central creates the framework so that the campus doesn’t have to. Natalie’s role as a curriculum pastor works on the central side, with her major tasks to provide content for all of the locations, provide the support for questions people may have, and then find out what works and what doesn’t. Then feedback is a huge part of both the central and campus teams. Use the feedback to get a big picture of what is going on and utilize that to develop what works for both groups to create unity and congruency.

In launching several multisites, Greg has learned that by the time you get to the fifth campus you need a unique central team. This central team comes on as a dotted line relationship to support and help launch the systems at the new campus. Set up campus pastor or campus assimilation director meetings with the central assimilation team member prior to the launch and then continue monthly meetings with that group. Explain all of the systems and content which is in place, take on the role of a coach and hold them accountable to making sure that these systems are being executed.

Central teams create content and systems during the week which campuses put into action on Sunday. Another way to say it is central creates an experience and campuses execute the experience. Ben uses the analogy where central builds a car but the campus drives it. Campus pastors will often have a solid line to leaders on their site, such as the worship leader or student pastor, and then central staff will have a dotted line to those people. But the reverse is also possible, where central has the oversight of the campus area leaders and the campus pastor has dotted line influence over the people. In areas where specific areas of expertise is required, those central solid line connections may work better. A campus pastor may not know if the bands are in tune, but the central worship pastor would because he or she has the expertise in that area. Also, central having the solid line and campus pastors having the dotted line allows the campus pastors to have more time for relationships with their congregation.

Contact us at our websites:

Got a question for us? Record it and send it to rich@unseminary.com

Thank You for Tuning In!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

All About Multisite: Robust Leadership Development Practices & Keeping Teams Aligned

Rich Birch — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 08:44:58 +0000

Ben Stapley is our communications and service programming expert. Ben is one of the most helpful leaders I know. His day job is at Liquid Church in NJ, but he does so much to help other leaders with the “big show” part of church world.

And I, Rich, have been involved with 14 different campus launches over the years and enjoy helping churches that are thinking about multisite.

We are here to answer your questions about running a multisite church and are excited to be here today with our fifth episode.

Opening Question: Who are some other multisite churches that you are learning from?

Greg Curtis – There isn’t one or two specific ones I have personally invested in, but I would say in general Church of the Highlands and Central Christian in Mesa, Arizona.
Natalie Frisk – To be honest with you and without even building into their egos at all, I have been learning a lot from Liquid Church and Eastside, both Greg and Ben. But not just those guys, different people on their teams. Aside from those two, I would also say Crossroads Church in Ohio has been an incredible church to tune into.
Ben Stapley – I know one that I’ve given a lot of shout outs to in the past is LCBC Church in Pennsylvania. They’ve been super helpful with their time and have systemized things really well. In terms of following churches from afar, on my radar right now would be Christ Church of the Valley. They do a great job of sharing their resources.

Q1: What are some effective systems and practices churches are using for developing leaders in multisite churches?

Raising up leaders is critically important for both staff and volunteers. 87% of all campus pastors are found from within the existing church and 2/3 of volunteers in all locations are new to volunteering.

Within Eastside Church, when a new campus is started they invite people to come to interest meetings where they can meet the campus pastor and key leaders that have already been recruited for a few major areas. There is a short presentation to let everyone know where the church is in the launch process, and then the leaders are introduced by area. People are invited to sit at the various tables with area leaders based on where they are interested in serving. This process is the beginning of the pipeline, whether they are new to volunteering or experienced, and can lead to key leadership positions. Eastside has learned a lot from watching other organizations and works to adapt and implement what works for them. When they went to Auxano, they designed a three-year process for implementation that would go through the entire staff and department to develop leaders. They use a three-wing environment to develop leaders: Prep Modules, which are comprised of five competencies that help move someone from a team member up to the highest levels of leadership; Inspirational Events to encourage and offer new events for the team members; and Ongoing Equipping Huddles to invite staff to events based on an issue of development to connect with others.

One thing that Natalie recommends is to identify areas of gifting in people when they are young. What does it look like for kids or youth who are super friendly to be at the front door welcoming people into the church? If they’re nervous about the front door, what about positioning them at the kids’ welcoming area? At The Meeting House, the Leadership In Training program allows kids to see what it looks like to work in these positions within the church. The Student Leadership Team then allows students who are really engaged and want to be developed to go the next level in a variety of ministries and areas in the church.

It can be hard to figure out how to create an effective plan for developing a church leader. Natalie suggests planning a clear trajectory. Using the classroom as an example, one idea for a trajectory would be: Classroom Helper to Leader to Coach to Coordinator to Full-time Staff. Have clearly laid out roles and move people along that path to develop them as a leader.

In addition to volunteers, today’s interns could be tomorrow’s leaders, so Ben advises to create an internship program if you don’t already have one. The more interns you have, the less work it is for you. They will be able to collaborate and ask each other for help rather than come to you every time they have a question. The program also allows a “try before you buy” approach for both you and the interns.

Freelancers provide another pipeline. Brian Major at Christ Church strongly advocates for freelancers and he has about a 50/50 split between a full-time staff and freelancers. Freelance keeps your overhead low and gives you more options during peak seasons, like Christmas and Easter.

