Marchetti’s Constant is a proven principle of urban design that shows the average time a person spends commuting each day, an approximate total of one hour. [ref] That’s thirty minutes to work and thirty minutes back home.

The fascinating thing is that this principle has been historically proven time and again. Regardless of the mode of transportation, people consistently take 30 minutes to travel to work. Whether they were walking, riding on horseback, taking a buggy, driving a car or riding on the latest bullet train, it’s always 30 minutes. For urban planners, this pattern has huge implications as it drives population density in urban and suburban areas because people are unlikely to move beyond a fixed radius of distance from their place of employment.

What difference does this principle make for you and I as we lead in the local church?

The vast majority of churches in our country are deeply impacted by car travel. It’s one of those facts of daily life that is so obvious for most of us that we don’t think about it. There was a time when most people walked to their local parish, but that norm changed as the car became more widespread. This reality is important for us to remember as our churches are affected by both the communities we serve as well as their transportation choices.

Here are a few ways that Marchetti’s Constant can impact your church today:

Campus Expansion Should Be Within 30 Minutes of Your Existing Site(s).

Considering the evidence of Marchetti’s Constant, it shouldn’t surprise you that statistically speaking the vast majority of multisite church campuses are found within 30 minutes of the other locations. According to the latest Leadership Network research on the multisite movement:

* 44% of campuses are 15 minutes or less in terms of travel time between each location. * 45% of multisite locations are between 15 and 30 minutes of each other.

This means that 89% of all multisite campuses are within the Marchetti window.

Multisite campus expansion needs to be a regional impact strategy rather than something that allows your church to reach far distances. We often focus on the few “name brand” churches who have started campuses two or three states away; however, these few examples push against the normal trend society.

Prevailing multisite “hive” leadership teams use an existing location to build their volunteer core. (Statistically, they most often use the original location.) If you attempt to locate your new campus outside the 30-minute Marchetti window, you will have a harder time finding a large enough critical mass to acquire the team you need.

I’ve chatted with a number of entrepreneurial Lead Pastors over the years who have talked about wanting to start a campus “over there” (somewhere 1+ hours away). While the desire to flex some missionary zeal is noble, it really works against the built-in dynamics of your community.

Start your campus expansion strategy by looking at every community within 30 minutes of your location today. You can expand from there as your locations spread but don’t miss the opportunity to reach people within that primary “drive time.”

Your Mass Media Promotion Should Be Narrowly Focused.

Marchetti’s Constant is a proven principle of urban design that shows the average time a person spends commuting each day, an approximate total of one hour. [ref] That’s thirty minutes to work and thirty minutes back home.

The fascinating thing is that this principle has been historically proven time and again. Regardless of the mode of transportation, people consistently take 30 minutes to travel to work. Whether they were walking, riding on horseback, taking a buggy, driving a car or riding on the latest bullet train, it’s always 30 minutes. For urban planners, this pattern has huge implications as it drives population density in urban and suburban areas because people are unlikely to move beyond a fixed radius of distance from their place of employment.

What difference does this principle make for you and I as we lead in the local church?

The vast majority of churches in our country are deeply impacted by car travel. It’s one of those facts of daily life that is so obvious for most of us that we don’t think about it. There was a time when most people walked to their local parish, but that norm changed as the car became more widespread. This reality is important for us to remember as our churches are affected by both the communities we serve as well as their transportation choices.

Here are a few ways that Marchetti’s Constant can impact your church today:

Campus Expansion Should Be Within 30 Minutes of Your Existing Site(s).

Considering the evidence of Marchetti’s Constant, it shouldn’t surprise you that statistically speaking the vast majority of multisite church campuses are found within 30 minutes of the other locations. According to the latest Leadership Network research on the multisite movement:

* 44% of campuses are 15 minutes or less in terms of travel time between each location. * 45% of multisite locations are between 15 and 30 minutes of each other.

This means that 89% of all multisite campuses are within the Marchetti window.

Multisite campus expansion needs to be a regional impact strategy rather than something that allows your church to reach far distances. We often focus on the few “name brand” churches who have started campuses two or three states away; however, these few examples push against the normal trend society.

