Ministry News

Tracking the Multisite Explosion

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Tuesday, 22 September 2009 09:12

A few years ago, most believers who heard the term multisite exclusively associated it with megachurches. Not anymore, says a trio of church leaders who tracked dozens of churches across the country that are branching out to meet in two or more locations.

“Multisite is no longer just for a church of 2,000 or 5,000 or 10,000,” said Geoff Surratt, a pastor at Seacoast Church in South Carolina who teamed up with Leadership Network’s Warren Bird and Greg Ligon to write A Multi-Site Church Road Trip. “We see churches with as small as 200 or 300 weekend attendees starting to launch new campuses.”

According to their research, there are currently 3,000 multisite churches in the United States, which marks a tenfold increase in less than a decade. Among megachurches, 37 percent were multisite last year—up 10 percent since 2005. Overall, one out of every 10 Protestant worshippers is part of a church that adopts the multisite model.

“We've visited enough churches of all sizes, and heard accounts of still more, to affirm with confidence that a healthy church with regular attendance (not membership) of 200 or more can often become multisite with an outcome that greatly increases the number and quality of disciples it makes,” the leaders write. “In fact, multisite churches do not survive long unless they put feet to their words about developing the people of God into leaders who reproduce themselves through others. If multisite churches don't empower God's people for ministry, they fail.” [christianpost.com, 9/21/09]