Q2: Keeping leadership teams “rowing in the same direction” is an important part of multisite church. What are some ways that you are ensuring your teams are focused on working together? Both formally (systems, etc.) and relationally?

Make sure that your staff member’s SMART goals are aligned with the organization goals. Identify some organizational goals for the upcoming year and pass them out to the staff members so that they can identify how their job will support that goal. Identify department goals to help the team work together within their group. Another system would be a Sunday morning huddle before the service or a weekly staff meeting to identify where everyone is at that moment. If some members aren’t able to be there in person, consider setting up virtual options for the meeting so that everyone can join in no matter where they are.

Software can be a great help in strengthening relationships and keeping track of goals. You can use calendar reminders to encourage someone that day. Do that in context to the church’s mission or organizational goal. The software PeopleGoal works great in keeping track of churchwide goals, team goals, and personal goals. It also allows you to give a shout out to someone and encourage them with a goal. Wrike is a project tracking software that allows teams churchwide to keep track of what they are doing and connect, as well as connect with different teams within the church.

Never eat alone! Don’t eat your lunch alone at your desk; join in the lunchroom with the other staff members or invite others out to eat with you. Take advantage of a relaxing meal to get to know the other staff members better.

At Eastside, every staff member uses a 6×6 ministry planning cycle in that they pick 6 leadership goals to complete within 6 months. New staff members are assimilated into the group through a fun process that gives them the real insight behind the scenes at the very beginning. This allows them to feel that they are a part of the team right at the start. Build dotted line relationships for mentoring and communication to allow for building leadership in staff.

Contact us at our websites:

www.liquidchurch.com

Got a question for us? Record it and send it to rich@unseminary.com

Thank You for Tuning In!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

All About Multisite: Campus Driven? Central Driven? A Hybrid of Both?

Rich Birch — Wed, 30 May 2018 08:44:04 +0000

Welcome to our new podcast all about multisite! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows:

And I, Rich, have been involved with 14 different campus launches over the years and enjoy helping churches that are thinking about multisite.

We are here to answer your questions about running a multisite church and are excited to be here today with our fourth episode.

Open Question: What are you looking forward to this summer?

Ben Stapley – The shore. Not the beach, but the shore. Family, and jumping back on my motorcycle after all the snow.
Greg Curtis – I’ll experience my first sabbatical this summer, so I’m excited about that.
Natalie Frisk – Our family is going to western Canada to visit family and then to eastern Canada to have a little vacation.

Q1: What do you think of a hybrid version of campus vs. central version of leadership?

It’s a tension to be managed and something which most leaders in multisite churches probably struggle with on some level. Tension can run really high in this area. Central leadership is better early on for fast launching of campuses, but strong campus leadership is needed as the campuses mature. In any case, it’s important to set the tone that this is not an “us versus them” mentality but a clear “we’re in this together” mindset. In a multisite context, especially as more campuses are added, there must be clarity about what the core values of the ministry are, and what aspects are open to being adapted to a local context, however both campus and central staff should be involved in the process.

The central staff can give clarity of strategy and systems to help things work well in a local context. Centrally they build and develop that supportive framework, and provide vision and direction. Then the campus staff can step in and be empowered to carry that baton, as they serve their local community.

Greg explains the central-campus leader relationship as being like a grandparent: you have all of the joys of coming alongside and supporting without the direct responsibility. You can help make the campus succeed by coaching the campus pastor or giving them advice, but the responsibility of assimilation, for example, lies with the campus staff. Create a close relationship between the central and campus leaders so that you can have someone to turn to for advice and support, or else just a friend to spend time with.

Be aware and sensitive to location and culture differences between campuses, especially if you have campuses in different states or countries. Differences between cultures, even if they’re as simple as the types of weather at different times of year that affect the lifestyle in that area, can mean changes in how things are done from one campus to another and need to be acknowledged and understood within hybrid leadership.

You can use the hybrid system as a bit of a reward method. If one campus is doing great, give them greater freedom and autonomy. But this can also become tough because you aren’t consistent. In other words, how much freedom and responsibility you give to one campus or department isn’t the same across the board. Be aware that it may start to create some unnecessary competition or complaining.

Q2: What do you “miss” about leading in a single site church? How is the multisite model limiting?

In a single site church you have the opportunity to really contextualize your message to that local community. For example, Ben’s multisite churches went through the issue of providing a message on parents wrestling with which extracurricular activities to put their kids into and how to get their kids into the best colleges. But at some of the locations, the parents at those communities couldn’t afford to put their kids into after-school activities, or they were focused on just getting their children to graduate high school and stay out of a gang.

It takes extra effort to build community within a multisite context. It can be easier to create that close community within a single site church, especially in a smaller one, but it takes a lot more effort to connect community across multiple locations.

Sometimes ideas can’t come to fruition due to costs in getting supplies across all locations in multisite churches. A multisite church that is still building their finances may not have enough money to buy the supplies for big children’s church projects. It could be much easier to buy supplies for projects in a single site church.

Contact us at our websites:

www.liquidchurch.com