Prevailing multisite “hive” leadership teams use an existing location to build their volunteer core. (Statistically, they most often use the original location.) If you attempt to locate your new campus outside the 30-minute Marchetti window, you will have a harder time finding a large enough critical mass to acquire the team you need.

I’ve chatted with a number of entrepreneurial Lead Pastors over the years who have talked about wanting to start a campus “over there” (somewhere 1+ hours away). While the desire to flex some missionary zeal is noble, it really works against the built-in dynamics of your community.

Start your campus expansion strategy by looking at every community within 30 minutes of your location today. You can expand from there as your locations spread but don’t miss the opportunity to reach people within that primary “drive time.”

Your Mass Media Promotion Should Be Narrowly Focused.

Welcome to back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited to have Kevin Harris with us today, the executive director from Radical Mentoring.

Radical Mentoring is an organization and a system designed to help your church develop leaders through intentional men’s small group mentoring. They coach and equip local church leaders with a process that encourages men to engage in these groups where an older leader, or two, meets with a group of younger men for 9-12 months to talk about life. The best part is, they provide all the tools, resources, and content that churches need to recruit, train and launch these men’s mentoring small groups for free.

Kevin talks with us today about keeping men engaged in the church and preparing them for life.

* Find a balance. // It can be that guys today have a hard time seeing the value of church. Some men believe it’s geared more toward women while others may be wrestling with trust and shame issues. Meanwhile the generation coming up says they don’t want to go to church for the show anymore; they want to go for authentic relationships and be involved on a deeper level. Whatever the beliefs are that men are struggling with, it can make it difficult for them to walk into a church building and feel like there is a place for them to belong. Finding that balance to attract men of all ages may be becoming more difficult in your church. The key is first finding mentors who are worth listening to.* Hidden mentors. // The mentors who are chosen to lead these men’s small groups may not always have the most to say or be the best teachers, but when they speak they should be seen as someone you would want your own son sitting with and learning from. If you can get the right types of men leaning in, not because they’re experts, but because they simply want other guys to avoid some of the mistakes they made (as well as having some of Jesus rub off on them) it can have a dynamic effect on the church.* Group mentoring. // Radical Mentoring teaches a small group mentoring model instead of one-of-one. The group of four to eight younger men meets together once a month for three hours with one or two mentors. The meeting starts with stories in which the mentor will share the real story about his journey toward Christ, both good and bad, and then the mentees share their stories.  After that, the group will read a book by a Christian author that focuses on principles of scripture and applying them around topics such as identity, grace, and marriage, and then talking about those books in their monthly meetings. This framework is loose enough that if there is something happening to one of the mentees, it can be pushed aside and the group can focus on those issues.* Hold men to the standard. // There are two things some churches are doing each year with this Radical Mentoring method. First, they make sure that they have the right profile person that can facilitate other people really well. The other thing is holding men to the standard. There is a covenant document recommended that all of the mentees sign before the process saying they will be on time, commit to confidentiality, do all the work, and will take feedback from the mentors.* Free program. // The program is free and when someone from a church registers on Radical Mentoring’s website, they will get contacted by the team and offered to talk with them about where it all fits in the context of their church. A church is offered three to five conversations with the Radical Mentoring team starting from when they first consider doing the process to the point that they completed it and graduate their group of guys.

Radical Mentoring is free and you can find out more at radicalmentorin...

Welcome to back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited to have Kevin Harris with us today, the executive director from Radical Mentoring.

Radical Mentoring is an organization and a system designed to help your church develop leaders through intentional men’s small group mentoring. They coach and equip local church leaders with a process that encourages men to engage in these groups where an older leader, or two, meets with a group of younger men for 9-12 months to talk about life. The best part is, they provide all the tools, resources, and content that churches need to recruit, train and launch these men’s mentoring small groups for free.

Kevin talks with us today about keeping men engaged in the church and preparing them for life.

