By Staff
The use of multisite as a strategy for church growth is ever-increasing. But the reasons behind why churches are moving to a multisite model vary from church to church.
Some churches are using it as an alternative to a large capital campaign. Instead of building a bigger building, these churches are meeting more frequently in secondary venues spread out over a city or even a region. In lieu of one mig meeting with everyone, there is a “main campus” with several satellites.
Other churches use a multisite model as a way of church planting. They identify areas of the city in which a church is needed, start a campus, then launch it as an autonomous church later on.
There are other reasons as well, but whatever the end goal is for a multisite strategy, as you can see by the findings from Leadership Network below, the results have been incredibly positive.
- An impressive 85% of surveyed multisite churches are growing—and at the strong rate of 14% per year.
- Churches typically go multisite in the 1,000 size range, though almost half say they could have become multisite at a smaller size.
- Campus viability starts at 75-350 people, depending on your model.
- The typical multisite church is just 4 years into the process, and 57% plan to launch an additional campus in the next 12 months.
- One in three (37%) multisite churches started a new campus as the result of a merger.
- The vast majority (88%) of churches report that going multisite increased the role of lay participation.
- The vast majority (87%) of campus pastors are found internally—trained and hired from within the church.
- Multisite campuses grow far more than church plants, and likewise multisite campuses have a greater evangelistic impact than church plants.
- Nearly half (48%) of multisite churches directly sponsor new churches.
- The recommended distance between campuses is a travel time of 15-30 minutes.
These findings are from a recent study released by Leadership Network. For the full report, visit LeadNet.org.
