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MULTISITE CHURCHES: Two Things No One Seems To Have Noticed

Published March 2, 2009 Leadership 11 Comments
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Full disclosure – I’m a flag waving member of the multisite movement. I pastor a multisite church. But I’ve noticed two limitations that even the strongest proponents and harshest critics of video venues and the multisite movement seem to have missed.

  • The first is an Attendance Ceiling.

Few video campuses ever break through the 1,000 barrier. Almost all are midsized or smaller. Ten years into the multisite movement, no one has come close to breaking the code for planting multiple large attendance video campuses. And the handful that have planted one all feature very expensive facilities AND a nearby celebrity pastor with an enormous regional following.

  • The second is a built-in Geographical Limitation.

The further from the mothership one gets, the harder it is for a video-driven campus to succeed. Most (not all, but almost all) of the video venue success stories are found within the same geographical region as the main campus. Those that do succeed at the outer edges seldom grow beyond the mid-hundreds.

What does that mean?

Well, to begin with, it means that those who envisioned video campuses as a way to break completely free from geographical constraints and expand their ministry nationwide won’t see their dream fulfilled. It’s not happening anywhere. And it won’t. The constraints of the attendance ceiling and the geographical limitations are simply too strong to overcome.

It also means that those who feared (and were horrified by the thought of) the MacChurching of America can rest easy. The American religious landscape is not about to be dominated by a few high profile celebrity pastors anytime soon – or ever.

THE ATTENDANCE CEILING IS SIMPLY TOO HARD TO BREAK THROUGH

Here at North Coast we do video well. Over two-thirds of our weekend attendance watches either Chris Brown (our other teaching pastor) or me on the big screen. Yet despite our success with video, the biggest hurdle we face on our off-site campuses is always the video.

Yes we reach lots of people, but there are many more we’ll never reach as long as we’re on a screen. Even those who rave about the quality of our sermons often end up somewhere else. They tell us they’d rather shake the hand and look into the eye of the preacher – even if that means listening to a message that isn’t quite as “good” (whatever “good” means).

It’s a story I hear from video campus pastors everywhere. That’s not to say that video venues aren’t working. They are. But most seem to top out at three to six hundred and appear to function best in mid-sized or smaller settings.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL BOUNDARIES ARE ALSO NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO OVERCOME

In the early days of the multisite movement there was a lot of talk about a few churches having hundreds of video campuses spread across the country and even overseas. It sounded a lot like a franchising model. It never took off.

The reason is simple. Ministry is highly localized. There is a context to our preaching that is not only local, it’s regional as well. What plays well in one part of the country is often a dud in another.

Even celebrity status can’t overcome this geographical barrier because one region’s superstar is another region’s “Now who is that again?”

For instance, only a few people in my San Diego congregation have a clue who Andy Stanley is; same for Groeschel, Driscoll and any other non-Southern Californian “celebrity” you might care to name. And virtually no one has ever heard of Ed Young, John Piper or Tim Keller.

Sure these folks are well known among their fellow pastors, leaders, and the thousands who read their books. But the average Christian outside of their geographic region has no idea who they are. And it’s this regional myopia that makes it nearly impossible for any high profile pastor to launch a Wal-Mart like national franchise – which by the way few would want to do anyway.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Video Venues and multisite churches are here to stay. They’ve proven themselves to be a powerful tool for expanding outreach and ministry beyond a church’s natural drive-time boundaries.

But they’re not about to replace church planting or local ministries any time soon. They fill a void. They draw some people. They help expand the kingdom. But in very few cases will they ever become the dominant ministry in your town or mine. They’re just another weapon in the arsenal.

At least that’s the way I see it playing out.

How about you?

Multi-Site 2.0

INNOVATION’S BLIND SPOT: Is Protecting the Past As Important As Creating the Future?

Published February 24, 2009 Leadership 6 Comments
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If Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret is that most innovations fail, innovation’s blind spot is the failure to see that protecting the past is as important as creating the future.