* Find a balance. // It can be that guys today have a hard time seeing the value of church. Some men believe it’s geared more toward women while others may be wrestling with trust and shame issues. Meanwhile the generation coming up says they don’t want to go to church for the show anymore; they want to go for authentic relationships and be involved on a deeper level. Whatever the beliefs are that men are struggling with, it can make it difficult for them to walk into a church building and feel like there is a place for them to belong. Finding that balance to attract men of all ages may be becoming more difficult in your church. The key is first finding mentors who are worth listening to.* Hidden mentors. // The mentors who are chosen to lead these men’s small groups may not always have the most to say or be the best teachers, but when they speak they should be seen as someone you would want your own son sitting with and learning from. If you can get the right types of men leaning in, not because they’re experts, but because they simply want other guys to avoid some of the mistakes they made (as well as having some of Jesus rub off on them) it can have a dynamic effect on the church.* Group mentoring. // Radical Mentoring teaches a small group mentoring model instead of one-of-one. The group of four to eight younger men meets together once a month for three hours with one or two mentors. The meeting starts with stories in which the mentor will share the real story about his journey toward Christ, both good and bad, and then the mentees share their stories.  After that, the group will read a book by a Christian author that focuses on principles of scripture and applying them around topics such as identity, grace, and marriage, and then talking about those books in their monthly meetings. This framework is loose enough that if there is something happening to one of the mentees, it can be pushed aside and the group can focus on those issues.* Hold men to the standard. // There are two things some churches are doing each year with this Radical Mentoring method. First, they make sure that they have the right profile person that can facilitate other people really well. The other thing is holding men to the standard. There is a covenant document recommended that all of the mentees sign before the process saying they will be on time, commit to confidentiality, do all the work, and will take feedback from the mentors.* Free program. // The program is free and when someone from a church registers on Radical Mentoring’s website, they will get contacted by the team and offered to talk with them about where it all fits in the context of their church. A church is offered three to five conversations with the Radical Mentoring team starting from when they first consider doing the process to the point that they completed it and graduate their group of guys.

Radical Mentoring is free and you can find out more at radicalmentorin...

Google is by far one of the most prevailing organizations of all time.

Beyond their amazing technological insights and excellent execution, Google is a leadership engine.

Google has more than 85,000 employees. Stop and think about the sheer size of that operation. Last year alone they added over 5,000 new people to the team. That’s 25 new hires for every day of the working year. [ref] Google has also more than doubled the number of team members in the last five years alone and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down the grow.

Beyond its size are the amazing lessons Google can teach us about leadership for today and into the future. The organization is forging the way to lead and manage in today’s culture. Google has been engaged in a long term project to study the most successful managers within their organization and has widely shared these learnings through Project Oxygen. Since 2008, they’ve been tracking what it takes to be a great manager, and as church leaders, we’d be wise to learn from their findings.

Here are Google’s 10 traits of effective managers with some direct applications for us as we serve with our local churches. We’d love to hear your thoughts on these qualities and what areas you think we as church leaders perhaps need to work on more than others!

Is a good coach

The point of great management is that your people win at the end of the day. Rather than seeing yourself as the star of your department or area, recognize that the people on your team are the real heroes. Your role as a leader is to be a great coach that equips your team to achieve the highest possibilities.

Church leaders who go out of the way to recruit, train, equip and release other leaders will always be the most valuable players on any team. We are in the “human development business,” so our primary job is to maximize others.

Empowers team and does not micromanage

Can I get an amen?!

Your value as a church leader isn’t in leaning over the shoulders of your people to make them to do things a particular way. Set the direction and results you are hoping for and then leave the “how” to your people.

The tough part about empowering people is that at the beginning, your team may do a worse job of it than if you just did it yourself. However, in order to scale up our influence and draw more people into the leadership community, you need to empower your team to take their piece and run with it.

Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-being

Relate before you delegate.

It goes without saying that as church leaders we need to show concern for others, but it’s not an immediate conclusion that leaders within the church should also slow down to provide pastoral support for the very people doing the ministry.

