WHAT PEOPLE THINK

Yesterday I took a look back at the first book I read about multi-site church, back in 2006. It was written by Greg Surrat and others, Greg being one of the pastors of what I consider the flagship of multi-site in this country, Seacoast Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

I was interested to read something Greg wrote about their first campus, the beginning of them going multi-site -

When we first proposed the idea of doing off-site campuses at Seacoast, I had a line of people at my office door, telling me why it wouldn't work. Why do we need to replicate ministries that we do poorly at the original campus? We don't have enough leaders, volunteers and musicians for the services we are already doing, how can we do more? Budgets are stretched tight, how can we spend money on additional campuses?

I wanted to argue with them, to show them that we had a divine mandate from God, but they were right. Some of our ministries were held together with rubber bands and duct tape, we had no backups for our music teams, and our finances were so tight we had to bring WD40 to budget meetings. Going multi-site didn't make sense, except for the fact that we had no other choice.

Sounds very much like us. Why did he write they had no other choice?

Because if you're choosing between what God has told you to do and human reasoning, God wins every time. And when you obey him, you win too.

SPACE ISSUES

I told a couple of folks yesterday that the normal fall away from launch day to week two is 25%, though I'm not sure where or when I read that number. Today I was pretty reliably informed that the figure is more like 35% to 50%, so I guess the drop we experienced on our second Sunday in Mastic from 203 to 183 pretty much bucks that trend. I like that!

By the way, it was 9.85% to be exact.

We initially planned to use the largest theater at Island Cinemas, but opted to start with the second largest in the end. So for the past two Sundays Theater 6 has been comfortably full, which means there is no convenient room for growth.

As we moved out yesterday we said thank you and goodbye to Theater 6 and next Sunday we will move into the 250 seater Theater 7 next to it. I must admit that at this stage the biggest venue is beginning to look small, but we'll just keep moving forward and see where we end up!

ONE WEIRD THING ABOUT LAUNCHING

There are a lot of very interesting facets to launching a new campus, but there's one that's common to every church planting situation and it has been part of my week too.

When everything was about done following the launch of our Mastic campus last Sunday, I asked the leader of our Welcome Team for the total headcount. As I've mentioned before, my initial goal had been 100, so I was thrilled to know we had actually passed 200.

Given about 60 seconds to let that news sink in and to enjoy it, I then moved on to the next stage, wondering how many of them will return this coming Sunday. Who will come back? Will anyone? So this week's uncertainty is about as real as last week's.

We had friends with us for the launch who had come to wish us well and will not be part of that campus in an ongoing capacity. Plus of course there were inevitably some people who checked us out and decided we are so non-traditional, our salvation is probably in serious doubt. They won't be back either.

But then, to balance that, we have been getting feedback from excited first-timers, all of whom have friends and family and who will have been spreading the word this week.

Some won't be there, others will.

So will the attendance take a dramatic drop, hold its own or even build?

I have no idea, which is another reason I'm looking forward to Sunday.

LESSONS LEARNED ON DAY ONE

So, I guess the one thing we need to draw from the launch of our Mastic campus is we should never underestimate what God can do.

Knowing that you need a good crowd for critical mass, I was hoping we would hit the 100 mark - bearing in mind we already had about 50 of our own folks planning to be there. As it turned out, we had way more folks come, with an eventual total of 203 in the building.

Other things we learned -

+ New folks come early.

+ Running out of bagels and donuts is not a good thing.

+ People love a friendly welcome.

+ Every method of advertising we used produced results.

+ You can't presume the building will be clean!

+ Preaching to people who don't know you is totally different from speaking to those who do.

+ Church/campus planting may be the extreme sport of ministry, but there's nothing like the rush of opening day.

+ Hard work pays off.

SO WHAT IT'S RAINING?

Having delivered over 9,000 door hangers last weekend announcing Sunday's launch, we planned to take care of the final 2500 or so this evening, but it has rained all day. I don't just mean light stuff spitting out of the heavens, I mean the kind of rain and wind that is driving the leaves from the trees prematurely and generally causing havoc.

I waited all day for a break in the clouds, since it seems the forecasters seldom really have a clue, but just after 5.00, I realized it wasn't going to happen.

Tomorrow's main activity is handing out invitation postcards in the Stop & Shop shopping center, so will the final hangers get done?

I don't know. I'm planning to attack some when I'm free later in the day, but I'm really not worried.

Here's the deal.

Our folks have worked like dogs getting the word out. I knew they are committed people, but honestly didn't realize how much they were into what we're doing. We've worked hard at this. We've covered a heck of a lot of ground.

So now we'll do what we can and then wait for God to do what he alone can do. It's the Holy Spirit who draws people, so I'm going to guess that God isn't going to fall off his throne tonight because the weather sucks.

Chances are he had a hand in it, so I'll leave it with him!

THE MONEY MYTH

We launch our new campus on Sunday and are virtually broke - as in, we have used up all the available resources. But that's okay, because we're just about all set to go.

