My skepticism has passed since doing some thorough research.  Once I saw there were many models of multi-sites rather than just the celebrity model that I have sometimes seen, my perspective began to change.  Once I had studied healthier models that were Kingdom minded with a clear missional involvement, and less mega church and attractional, my defenses came down.   (Attractional is simply a program- driven- come- and-see- what- we- do- approach).  I began to see some real upside for God’s Kingdom work in some powerful ways.  The following are some bullet point observations that speak to the advantage of churches using a healthy multi-site approach to launching churches.

10 reasons I am a believer in “Missional” Multi-site Churches…

1. Multi-site churches are a way of putting “local” back in the church.  With the advent of mega churches, the local church has been lost and the regional mega-church born.  When churches do multi-site, they are taking the church back down to a grass roots movement in a community and move away from  larger massive institutions.
2. Multi-site churches create space and opportunity for new leaders to be born and to become. Take for example praise teams.  Once a church has its polished worship band and team, the tendency is to simply work the most talented and  only develop back one or two talent spots for each position.  This leaves a lot of emerging talent on the side.  Multi-site forces every pastor and ministry leader to become a developer of people for future campuses and church plants.  Sounds a lot like a form of disciple making to me.
3. Multi-site churches foster a “going” ethos.  ”Missional” is a term over used and under-defined today.  If you want to sell a book or sound trendy, use the term “missional.” I even hated using the word to describe our version of a multi-site, but there are so many hybrids of the new method.  Though there are many dialects of missional, one thing is unanimous with missional churches – they “go.”  The biggest event isn’t the coming to church, but the going of the church.  They go to the under-developed and under-resourced; they go to the growing populations segments in need of a spiritual community.    Multi-sites create a culture where “going is good.”
4. Multi-site churches take the church to the people, instead of expecting the unchurched to come to them.  It is most important to build bridges to the unchurched.  Caring enough to go to the people and be among the people is more meaningful than saying come to us. People typically will travel as far to church as they travel to work (15-20 min in NWA).  It is beyond reason to expect an unchurched person to travel further than this to attend church gatherings.  Unchurched people won’t go out of their way to go to church.   Neither are the unchurched turned on to Jesus by a church’s polished performance.  Instead, the church living in the community, affecting the community mind, body and soul opens doors to speak into the lives of people far from Christ.
5. Multi-site churches are more efficient with God’s resources and effective in church planting .  A 3-self church plant (self supporting, self governing, and self sustaining) is the traditional form of church planting should still be a priority.  However, some church starts require subsidies of $150,000 or more before they can become self sustaining churches.  Multi-sites can be self-sustaining faster and with less money because the start up cost, logistical organization, legal papers for 501c3 status, and marketing functions are all shared by the launching campus as they have already established systems, processes,  and a name to help the emerging congregation.   Instead of crawling as a baby church, they are able to start walking and running quickly as a multi-site.

There are some things about multi-site churches that I am repulsed by.  However, My definition of what a multi-site church can and should be has been broadened. I now see its potential value.   Next blog post I will give the other 5 reasons I have gone from a skeptic to a believer in multi-sites.

Fifty percent of my doctorate is seeking to upack and identify leading missional churches from coast to coast in America that are being missional.  You can think of missional as the lens through which you see your culture that will then influence the way you approach your ministry (my very elementary description). The culture shapes the ways and means of ministry.

I came across a good video that shows you in a glimpse what I am attempting to study in full.  It is an interview between a couple of guys that I have read their writings and had the privilege to interact with on various levels.  They are seeking to give definition to a very slippery topic.  I think they do a great job at showing the viewers the dynamic nature of and the diversity within the topic.  Plus they are so eloquent in their speech- they are good teachers.  I only wish I could communicate as clearly about the topic as they do:).

Watch and learn.