Personally, I’ve had to learn over the years that the process of leading the people God has entrusted to me is a contributing factor to the outcome we’re driving towards. The teams that you and I lead need to be a microcosm of what we are looking to happen in the rest of our church. What if your team was the measurement of the depth of care and support people receive from your church?

Google is by far one of the most prevailing organizations of all time.

Beyond their amazing technological insights and excellent execution, Google is a leadership engine.

Google has more than 85,000 employees. Stop and think about the sheer size of that operation. Last year alone they added over 5,000 new people to the team. That’s 25 new hires for every day of the working year. [ref] Google has also more than doubled the number of team members in the last five years alone and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down the grow.

Beyond its size are the amazing lessons Google can teach us about leadership for today and into the future. The organization is forging the way to lead and manage in today’s culture. Google has been engaged in a long term project to study the most successful managers within their organization and has widely shared these learnings through Project Oxygen. Since 2008, they’ve been tracking what it takes to be a great manager, and as church leaders, we’d be wise to learn from their findings.

Here are Google’s 10 traits of effective managers with some direct applications for us as we serve with our local churches. We’d love to hear your thoughts on these qualities and what areas you think we as church leaders perhaps need to work on more than others!

Is a good coach

The point of great management is that your people win at the end of the day. Rather than seeing yourself as the star of your department or area, recognize that the people on your team are the real heroes. Your role as a leader is to be a great coach that equips your team to achieve the highest possibilities.

Church leaders who go out of the way to recruit, train, equip and release other leaders will always be the most valuable players on any team. We are in the “human development business,” so our primary job is to maximize others.

Empowers team and does not micromanage

Can I get an amen?!

Your value as a church leader isn’t in leaning over the shoulders of your people to make them to do things a particular way. Set the direction and results you are hoping for and then leave the “how” to your people.

The tough part about empowering people is that at the beginning, your team may do a worse job of it than if you just did it yourself. However, in order to scale up our influence and draw more people into the leadership community, you need to empower your team to take their piece and run with it.

Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-being

Relate before you delegate.

It goes without saying that as church leaders we need to show concern for others, but it’s not an immediate conclusion that leaders within the church should also slow down to provide pastoral support for the very people doing the ministry.

Personally, I’ve had to learn over the years that the process of leading the people God has entrusted to me is a contributing factor to the outcome we’re driving towards. The teams that you and I lead need to be a microcosm of what we are looking to happen in the rest of our church. What if your team was the measurement of the depth of care and support people receive from your church?

Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m happy to have Dan Scott from Orange with us today.

Orange is a leading organization for family ministry which partners with churches to help kids dig into a deeper relationship with Jesus, and also provides resources for parents as they influence their children’s faith. Dan is the Director of Elementary Curriculum and he oversees the teams that bring it to life. About 3000-5000 churches around the world are using Orange on some level, weekly or even just VBS products.

Dan is with us today to share insights on the unique season middle schoolers are in and how you can serve them well at your church.

* First look. // In many cases, the lead pastor isn’t seeing the things that the kids and student ministry teams are seeing. The leaders working with these age groups often have a unique glimpse into what’s happening in families at the church; they are often the first to see that marriages are struggling, families are going through hardships, or parents are losing jobs. These insights inform how the lead pastor can address these situations from the platform or from other initiatives the church engages in to serve their community.* Stay up-to-date. // Have regular meetings with the youth pastor to know what’s going on in that area. Don’t just go through a straight line of talk on a list of topics and then be done, sit down together and really talk about what has been happening in student ministry, both successes and failures.* Time to be a kid. // Life is happening quickly these days and culture is accelerating faster than we can keep up with it. Kids and teens feel the weight of that and feel pushed into adulthood. Be aware that Sundays may be their only time to get a true rest from everything that’s happening. Youth pastors should remember that middle schoolers are caught between being a kid and growing up; they need time out from all the expectations placed on them so they can just have fun and be a kid sometimes.* Safe environments. // Middle schoolers are in a unique stage of life where their brains are just perfect for learning and growing. They are experiencing things that are setting them up for who they will be as adults. It’s at this stage that their identities are forming. Ask yourself if the environments in your church are safe places where pre-teens and teens feel they can ask their questions. * Break up classes. // Many times kids ministries may run kindergarten through 6th grade as one group, then 7th and 8th together, and high schoolers all together. Consider, however, that a 5th grader and 6th grader are similar with each other, but aren’t similar to a 3rd grader. Breaking kids up into narrower age groups allows ministry leaders to really target the messages kids in each group need to hear.* Caught In Between. // Dan has released a book called Caught In Between: Engage Your Pre-Teens Before They Check Out. He noticed that the pre-teen sometimes resembles the elementary kid phase and other times the middle school phase—you never know what you’ll get when you walk into the room. The first half of the book talks through what a day in the life of a pre-teen might be. The second half covers what the church can do to walk alongside them.

