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Multi-Site 4

Over the last week or so, Matt has been blogging about multi-site and what that might mean for The Journey.  I thought I'd throw my two cents in as well.  To be honest, Matt pretty much covered it all.  The last couple lines of his last post, says it all as well.  We want to do whatever we can to reach as many people as possible along the lakeshore, with relationships not religion.

We never want to be married to a method.  When churches do that, they become outdated and antiquated.  Pretty soon they are running a program/method that they can't get rid of, even though it is no longer effective.  That's why churches so often burn people out, have memorial rooms, and youth choirs that should have been dropped 15 years ago.

Multi-site provides a number of positive benefits that Matt listed in his first blog in this Multi-site series, and because of that, we believe that it would be good stewardship for The Journey.  How that all looks is up for debate.  There are lots of unknowns.  And, three years down the road there may be something new or innovative that would help us reach more people, more effectively.  And, if there is, we will move in that direction as well.

Let me say it again:  We will never be married to a method, but we will stay married to the mission of reaching people who are disconnected from God.  That's a lifetime commitment. 

Multi-site 3

There are a couple things we really want to see happen...
INTERNET - More of a impact on the web - this is a great place for video. Lifechurch.tv has an internet campus - it is also connected to a facebook application. They have people connect to the services in cities not even close to their church - then some of those people have community groups together. I think that is sweet. As we become more of a web-base society, we need to leverage our impact online. We are gonna experiment with an online community group this semester as well.

BRING IT - we don't know what this looks like, but instead of expecting people to come to us - we want to bring church to people in West Michigan. We have very few ideas how this is gonna happen, but we might try some crazy stuff in the future.

TWO VALUES - we have heard some wisdom that we hold dear...
~Everything is an Experiment - it won't happen if you don't try. Every great man or business or church fails sometime. Nothing comes easy. We feel like the Cinema didn't go great. But man we sure learned a lot of stuff for next time.
~If we are gonna reach people that aren't connecting, we need to do things that haven't been done. This means doing things that other churches don't do. This means stepping out of comfort zones and trying new stuff.

We don't know what is ahead. All we know is that we are going to do whatever we can to reach as many people as possible.

Multi-site 2

There are a variety of mult-site models because it is a newer idea and has mostly comes from dealing with building problems rather than copying another model. Innovation is often birthed out of limited resources and creative ideas...Craig told me something like that... Anyways, some multi-site are video sites, some are made of staff that pool ideas, some have live satellite, some share staff and meet at different times, and some meet in movie theaters, school, nightclubs or even bars.

As we look to the future we see a variety of options. One concept we have talked about is having two sites and share some staff. Paul would speak on Topic A at Site 1 for a month while Matt would speak on Topic B at Site 2 that same month. Then the next month, we would switch sites...Paul would speak on Topic A at Site 2 and Matt would speak on Topic B at Site 1. We like the idea of video because we can also use it online. If video or other ideas, no matter - we will have a campus pastor who will be the main guy at that site. He would oversee the activities and people at that site and be the face of the place. We have also talked about doing a 10-15 minute video each week and having the site pastor share the rest. Just thoughts and ideas.

We don’t know what exactly we will do - it will depend on staff and location. We do know that we can’t cut quality. Each site would need some kids & music staff and the campus pastor. So, Paul, Mark, Virginia, or Matt wouldn’t leave the current location. However, we could oversee aspects of two locations.

Next Time - some crazy ideas we have also thought about...

Multi-site

We have been researching, visiting, and experimenting with a multi-site church concept. Our dream is to have a Journey experience every 20 minute just off of US 31 from Whitehall to Holland.

Why Multi-site?
- Reach more people, easier to invite
- Easier for people to be involved if church is closer
- More opportunities to serve
- Keeps the big small
- Leverage our Journey Brand/Identity
- Good stewardship by pooling resources
- Increase our impact

Will it ever happen?
We did an experiment with the cinema last year. We learned a lot. One of the main lessons was - don’t do it if we can’t do it well. We will need a good team that has time to be prepared, a campus pastor, kids and music leaders, and top notch equipment when we do it next time. So, we are planning on it, but we want to make sure we do it right.

Next Time I will chat a little about some concepts for sites and how current team of staff fits into the multi-site plan.