Recently, while discussing what makes for a successful serial innovator™ with a group of pastors and business leaders, I was struck again that when it comes to leadership and innovation, all the sex appeal is on creating the future. But all the peril comes from failing to protect the past.   

Have you noticed that an inordinate amount of the truly dazzling innovation in ministry and business comes from those who are in a startup mode? With nothing to lose and only a future to create, they can risk it all – and reap great rewards for the innovations that stick.  

Yet most of us are in anything but a startup mode. We not only have a future to create, we also have past gains to protect. The difference between innovating in a startup mode and innovating within an existing ministry or business environment is immense. Those who fail to recognize this innovate at great risk.

Years ago, I watched the management team at Nordstrom’s almost commit organizational suicide by their failure to understand this difference. Concerned by slumping sales, they decided to overhaul their stores in an attempt to become more hip and reach a younger crowd. Following the lead of a couple of fast growing new clothiers who had recently burst onto the retail scene, they made significant changes to their ambiance, inventory and marketing in order to draw the kind of people who were flocking to these new retail outlets. (Does that sound like a lot of churches?)

But here’s what they missed. The customers they already had didn’t want the changes. They shopped at Nordstrom’s because they liked the very things that turned off the younger and hipper crowd. And unlike the new startup stores, Nordstrom’s had a huge infrastructure and overhead to support. Losing large numbers of current customers to chase potential customers put them in a near financial death spiral.

Instead of making such radical and wholesale changes within their existing stores, they should have targeted their unreached audience with new stores aimed directly at them while making consistent and subtle changes within their existing stores. This would have allowed them to preserve their past gains while still laying the foundation for a strong future.

 

The same applies to those of us who lead any ministry or business organization. When it comes to innovation and creating the future, there are three important things to keep in mind.

1. Whenever possible, innovate at the edge of the organization – or even outside the existing structures. A classic example would be the church that adds a new more cutting edge service at a different time slot or location rather than trying to introduce these elements into a more traditional service.

Fact is: over time, our best innovations will often be so successful that they swallow up the old.  But the goal is to have past gains swept aside by the success of the new rather than tossed aside in anticipation of the new. The difference is critical in terms of organizational chaos and pain.

2. Make sure you have both Champions of the Future AND Protectors of the Past. Both are critically important. But too often, one or the other of these is almost completely neglected. In entrepreneurial organizations, it’s protectors of the past who tend to be marginalized. In organizations with a history, it’s the champions of the future who often can’t get a hearing.

Most of us have a natural bias toward one or the other. If your bias is innovation, you may need to identify someone within the organization who naturally wakes up worrying about the negative effects of any proposed changes. If your bias is for protecting the past, you’ll need to find a way to give someone in the organization the freedom or even the job of rocking the boat. That doesn’t mean you’ll do everything they suggest. It does mean they’ll have a place at the table and the opportunity to have their risky new ideas carefully considered rather than relegated to the nut pile.  

3. Remember, the startup phase ends the moment we’ve gathered critical mass and some raving fans who love what we’ve created. It might only be a few months into the process, but once an innovation acquires critical mass and raving fans it has a past to protect.  

When we started a video worship venue called The Edge, it quickly grew to over a thousand each weekend. But with the speed of cultural change, it wasn’t long until what was once edgy no longer pushed the envelope to the same degree.

Some of my team wanted to make wholesale changes to make sure The Edge stayed edgy. But doing so would have driven away six to seven hundred of those who loved it just the way it was. Our solution was a series of subtle changes to keep things moving along and the startup of a new edgier edge called LAST CALL. It allowed us to continue to innovate without losing all we’d worked so hard to gain.

 

So here are some questions you might want to consider as you look to your future and the path of innovation.

What’s my personal bias, creating the future or protecting the past?

Do I have someone near me who sees the other side?

 

What’s my organization’s bias, creating the future or protecting the past?

Do we have champions of the future and the past?

Do they have any real power and influence or are they marginalized?

 

What’s our innovation environment?

Are we in a startup phase with only a future to create?