You can reach Dan on Instagram at DanScott77 or Twitter @DanScott77 and learn more about Orange here

Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m happy to have Dan Scott from Orange with us today.

Orange is a leading organization for family ministry which partners with churches to help kids dig into a deeper relationship with Jesus, and also provides resources for parents as they influence their children’s faith. Dan is the Director of Elementary Curriculum and he oversees the teams that bring it to life. About 3000-5000 churches around the world are using Orange on some level, weekly or even just VBS products.

Dan is with us today to share insights on the unique season middle schoolers are in and how you can serve them well at your church.

* First look. // In many cases, the lead pastor isn’t seeing the things that the kids and student ministry teams are seeing. The leaders working with these age groups often have a unique glimpse into what’s happening in families at the church; they are often the first to see that marriages are struggling, families are going through hardships, or parents are losing jobs. These insights inform how the lead pastor can address these situations from the platform or from other initiatives the church engages in to serve their community.* Stay up-to-date. // Have regular meetings with the youth pastor to know what’s going on in that area. Don’t just go through a straight line of talk on a list of topics and then be done, sit down together and really talk about what has been happening in student ministry, both successes and failures.* Time to be a kid. // Life is happening quickly these days and culture is accelerating faster than we can keep up with it. Kids and teens feel the weight of that and feel pushed into adulthood. Be aware that Sundays may be their only time to get a true rest from everything that’s happening. Youth pastors should remember that middle schoolers are caught between being a kid and growing up; they need time out from all the expectations placed on them so they can just have fun and be a kid sometimes.* Safe environments. // Middle schoolers are in a unique stage of life where their brains are just perfect for learning and growing. They are experiencing things that are setting them up for who they will be as adults. It’s at this stage that their identities are forming. Ask yourself if the environments in your church are safe places where pre-teens and teens feel they can ask their questions. * Break up classes. // Many times kids ministries may run kindergarten through 6th grade as one group, then 7th and 8th together, and high schoolers all together. Consider, however, that a 5th grader and 6th grader are similar with each other, but aren’t similar to a 3rd grader. Breaking kids up into narrower age groups allows ministry leaders to really target the messages kids in each group need to hear.* Caught In Between. // Dan has released a book called Caught In Between: Engage Your Pre-Teens Before They Check Out. He noticed that the pre-teen sometimes resembles the elementary kid phase and other times the middle school phase—you never know what you’ll get when you walk into the room. The first half of the book talks through what a day in the life of a pre-teen might be. The second half covers what the church can do to walk alongside them.

You can reach Dan on Instagram at DanScott77 or Twitter @DanScott77 and learn more about Orange here

Welcome back to our monthly All About Multisite podcast! 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:

Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 (!) locations and is doing all kinds of great stuff, including a killer kids’ & youth curriculum that they give away for free. Natalie’s a lot of fun and will have so many great insights around leading in a thriving multisite church.

Greg Curtis is our guest connections and assimilation expert. He leads at Eastside Christian Church, one of the fastest growing churches in the country, and literally, is the “go to” source for getting people to stick and stay in the church. (Eastside has assimilated something like 1,500 people in the last 18 months!) His coaching practice around assimilation is amazing.

Ben Stapley is our communications and service programming expert. Ben is one of the most helpful leaders I know. His day job is the Weekend Experience Director at Christ Fellowship in Miami, 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 twelfth episode.