Ed Stetzer and David Fitch – a missional conversation Part One from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

Saturday at 8:30 AM, 230 volunteers showed up at GPC ministry campus ready to give their day in service to NWA.  Teams were wrapping gifts that our members donated for 140 less fortunate children around the world and sending shoe boxes through Operation Christmas Child.  Two other teams went and served two local shelters for women in transition (Northwest Arkansas Women’s Shelter and Saving Grace).  Others prepared meals for volunteers and people in the community while others assisted with childcare.  Still others collected food for the Salvation Army.

The flagship project of the day was serving the Rogers community through a Neighborhood Makeover project.  Thirty homes were served with  hands in the dirt, bagging leaves, mowing yards, chain saws blazing and tree trimming.   Trash was also collected to our dumpster’s capacity as 80 Grace Point members and attenders put their faith to work and shared hope with people of NWA.   I am so proud to pastor such a serving, giving, and caring congregation.

You have been a blessing to our community, body, soul and spirit…that’s what a church is supposed to be.  Watch this video that captures the heart of the day.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A high percentage of their staff (or “members” as most churches refer to them) are a part of the film industry.  They capitalize on their context and employ it as much as possible.  Eric had this link on his blog, so I thought I would pass it on too.  It’s fun and inspiring to watch.

In How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins (Good to Great; Built to Last) says the following: (p. 46)

“We anticipated that most companies fall from greatness because they become complacent–the fail to stimulate innovation, they fail to initiate bold action, they fail to ignite change, they just became lazy–and watch the world pass them by.”

Would you say this is true of many churches? That they have become complacent and this is the reason for their lack of growth? Is it true of the Southern Baptist Convention (and other denominations)?

Collins goes on to say:
“It’s a plausible theory with a problem: it doesn’t square with our data. Certainly, any enterprise that becomes complacent and refuses to change or innovate will eventually fall. But, and this is the surprising point, the companies in our analysis showed little evidence of complacency when they fell. Overreaching much better explains how the once-invincible self-destruct.”

Your opinion: do churches  decline because of complacency or over reaching?

I am in a season of life when I am going through an honest introspection and biblcial interpretation (must do both for balance) of what, why, how, and where is a church?  I want you to do some honest reflection and tell me “Why go to Church?”  Click on the comments button and tell the world.

1. David Olson, The American Church in Crisis, 28
2. George Barna. Revolution, 49

The reality is…it is a matter of life and death.  It is a matter of heaven or hell; a life with God or without God.  The absolute reason over 150 volunteers would do this is because they want every child to know and experience the love of Jesus up close and personal.

Every person on earth must come face to face and heart to heart with the realization of three things…

• They are a sinner in need of a savior (Rom 10:10; 3:23; Is 59:2)
• They can be saved (John 1:12; 1 Pet 3:18)
• How to be saved: How?   Repent  of our offensive action and attitudes(Acts 3:19; 26:20), Place our faith in Jesus (Act 4:12), and let Jesus call the shots in our life (Matt 7:21).

Sound too formulamatic?  Sound too much like you are losing control of your life?  It’s not a formula, it’s a relationship.  It’s not about our control, it’s about allowing the God of the universe to have His rightful place in our life and living His destiny for our life.

Besides teaching the kids how to ski, martial arts, rug making, archery, canoe, etc. and other such daily adventures.  The real adventure is teaching the kids how to go the way of Jesus.  One father looked back over his life as a parent with regret.  His children had grown older and had never developed a walk with God.  He summarized his parenting like this: “I spent too much time teaching my children how to walk instead of teaching them where to walk.” Let’s teach our children by our life and words where to walk not just how to walk.

Missing from this conversation are the likes of Bob Roberts, church- planting pastor who is living a glo-cal ministry. Erwin McManus, pastoring, a missional church that is penetrating many diverse cultures of the greater LA region. Where is Ed Stetzer, SBC prime voice on the cultural changes and the greater missional movement? Would SB ever consider thinking beyond the tight SBC umbrella to enlist the perspective and input conservative missional churches? What about Tim Keller or Francis Chan? These are just a few options.

Loading the task force with megachurch pastors who have been leading the convention for years isn’t radical enough change from my seat. To save the work and mission of our convention, deep radical change must be made, that will require a new set of eyes and ideas.