The question of what it costs to start a new campus is one I often see discussed and it's interesting to see what people have to say on the subject. As far as we are concerned, we are launching in Mastic with a budget that is a fraction of what the "experts" recommend.

These are challenging economic times, but some of the most effective churches in America were started during times when this country and everyone living here was being stretched - Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois and Saddleback in California.

My concern is that pastors hold back because of the recession or because they don't have much money and miss the terrific opportunities we have to expand our borders all over this nation.

So let me come right out and say this - don't listen to the nonsense about it costing $150k to $200k minimum. We are starting a new campus this weekend and our start-up budget has been $22,000. That is something like 15% of the lowest number I have seen quoted. Why $22,000? - because that's what came in.

Okay, we are not adding staff to pull this off, we have shopped wisely and we have seen some amazing occurrences of divine intervention. We don't have the newest and greatest of everything, but we have a set-up that blew the movie theater owner away when we did a run through on Sunday.

You don't need a bundle of money, you need a big vision and a bigger God.

The development of the church cannot come down to how much we have in the bank and what it looks like we can afford.

You don't need to have a fortune.

You can do it for much less than you imagine.

So don't be put off - spread out!

PRESSING ON

One of the things I have heard over and again is that starting a new campus will stretch you. Today I have been feeling stretched and so have some of those around me, I'm sure.

This will be one crazy weekend, with so much to be done. I guess we'll all be that bit more stretched by Monday evening, but come next Sunday morning it will all be very much worthwhile.

CRAZY WEEKEND AHEAD

Okay, this is it. We have all the stuff and there's still more of it in my garage despite the fact that the bulk of our equipment is already stored at Island Cinemas.

But this weekend is about the launch itself. It's about people. It's about getting the word out.

So here's the plan -

Friday evening and Saturday evening - Distribute flyers for Monday's End Of Summer Fair outside movie theater.

Sunday morning - Run through service at Island Cinemas, 10.00am.

Sunday morning - Distribution of door hanger invitations to homes in Mastic, Mastic Beach and Shirley, followed by pizza party.

Sunday all day - Booth at Ronkonkoma Street Fair, distributing Back To Church Sunday invitations for Ronkonkoma.

Sunday evening - Distribution of door hangers by CATMO, Integrity Fellowship and Lamb's Chapel youth groups. Looking to end the day having given out all 12,000.

Monday afternoon - 1.00pm to 4.00pm - End Of Summer Fair outside Island Cinemas, Mastic.

By Monday evening we want everyone living in the Tri-Hamlets to know we're coming!

WALKING THINGS OUT

Our initial plan for our second campus was to have live music and video teaching, but it soon became clear that since Mastic is less than 20 miles from Ronkonkoma, timing services appropriately would allow the same preacher to be in both locations every week. Teaching could be live.

We have a great worship band in Ronkonkoma. Capable, committed people who do an amazing job week in and week out. It amazes me sometimes that in a church our size we don't have any back-ups, musicians are in very short supply.

This has been a challenge in preparing to launch the next location and we have simply had to wait, pray and see what God would do.

One solution we have found is that the good folks at lifechurch.tv in Oklahoma make their band's worship sets available for download. So some weeks we will have the band on screen instead of the preacher. The trial run for this went over pretty well in Ronkonkoma a few weeks ago.

Twelve days before we are due to start, yesterday I wasn't sure what we would be doing for music on day one, but this morning I got the message I had been hoping for. Michelle Margiotta, an extremely gifted worship leader is going to be with us on Sunday 13th, so she will be fronting that first morning for us.

We have got to know Michelle over the past five or six weeks and she has committed to covering some Sundays for us, but didn't know if the 13th would be good for her.

So that has turned out very well indeed.

If it sounds like we're flying by the seat of our pants here, in some ways we are. I have read everything I could lay my hands on about multi-site over the past three years. I have talked with pastors who are doing it and those planning to do it. I have visited multi-site churches and attended multi-site conferences and workshops.

But in the end of the day, you just have to get out there and do it - and just can't wait until you have every single detail worked out before you move.

We're just walking this out and enjoying seeing God cover our glaring inadequacies.

KIDS COUNT

Today's big news is that the Editor of the South Shore Press has offered to let us switch our full page ad from black and white to full color for the second half of its run - at no extra cost! Is that amazing or what?

The photo shows the people heading up our children's programs on both campuses - Charlotte Engel in Ronkonkoma and Tracey Berner in Mastic.

The whole point of us developing campuses is that we have developed a model that can be reproduced. So while Island Cinemas in Mastic is a different shape building than Regal Cinemas in Ronkonkoma, we want it to look exactly the same and to offer the same programs.

We'll have a full menu of activities for boys and girls in Mastic from day one as we not only value youngsters, but we realize that if they are happy with us, mom and dad are more likely to be too.

Nursery, KIDMO, The Bridge are all good to go in just twelve days from today.