Open Question: Which

Easter candy do you like: Peeps or the hollow chocolate Easter bunny?

* Natalie – It’s clearly the hollow the chocolate bunny. Peeps are like the candy corn of Easter.* Greg – I think that because Eastside has a Peeps party for all of our kids during Easter, and they’re going back to their parents all hyper and sticky, I’m going hollow chocolate bunny all the way.* Ben – I’m the person who adds another option, so I’m going with those little small hard Cadbury eggs with the little sugar coating on them. I have a hard time not finishing a whole bag at one time.* Rich – I would have to say if I had to choose, I would definitely say a chocolate bunny because I’m not sure exactly what Peeps are. It’s like sugarized Styrofoam or something like that.

This month we’ll be doing something a little different

on the show. Everyone has been so great at their different churches that

they’re coaching all the time and other churches reach out to them. So this

episode we’ll have a conversation around Easter and what advice we’ll give to

our campus leadership as we get ready for the big day.

Easter is the day that two things happen: Our people

are more likely to invite their friends and their friends are more likely to

attend. So today we’ll discuss what advice we’d give to our campus leadership

and also to other churches as we come into these last three and a half weeks

before Easter.

Greg: Eight things to think about when preparing teams for Easter.

#1: Preparing and

providing great parking lot attendants. Obviously your parking lot will be bigger

and more full. It’s easy to think your other sites are smaller than your

broadcast site and you don’t need more parking, but a lot of these sites are

not traditional churches and are in places such as movie theaters or high

schools so it’s important to be welcoming and give them the feeling of “We’ve

arrived at the right place.” Think of the first impression you want someone to

have.

Welcome back to our monthly All About Multisite podcast! 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:

Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 (!) locations and is doing all kinds of great stuff, including a killer kids’ & youth curriculum that they give away for free. Natalie’s a lot of fun and will have so many great insights around leading in a thriving multisite church.

Greg Curtis is our guest connections and assimilation expert. He leads at Eastside Christian Church, one of the fastest growing churches in the country, and literally, is the “go to” source for getting people to stick and stay in the church. (Eastside has assimilated something like 1,500 people in the last 18 months!) His coaching practice around assimilation is amazing.

Ben Stapley is our communications and service programming expert. Ben is one of the most helpful leaders I know. His day job is the Weekend Experience Director at Christ Fellowship in Miami, 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 twelfth episode.

Open Question: Which

Easter candy do you like: Peeps or the hollow chocolate Easter bunny?

* Natalie – It’s clearly the hollow the chocolate bunny. Peeps are like the candy corn of Easter.* Greg – I think that because Eastside has a Peeps party for all of our kids during Easter, and they’re going back to their parents all hyper and sticky, I’m going hollow chocolate bunny all the way.* Ben – I’m the person who adds another option, so I’m going with those little small hard Cadbury eggs with the little sugar coating on them. I have a hard time not finishing a whole bag at one time.* Rich – I would have to say if I had to choose, I would definitely say a chocolate bunny because I’m not sure exactly what Peeps are. It’s like sugarized Styrofoam or something like that.

This month we’ll be doing something a little different

on the show. Everyone has been so great at their different churches that

they’re coaching all the time and other churches reach out to them. So this

episode we’ll have a conversation around Easter and what advice we’ll give to

our campus leadership as we get ready for the big day.

Easter is the day that two things happen: Our people

are more likely to invite their friends and their friends are more likely to

attend. So today we’ll discuss what advice we’d give to our campus leadership

and also to other churches as we come into these last three and a half weeks

before Easter.

Greg: Eight things to think about when preparing teams for Easter.

#1: Preparing and

providing great parking lot attendants. Obviously your parking lot will be bigger

and more full. It’s easy to think your other sites are smaller than your

broadcast site and you don’t need more parking, but a lot of these sites are

not traditional churches and are in places such as movie theaters or high

schools so it’s important to be welcoming and give them the feeling of “We’ve

arrived at the right place.” Think of the first impression you want someone to

have.