Thanks for joining into this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we have Andy Addis joining us from CrossPoint Church.

CrossPoint is a rural multisite church. They now have eleven campuses in Kansas as well as other partner locations across the country and in other parts of the world.

Andy is with us today to talk about multisite in a rural

context.

* The CrossPoint Constants. // CrossPoint doesn’t use a franchise model for their multisite network and so their campuses look different from each other, depending on where they are located. A location in a small city of a few hundred people might have 20-30 attendees. Meanwhile a campus in a more populated area has 1200-1800 on a weekend. CrossPoint’s standard for what makes a church is reflective on community. The constants between them are the branding, the mission, the vision and the video teaching on the weekends.* Reach across campuses. // A modern, bigger-styled church with its associated resources cannot exist in rural America without a support network. So having a multisite model in rural Kansas allows CrossPoint to share resources across their campuses and the most rural locations benefit. They’ve been able to go in and revitalize dying churches in smaller cities in order to reach out to people that may not be familiar with church, or have lost interest in it.* Curiosity and welcome. // CrossPoint assumes about 50% of the people who attend their campuses don’t have a relationship with Jesus. One of the things they do is renovate old buildings in downtown areas for the church to use. One of these locations was an old bowling alley. Curiosity brought many visitors to church just because they wanted to see what CrossPoint did with the bowling alley. Provide curious visitors with a welcoming environment that makes them want to keep coming back. In rural communities there isn’t a lot that is new and different so even using video teaching in the services has been an attraction.* Not all campuses are the same. // Outside of the constants CrossPoint mandates, campus pastors are encouraged to know their community and are given the freedom to reach out to them in meaningful ways. For example, worship styles can vary widely depending on what a community connects with. Events such as Vacation Bible School aren’t mandated across campuses either. One campus found VBS was a huge outreach to families in the community, but another discovered it was simply glorified babysitting, so they no longer do VBS. Still another campus partners with other churches in the community to do a community-wide VBS program.* Stay connected. // With the differences between campuses, it’s important for the campus pastors to maintain a connection to each other. Andy notes that he pastors the smallest “congregation” which is the other campus pastors. CrossPoint focuses on the relationships among the leadership to create unity between them, especially since they are so spread out over the state (up to 8 hours apart). Every Tuesday they have a two hour online leadership meeting that isn’t all focused on logistics and business, but rather on spending time together and connecting with God and each other. Andy encourages connection through through reading a devotional together, praying for each other, and just talking to get to know each other. Once a quarter, the leadership also meets face to face to get together and spend time in person rather than only virtually.* Three levels. // Everything CrossPoint does they are willing to give away. With this in mind, there are three levels of campuses within CrossPoint’s structure, representing different levels of partnership. Level 1 is the official CrossPoint campuses. Level 2 are new plants or revitalizations that have indicated they may want to be a CrossPoint campus.