Are we in a transitional phase with new gains we can’t take for granted?

Are we in an established phase with both huge gains to protect and a future we need to create?

 

So what do you think? How does this fit with your own experiences with joys and heartache of innovation?

 

MINERS OR MISSIONARIES? A Different Spin on the Multisite Debate

Published February 19, 2009 Leadership 7 Comments
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I’m admittedly a biased observer in the multisite debate. But two recent posts by Bob Hyatt and Tony Jones caused me to wonder if a lot (not all) of the angst about a few churches becoming monster franchises isn’t based on what I’d call a Parish Mentality.

 

A Parish Mentality is what you find in the Roman Catholic Church, traditional denominations, and interestingly enough in the secular franchising model that says once one of our tribe has staked out a claim to a neighborhood, city or region, everyone else in the same tribe must stay out.

 

A parish mentality writes off the people an existing church can’t (and won’t) reach as essentially unreachable because it sees anyone else who tries to come in with a similar denominational brand or theological mindset as an illegitimate claim jumper.

 

A parish mentality also tends to put protecting one particular local expression of the church above the larger mission of the church.

 

Contrast a parish mentality with the mindset and strategy of Starbucks. As we all know, they don’t seem to worry about cannibalizing one store to increase the total number of customers in all stores.

 

Now if they can be that passionate about selling the maximum amount of coffee, can’t we be as passionate about reaching as many people as possible – even if that means some of our “stores” (read that as churches) increase and others decrease?

 

Rather than a parish mentality, I think a “Sunday School Mentality” might be a more helpful way to think about the church – and a better metaphor in the debate over multisite churches.

 

I look at all the genuine expressions of the body of Christ in my local community as elective Sunday school classes in the Lord’s great Church Universal.

 

Imagine a traditional church with an outstanding adult Sunday school program built around electives classes. The pastors and leaders wouldn’t worry if one class grew supersized and some stayed small but relationally tight.

 

They wouldn’t allow the large to criticize the small and the small to rip on the large.

 

They wouldn’t allow the class with an evangelism emphasis to disparage the class with the deeper life emphasis – or the in-depth Bible Survey class to vilify the class with a strong social activist bent.

 

And they certainly wouldn’t worry if some people changed classes now and then to better meet their personal spiritual or relational needs.

 

That’s why the anxiety over a few national superstars potentially cannibalizing the smaller outposts in the body of Christ seems to me to be misplaced. While every ministry strategy (including multisite ministry) has potentially dangerous unintended consequences, this is not one of them.

 

 Anyway, that’s how I see it. What about you?

 

Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret

Published February 18, 2009 Leadership 3 Comments
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Yesterday I gave a talk on Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret at a conference in Phoenix. It’s one of those talks that always gets a strong response. This time was no exception even though I was fighting a seriously wicked head cold (which must have produced some pretty gross sounds on the recording as I coughed and hacked my way through the material).

I subtitle this particular talk Confessions of a Serial-Innovator™ which, I know, sounds a bit self- aggrandizing. But bear with me. My point is that there are many single-shot innovators who have a great idea that rockets them to fame and success followed by lots of other great ideas that never seem to get any traction.

Serial innovators, on the other hand, seem to have an easier time getting traction for their vision of the future. They don’t just have lots of great ideas. They have lots of great results.

How do they do it? What’s the difference?

For one thing, serial innovators all seem to understand (either consciously or sub-consciously) that new ideas don’t succeed on merit alone. They know innovations’ dirty little secret: Most innovations fail.

Sure a lot of ideas fail because they are goofy, poorly thought out or poorly executed. But just as many great ideas never get off the ground. Just check out the patent office. It’s filled with plans for better mouse traps that nobody wanted.

Successful serial-innovators seem to know this. They know when to bail out and how to bail out of an idea, program or vision so that they don’t get stuck with the label of failure. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that they don’t fail. They fail a ton. But serial innovators know how to fail without looking like a failure. And not looking like a failure is important if you want to live to innovate another day – it’s the key to marshalling the troops or gaining the funding you’ll need for your next great idea.

