Donnie Williams On Starting A BIgger Second Site

Donnie Williams is the Lead Pastor of LifePointe Church in Raleigh, North Carolina and went to multiple sites eleven weeks ago. LifePointe is a part of the NewThing Network and has an amazing story!  They were averaging 445 people and they started the second site and now they are averaging 979 and they have more people attending their second site then they have at their first site! I think that is without precedent.  Donnie gave us a few key learnings from their experience of going to multiple sites:

• Prayer works. Donnie told an amazing story of how he asked God for a theater and God answered that prayer in a way that only He could.  Good stuff!  Great reminder.
• Get equipped and organized.
• Don't forget to take care of the original site.
• There are lots of leaders sitting in your seats.  There were leaders sitting in the chairs of our first location and did not contribute until we decided to start a second site. 
• Direct mail still works.  90% of our first time people came as a result of the mailings that we did.
• Don't skimp on kids and children's ministry.
• There was also a sense of loss.  Our staff realized that this would be the last time that we would all go to church together.  I also realized that I would never be able to be at both our locations at the same time and I would always miss out on one location.