We spent some time discussing multi at a meeting of the Newfrontiers Theology Forum a couple of years ago and came up with the following list of questions. We thought pastors could usefully ask themselves these before taking the plunge into multi. Giving significant time to prayerfully considering questions like these rather than unthinkingly adopting multi as the latest silver bullet for creating growth in your church might save considerable pain and mess.

- What is your motivation for going multi? (Be honest!)

- Are you going multi as a strategy (e.g., you think it is the best ‘fit’ for your context), or because you have to (e.g., because of limited seating capacity in your church building)?

- What are your non-negotiables about the church? What can change?

- Will going multi result in a split along ethnic/age/class lines between the meetings/venues? Is this a problem or not? Why? How will you express ‘one new man’ in Christ in a multi model?

- Will going multi result in a squeeze on service time/ministry? How will you handle this?

- How will the elders personally reproduce their lives in the church? Is this important to you?

- Where are the lines (relational distance and geographic distance) which when crossed would mean that this can no longer be defined as one church?

- Will you ever gather everyone together? How? When? If not, why not?

- How will you express unity? What does unity mean to you?

- Is the ‘main meeting’ the defining element of your church, or is there some other measure you would use in preference?

- Is your plan to eventually develop autonomous congregations or to maintain linked campuses?

- Will you use video preaching? If so, what are your motives in doing this?

- How will preaching be applied to the life of the congregation?

- What will be the impact of going multi on your involvement in church planting?

- How will you stay open to the Spirit and not just do repeat meetings?

- How will you practice the sacraments?

- How will you practice church discipline?

 
I think there are positive answers to all these questions, that can legitimately lead to the development of a multisite church; but equally an honest assessment of the issues involved will probably mean that in most cases multi is not the most appropriate model. Every church should enjoy its slice of cake, but getting the key ingredients right of faithfully worshipping Jesus, discipling believers, and reaching the lost are more important than adopting the latest church structure recipe.