Going Multisite: A New Strategy for the Same Mission

Christ Followers are called to a mission—the mission to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). This mission never changes. In Acts 1:8, Luke records Jesus’ last call to action before He ascended into heaven: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The mission never changes. Christ’s followers are called to expand His Kingdom. We have been given the freedom and creativity to find strategies that accomplish this mission, and those strategies change over time. Generational differences, cultural gaps, and many other factors contribute to these changes.

We have been given distinct instructions to expand the Kingdom, but the Lord has given us the freedom and creativity to do it in our own way. The mission never changes. But our strategy should.

The Multisite Church Strategy

Enter the multisite strategy: A strategy seemingly tailor-made for this generation’s community driven, “boots on the ground” mentality. At Stadia, one of our core values is urgency. There are seven billion people on this planet who need the hope and love of Jesus. Stadia offers services to help churches that are wanting to expand His Kingdom through the multisite strategy.

Justin Moxley, Stadia’s Planter Development Executive, and Donnie Williams, Lead Pastor of Lifepointe Church in Raleigh, NC, lead Stadia’s multisite intensive. It is a one-day intensive training that provides churches with strategies and practices for multiplying their church via multisite campuses. It is a personalized intensive that takes your church’s demographics and unique DNA into consideration.

Modest Beginnings

Following the intensive, Donnie and Justin conduct four monthly follow-up calls to provide consultation, coaching, and guidance in your church’s journey to become a multisite church that launches their first campus, second campus, and beyond.

First Christian Church in Greeneville, TN, is a 100-year-old church that desires to expand the Kingdom by becoming a multisite church. FCC will be the first multisite church in their community, and they are excited to see how the gospel spreads by bringing this strategy into Greeneville.

A month after the multisite intensive in Greeneville, Scott Wakefield, Tommy Staggs, and Wes Ford had their first follow up call with Donnie. I caught up with them to ask about their experience.
Scott, Lead Pastor of FCC, commented that the multisite intensive “rallied our troops around a firmer vision than it felt like it was before. It excited people and built momentum.” The multisite intensive takes your church’s leaders and gives them the opportunity to become unified in the vision to become a multisite church. That is truly empowering for your church staff.

Scott said having a “third party of experts who have gone through this before gave our own people a sense of security about this being good and right for us. But I think it also helps us [as church leaders] understand that help is there when we need it, and we are not going down this road alone.”

Reaching the Next Generation of New Believers

Stadia’s multisite services provide a training and support system to help your church reach the next generation of new believers, grow your leadership pipeline, and expand the Kingdom through multisite campusing.

I asked these leaders how they felt affirmed through this process, or rather, what was most memorable about the one-day intensive process.

Wes Ford, Associate Pastor of Students, Technology, and Facilities said, “I think people had thought about the concept of multisite for a while, but actually doing the nuts and bolts of planning really made it concrete for people…it gave people ownership of it.” Tommy Staggs, Associate Pastor, shared “the expectation was that the experts come in and tell us how to do it. But we were forced to think through and do a lot of the work ourselves—it wasn’t ‘we’re going to tell you how to do that.’ But we realized that God has equipped us with the resources we need to do this thing.”

Stadia’s multisite intensive is meant to be a process that gives ownership to your church’s leadership, and thus affirms your leadership in the fact that you are equipped to do this.

The mission doesn’t change. The strategy does. And right now, Stadia can see how the multisite church strategy is making disciples and taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.