The approach to multi-site ministry has evolved over the years. In a lot of ways, there aren’t any clear methodologies that we can identify because each church tends to Frankenstein together their own approach based on their ministry goals. Often the primary direction of multisite isn’t clear to the staff because leadership allows the model to unfold. I’ve heard numerous stories of a particular model of multisite being pursued for years only to have everything changed–or in some cases, entirely undone. 

Ultimately, time spent in the model reveals the implications the multisite model.

Three primary approaches to multisite

Franchise

• Least impact on central support staffing
• Least autonomy for ministry teams
• Few differences between campuses
• Evaluation stems from how well you implemented what you were told to implement
• Everything is led by the central team

Church Plant (or localized)

• Each campus can make their own decisions
• In some cases, leadership teams are developed on each campus (even independent boards)
• Each campus builds it’s own infrastructure and support teams
• In some cases, campuses eventually become independent

Hybrid

• Here is where things get crazy
• We want uniqueness, but we don’t want to hire more teams
• We want campuses to drive all decisions
• Central teams shift from contributors to responders
• Workloads increase, but depth of work decreases
• There is never a “final state”, as pressure tends to inform decisions more than strategy
• This is a very common model because it allows for some things to be franchise, but others to be unique and localized.

What changes with multisite?

Multisite requires more systems

• No single person owns anything anymore.
• No single students person, there are now multiple. This means a culture of partnership and collaboration are not optional.

Multisite requires more conversation

• I’ve heard it said that when your church grows significantly, the complexity grows exponentially.
• It becomes much more complex to minister to many more people
  • In that line of thinking, I would say multisite makes reaching the same amount of people exponentially more complex.
  • In the beginning, almost every decision requires a lot of people’s input

Multisite requires more humility

Moving something forward in the organization is rarely driven by a single person anymore

• Now, nearly every decision that is made impacts someone. Remember, you now have more than one of almost everyone. If you design a great baptism shirt for one campus, another campus might want to use it. Or, they might want their own shirt.
  • This conversation happens regardless of your model. Just because you are franchise doesn’t mean people have stopped caring about being unique. Just because you aren’t franchise doesn’t mean people have stopped caring about being efficient.
  • Now every decision requires a conversation. It could be “we need to be unified under our franchise approach”, or “is it ok to share this”, or “you need to be caring about making your campus unique”. 
• Partnering to figure stuff out takes humility

Multisite requires more patience

When everyone comes around the table to try to make a decision, it reveals who is on mission, and who isn’t.

• It also reveals that the mission might not be as clear as we thought it was
  • You can’t assume others are against the mission if they are advocating for something agains the mission. It probably just means the mission wasn’t as clear as you thought.
  • This process make it feel like the organization has completely stalled. It hasn’t, you are just doing the hard work of bu