On May 24th Matt Hatch (Mosaic Church, Leeds), Toby Skipper (King’s Community Church, Norwich) and myself are hosting a day on Making Multi-Site Work.

In recent years many churches have ‘gone multi’, with more than one service, and meeting in more than one location. Multisite is exciting, but also presents many challenges, and we know we need help! Resources to help make multisite work tend to come from very large churches in the USA which, while useful, can have limited relevance to our context in the UK.

At this day we will be learning together how mid-sized British churches can navigate the leadership, organisational and theological opportunities and challenges multisite presents. The day will consist of a series of short learnings from church leaders already engaged in multisite, followed by guided discussion in small groups. The aim is that all those attending (both pastoral and administrative team members) learn from the successes and mistakes of others, and that together we help develop good models for leading multisite churches in the UK. The day will be relevant to those already doing multisite, as well as those exploring the options.

The day will be focused around 3 questions

SESSION 1: IS MULTISITE BIBLICAL?
Multisite seems to offer many pragmatic advantages for mission and church growth, but it also raises a number of theological issues. In this session we will consider the biblical case for going multi, and how we can ensure our understanding of the local church is theologically robust.

SESSION 2: HOW DO WE KEEP THE SHOW ON THE ROAD (pt1)?
When and how do you launch a new site (and with how many people)? How many sites do you go for? Will the sites become autonomous churches in the future? What’s our plan for preaching? In this session we’ll explore how we develop a sustainable strategy for multisite.

SESSION 3: HOW DO WE KEEP THE SHOW ON THE ROAD (pt2)?
What does administration and operational management look like in the mid-sized multisite church? How can we make good decisions about who controls the money, how we communicate across sites and how we structure our teams? In this session we will get down to the nuts and bolts of making church life work when we go multi.

SESSION 4: HOW DO WE LEAD WITHOUT LOSING OUR HEADS?
Multisite stretches leadership in all kinds of directions and makes demands that leading in one location do not. In this session we will think about the leadership challenges for the individual leader, and for leadership teams, created by multi.

You can book in here.