Growing congregations look to multi-site model
OAKVILLE, ON-There may be only a handful of multi-site churches across Canada, (and an estimated 1,000 in North America), but leaders in such churches say they are an authentic biblical model for what church was intended to be.
"This is really the model of the New Testament church," says Peter Roebbelen, team leader for the pastoral staff of Chartwell Baptist Church, a multi-site church in southern Ontario. Chartwell adopted the multi-site model in 1993 and now includes five different congregations in four locations across Oakville and Mississauga.
"I think we've gotten messed up, that the measure of success for a new church plant is total independence," explains Roebbelen. "We've thought that [way] for hundreds of years-you start a new church, and your end goal is to get it independent-financially independent and leadership independent.
"I'm not sure that was ever intended in the New Testament," says Roebbelen. "I think the end goal is inter-dependence, so that you are working together for the Kingdom. It's not about building your kingdom. It's about building the Kingdom."
Roebbelen was one of 58 Christian leaders, representing 12 different denominations from across Canada and the United States, who gathered at The Meeting House in Oakville May 18 for a one-day roundtable to discuss multi-site churches.
"Multi-site churches are churches that have decided to differentiate the way they offer their services by geographical location, rather than by time slot," says Rich Birch, resource team pastor for The Meeting House and coordinator of the roundtable.
The Meeting House, a Brethren In Christ congregation that meets in a renovated Cineplex Theatre in Oakville. Started in 1986, the church began to experience rapid growth in 1998. The multi-site solution grew out of that growth, says Birch.
"We just fell into it," he explains. "We said, 'We're going to offer a video overflow,' and one thing led to another."
The "video overflow" led to the establishment of regional sites-each about a one-hour drive from The Meeting House-in North Toronto and Hamilton. Those congregations have their own small groups and services under the direction of a "lead pastor," but view the sermon given by The Meeting House's main teaching pastor, Bruxy Cavey, on video each week.
Willow Creek Community Church is in the process of developing its fourth site. Regional pastor Jim Tomberlin says to be successful, the move to a multi-site approach should be a means to accommodate growth, rather than a means to achieve growth. "Don't even think about going to multi-site until you've filled up multiple services," he says.
Room to grow
Birch agrees. "Churches that have come to some geographical hindrance in their ministry-they've filled out two or three services on a weekend, and they don't see how they're going to be able to continue [growing] without a vast building campaign or some other approach-they should consider at that point [moving to the multi-site model]."
All Nations Church in Sudbury-a church affiliated with the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec-has reached that point. Ministry coordinator Wayne Arcand says they have packed their current location and need some other venue to help them grow.
"We're in the largest venue in Sudbury; Fraser Auditorium at Laurentian University," he says. "We can't grow anymore until we provide some alternative."
Arcand says the church is considering setting up "video venues" this fall, splitting their church into smaller congregations. Each would meet at other locations in the same building, some with contemporary and some with traditional forms of worship, but all hearing the same message, via video.
"Laurentian has a number of smaller theatres within the same building, that would handle from 60 to 120 people, and there are live link connections from those venues to the main auditorium," says Arcand. "We could have an alternative worship service in a small theatre, and pipe in the message directly. The big advantage to that is it allows us to use the same children's programs. We don't have to set up new children's programs."
Not every multi-site uses videotaped messages. Chartwell, for instance, offers live sermons from teaching pastors for each of its congregations.
Experienced multi-site church leaders say although there are challenges inherent in structuring a multi-site in terms of issues like governance and finances, there are also benefits in terms of resource and cost savings.
Tomberlin says he has no concerns about the theological soundness of the multi-site model. When asked when and where the first multi-site church began, he smiles and says, "Jerusalem, 2,000 years ago."
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