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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.

Multi-Site Phenomenon!

If you are interested in how your church can reproduce multiple sites, then you need to check out the latest issue of Willow Magazine.  A great resource with some great content.  It starts with an article on how multi-site is becoming more and more common and is titled, The New Normal.  Another article asks the question, "will it work for you" and is titled, Joining the Multi-Site Revolution.  My favorite article (because I'm bias and think our Kids City is the best!) is Children's Ministry and Multi-Site and it features an interview with our own Tammy Melchien.

This issue of Willow Magazine also highlights some of the leading churches in the multi-site movement.  And for your convenience here they are just a click away:

• Community Christian Church
• Seacoast Church
• New Life Community Church
• National Community Church
• Life Church
• Healing Place Church
• The Chapel
• Christ the King Community Church

The XL Church Leader

Group Publishing just came out with a bi-monthly newsletter The XL Church Leader Newsletter specifically to addresses issues of extra large churches.  I just got my copy and it has a terrific cover article titled Multi-Sightings:  Is My Church Ready To Go Multi-Site?  if you want to download a free sample copy, click HERE.

Why Existing Churches Need New Churches

I have been thinking again about innovation.  Ed Bahler was challenging me with the idea from the Innovators Dilemma (which I have just ordered).  The basic concept is that even the most innovative and best-managed companies (or churches), in spite of their attention to customers and continual investment in new technology, are susceptible to failure because these companies (or churches) tend to continue to do business the way they always have done business.

It seems to me that the only way to break out of that innovators dilemma is to continually surround yourself with innovators and people who are inventing the new tomorrow.  And the best way to do that in the church world is to become a reproducing church.  Start new sites with young emerging leaders and listen to their new ideas.  Start new churches and get close enough to them that you can learn from them and break out of your old paradigms.  Begin a church planting network and find yourself immersed in a conversation of new and innovative thinking about reaching people far from God.  I think we need to be reproducing churches not only so that we can start new sites, churches and networks to help people find their way back to God; we also need to be reproducing churches so that our existing churches remain relevant to an ever-changing world!  Agree?  Disagree?

Don't Be Afraid Of Reproducing

Some leaders are secretly afraid of reproducing new sites or new churches.  And if you could get inside their brains this is what you would hear them saying, "But if I send a hundred people to go start a new site, I'm not sure the existing church will be able to take that kind of hit" OR "If I encourage some of my best people to leave and go be a part of a church plant, I'm not sure our church could recover from that kind of loss."  We have got to let go of that fear; the church was made to be a reproducing organism and designed to be a missional sending agency.

We had about 25 people move from Chicago along with Troy and Janet McMahon to Kansas City to start Restore Community Church.  This past weekend they had a great start with over 400 people at their launch.  We also sent out about 190 people mostly from our CCC-Naperville and CCC-Romeoville to go and start  CCC-Plainfield.  And if you are a reader of this blog you know that we had a great first weekend with well over 600 people at that new location.  So, what about the existing church that lost some of key leadership?  What about the existing sites that sent 190 of their very best out to start this new site?  How are they doing?  Are they going to make it?  I was looking at the stats that David Girdwood sent me and our attendance this past weekend was up by more than 1000 over the previous four week average.  Our attendance at CCC-Naperville was up by over 200 and CCC-Romeoville was up by almost 100 over the average of the previous month despite sending 190 people out as a part of the launch team at CCC-Plainfield.

I definitely don't mean this as a boast, but only as a grace - it seems that God blesses Community when we reproduce and send people out to accomplish His mission.

Still Buzzing from the Community-Plainfield Launch

I am still buzzing from the launch of the our new Plainfield site  I know Brad and his team have done everything possible to follow-up on all the people who were there last weekend in hopes to see as many of the 642 people come back this weekend as possible.  That is my prayer.  If you didn't get the whole scoop on the start of our ninth campus in Plainfield last Sunday, there was lots of blogging...so check out one of the following posts:

• Bill Carroll has the entire first service in video segments at Multi-Site Arts.  And then some more video from the rest of the morning at Community-Plainfield.  And if you can't get enough, here are some more pics.
• Jon was there the whole morning and he gives his take on the Great Day in Plainfield.
• Tammy, our Kids City Champion was there for the entire day and she has her thoughts from a Kids City perspective with lots of pics of the New Campus!
• Community-Montgomery Campus Pastor Carter Moss sends out his congrats regarding the Launch.
• And finally, any new launch needs some controversy - Jeff is saying that "monkey" should not have been awarded the prize for the closest attendance guess on opening day.

Great Start for CCC-Plainfield and KC's Restore CC

I spent part of the morning teaching at Community-Romeoville and part of it on my  blackberry getting the latest updates from the launch of our ninth site, Community-Plainfield and the launch of our NewThing Network church in Kansas City.  And the news is great!!!   I don't have all the details, but I got some numbers:  we had 642 people show up for the first service at Community-Plainfield!  Amazing!!   Troy and the gang had 418 at Restore Community Church for their first weekend!  Awesome!!  God is very good and very kind.  More details to come...

BIG DAY (2x)!!

Sunday, March 2nd is going to be a big day in the life of Community!

We are starting our ninth location here in Chicago in the southwest suburb of Plainfield, Illinois.  We partnered with the CDEA, CIEA and Stadia for the launch of this new site.  I have already told Brad Prunty, our Campus Pastor to call me as soon as he can with a report on how the first day is going. 

And our NewThing Network is celebrating the start of Restore Community Church in Kansas City.  More than 20 people moved from Community to Kansas City including Troy and Janet McMahon to help start this new church.  Troy promised me that I would be the first person he'd call with details.  Can't wait to hear the good news!

Nothing in the whole world is better than starting a new Community site or a new church...unless it's starting both a new site and new church on the same day!  This is a big day for this reproducing church!!

NewThing Multi-Site Practicum...#14!

We sold out for our fourteenth NewThing Multi-Site Practicum.  We have 26 churches that have brought teams that are with us today and tomorrow.  These teams will leave with a step-by-step plan that they create for how to go multi-site in their context.  Good stuff!

This is a pic of me presenting during the first session on 7 Moves To Multi-Site.

Only 1 Week Until Community-Plainfield Launches!

On my way to speak at Community-Romeoville on Sunday morning I stopped in to take a look at the set-up for our newest campus, Community-Plainfield.  It looks like it is going to be great! Brad and his team are doing a great job.  The support of the staff from the rest of Community has been spectacular.  And the launch team has been awesome.  On Saturday they all went out and canvassed the 3,000 homes closest to the school where they are meeting to collect canned goods to re-stock the local food pantry!  And then on Sunday morning they had 173 people show up for their last preview service.  This is going to be a great launch and difference-making campus.  Can't wait!!