myquestion: Is PCC Going Multisite?

Last week, we invited folks to ask questions about our church through a special email address. All of them were fantastic, thought provoking questions and we've tried to address them in a number of ways.

One question had to do with some conversations we've had in the past few months about our church moving towards a multisite strategy. You may have no idea what that is, so let me briefly explain before specifically address our intentions regarding the future of multisite for PCC.

Multisite is basically the idea of one church meeting in more than one location. Perhaps the best way to understand it is to understand what it is NOT. The traditional way to plant new churches is to create a completely independent church, give them some funding and perhaps some people, wish them well, and turn them loose. They are on their own. Their success or failure is entirely in their hands. There are pros and cons to this model, and there are many success stories (we are one of them). However, one important statistic is that over 50% of new church starts fail. Some studies show that number to be as high as 70% or more. Having studied this and having been a part of planting other churches, I understand why. There simply isn't the degree of commitment. This sounds bad, but it's true. When push comes to shove, I'll bleed, beg, go hungry and homeless to make PCC work. And though my commitment level for other churches we plant may be high, it won't be that high.

But when we have a satelite location, it is a part of who we are. It's not a separate entity - it's PCC. The multisite phenomenon has been bearing out the higher commitment in the results: satelites have a startling success rate...well above 90%.

So what, exactly, is 'multisite'? Well, it's where a church would take it's DNA and replicate it in another location. Not a different church, but the same church - same mission, same style, same focus. There are tremendous efficiencies (we call these economies of scale) because you don't have to have duplications in many administrative functions like you would if you created a completely separate church. Therefore, it's a more effective use of Kingdom Resources, too.

If you want to see some churches who are doing multisite really well, look at:

• Seacoast Community Church in South Carolina www.seacoast.org
• Lifechurch.tv in Oklahoma
• Granger Community Church in Indiana www.gccwired.com
• National Community Church in Washington, D.C. www.theaterchurch.com
• NewSpring Community Church in South Carolina www.newspring.cc
• Community Christian Church in Illinois http://www.communitychristian.org/

There are plenty of other churches doing this really well, but these are a few that I look at regularly.

Why would we consider doing this? Well, we are drawing people from a long way, for one thing. At our last 101, there were folks from Buckingham, middle Henrico, Chester, Short Pump, Cumberland, Mechanicsville and everywhere in between. We're clearly scratching an itch, but people will have a hard time driving that kind of distance indefinitely. Being able to establish a PCC presence closer to some of these areas would allow us not only to meet the needs of those folks, but would allow us to broaden the reach.

So, I've begun to think about our building like the center of a hub. What if we had a location in Goochland, Midlothian, Cumberland and even Chester? I'm just dreaming - I don't know how to pull this off, but some churches are reaching hundreds and thousands of people through this model and still reaching people in their own community. They are leveraging their DNA - the DNA that God gave them. They are allowing God to 'multiply the loaves and fishes'...it's very exciting, if you think about it.

Now to the question. Are we going to do it? I have no idea. We have the first right of refusal on an unbelievably great location to the east (right at the intersection of Routes 288 and 60). We've paid no money and committed no money. We're still investigating. Some of our leaders are going to NewSpring Community Church in about 10 days and part of our time there will be spent investigating the multisite idea. Dennis Green and I spent a couple of days at National Community Church last fall looking at the concept. I've been reading about it.

But at the end of the day (and this is very important for you to hear) we aren't going to move on this or any other bold new direction for our church until we can answer this question: How are we going to pay for our building? Right now, there is still some uncertainty as to how we will pay for the final bill on our building and how we will get the debt paid off in a reasonable period of time (say 5-8 years). Dennis Green works on this every day. It's one of his primary roles. And there isn't a day that goes by that it's not on my mind.

If the economy hadn't gone south and affected so many people - our people, too - I probably would already have led our church into a multisite strategy. But we were in the middle of our building project when things went south in the economic world. Until we can answer the financial questions surrounding our building, ensure that we are on absolutely solid ground, know that our staff is going to be able to be paid fairly so that they can effectively do their jobs without having to worry about putting food on the table, I won't lead us in any new initiatives like multisite.

But that doesn't mean that I won't get us ready so that once part A is done, we can pull the trigger on part B.

Whoever asked this question, can I say, "way to go!" Thanks for asking.