The first article I read today broke my heart. It shows how the downturn in the economy has ripple effects that spread beyond our borders. When I read how one of the strongest church planting, care giving international mission agencies in the country is reducing it missionary personnel appointments in the future, I was saddened. The International Mission Board (IMB), the largest evangelical mission sending agency in the world, is being forced to reduce future missionary appointments. This isn’t good for God’s ultimate calling to all believers go to the ends of the earth. We must continue to do what William Carey said to do: “hold the rope, as he goes down into the pit.” There is something deep in my heart that simply isn’t right about slowing down God’s global work, when we should be speeding up.

The second article encouraged my spirit when I see creative ways God’s people in the church are responding the hard times. Instead of turning inward, I love it when churches turns outward. Kudos’s to Cross Timber Community Church for how they are opening themselves up to the community and stepping up.

I am thankful that I get to Pastor a people who knows the value of global missions as our church ranks in the top giving churches by per capita giving to the IMB. When our contributors give to our Global Missions offering, 50% of it goes directly to support IMB missionaries on the field. Of the remaining: 30% goes to support missions throughout North America, 10% goes to support missions throughout Arkansas and 10% goes to help orphanages and crisis family support in Arkansas. Giving is a beautiful act of service.

HOPE-NWA has become a local initiative to keep hope alive in Northwest Arkansas. This is an initiative started at Grace Point Church, but has quickly spread to become a community effort to nurture hope in practical and free ways, much like the Cross Timber’s Community effort. There are many new and developing community projects in the making so get ready to be a part.

So the next time you think of giving to something, ask the question, “what is my giving – giving?”

I can finally see some a glimmer of hope for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in the latest call for resurgence. I have been quite concerned about the viability and sustainability of our historically Great Commission convention.

As a student and proponent of the Conservative Biblical Resurgence of the 1980′s within the SBC, I have become very disillusioned with the militaristic rhetoric and dogmatic elitism that has emerged in our convention in the new millennium. I think it is time for the convention to wake up to the evadable: the convention has a very short “shelf life,” if there isn’t a resurgence of the Great Commission.

The axiom’s that the Great Commission Resurgence advocate are maybe what is necessary to help a dying convention extend it’s life, but more important than extending the SBC life is finishing the task Christ gave his followers 2000 years ago. I think the statements are a good move in the right direction to help recreate the aroma of the SBC.

Here is the value of the axioms as I see it:

1. The Axioms reinforce what the SBC has believed historically, reproduced in their seminaries and modeled through their missionaries. However, there has develop a great disconnect between what many Southern Baptist believe and live; between what churches say they do and what they actually do; between what the agencies where designed to produce what they actually produce.

2. Some have said “our [the SBC] convention is in worse shape now than it was 15 years ago” as a rationale for doing nothing to change. They have used this rational as reasoning for not signing the axioms. What did Einstein say one is when we keep doing the same thing, but expect different results? Insanity. If the SBC, historically the largest mission sending protestant convention, is broke, as some say, this is all the more reason to adjust our actions, spending and programming. The convention has had a spiralling down problem for years. At least now some are trying to stem the tide and change the direction.

3. The axioms call for a serious self evaluation of each agency, seminary and board in an effort to downsize of duplicated duties to create leaner and more efficient mission agencies and training institutions.

5. It is time for the local churches in to be the missional agencies instead of funding larger agencies to do the work of the church. This is a form of prosititution. When the local church send’s $1,000 of dollars to agencies to do their missions for them, it is virtually prositituing the gospel because the local church isn’t willing to do what they have been called to do. Missions starts with local churches reproducing local churches. Sending our money to others to do our mission is not the most effective church planting approach. The cry of the missional church is to go and not just to gather. It is time for the church to be the church in the community. As the church becomes the mission agency we will need leaner and more strategic agencies to come along and support the mission.

It is time for all the churches of all denominations to call for a resurgence of the Great Commission. it’s time to become lean and strategic