Serial innovators make their plans with a clear exit strategy in mind. They don’t burn the boats. They unlock the back door in case they or their idea have to make a quick exit. Sometimes it’s with the words they use. Think how much easier it is to shut down an experiment than a new initiative.

Often, they do it by innovating at the fringe or even outside their ministry or company so that a successful innovation can overtake the old paradigm OR quickly be pulled back if things don’t go so well. Think of difference between the disastrous introduction of New Coke and the successful launch of Coke Zero.

Once launched, New Coke had no graceful way out. Despite a plethora of market studies showing it would succeed. It failed. It was a well-researched “positive change” that the marketplace simply didn’t want.

Compare that with Coke Zero – it just showed up one day on the shelf alongside Diet Coke. If it had lost traction early on it would have simply disappeared. But it got the traction it needed to succeed. People tried it and liked it. It hasn’t yet edged Diet Coke off the shelves. It might one day. But even if it doesn’t, Coca-Cola has two winners in the diet cola category, each with its raving fans: Diet Coke and Coke Zero.

So how do you plan an exit strategy when you are convinced that God has just given you the next great idea? The following questions can help. They are what I recommend leadership teams use to clear out the trail – just in case.

• How are we going to market this in a way that gives us maximum flexibility?
• What can we prepare for a quick and relatively painless exit?
• How are we going to communicate if things go slower than expected?
• How are we going to communicate if we need to shut down the whole thing?
• How are we going to absorb and limit the financial burden if things don’t go well?
• What benchmarks will cause us to pull the plug?
• What benchmarks will cause us to keep going even though things are slow?

The simple fact is: when it comes to any new venture, be it planting a church or starting a new business, launching a new soda or launching a new program, failure is the surest horse to bet on. Preparing for the possibility is one of the most potent ways to guarantee that you can stay in the game long enough to become a serial-innovator.

It’s not the only way. I’ll scatter in some more posts and reflections on serial innovation in the weeks to come. But for now, how well are you planning for failure? How seriously are you taking Murphy and his frustrating law? What place does Genesis 3 have in your theology – and your game plan?

What do you think?

Is Faith No Longer The Right Word?

Published February 13, 2009 Leadership , Spirituality 9 Comments
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One of the most frustrating things for me as a communicator occurs when I realize that my audience and I are using the same words but different dictionaries. It happens more often than we realize. And when it does, it can result in true words leading people down a false path.

 

For instance, tolerance used to mean allowing people to be wrong. Now it means acknowledging everyone is right. So if I take a passage like 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 or 2 Timothy 2:24-26 and plead with my congregation to be more tolerant, they don’t hear gentleness, humility, and patience toward those who don’t yet know the truth. They hear a call to support and defend the gay agenda.

 

I’m convinced the same thing has happened to the word faith. It no longer means what it used to mean.  Worse, for most people, it conjures up an image that has nothing to do with the Biblical concept of faith.

 

I find that most people today (Christians and non-Christians) define Faith as a feeling of optimism and confidence. It means believing we can still win the game even though we’re five runs down with two outs in the ninth. It means planning a three year project even though the doctors have given us two months to live. It’s the mental gymnastics of positive thinking that rejects all thoughts of defeat.

 

That’s why I’m not using the word faith much these days. Instead, whenever possible, I’ve started to use the word trust. It’s much closer to what Jesus and the apostles had in mind.

 

No one thinks of trust as magically shielding them from defeat. Instead, we think of it as something people have in the midst of defeat – when things don’t make sense – when nothing works out as expected.

 

It’s what Job had when all hell broke loose. It’s what Jesus had in the garden. It’s what the ancient prophet Habakkuk had when he penned these powerful words: Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength . . . Habakkuk 3:17-19

 

And isn’t that what we and our people need in these challenging times?

 

What do you think?

EVERYBODY LOVES ME and has a wonderful plan for my church, people, and money!

Published February 9, 2009 Leadership 7 Comments
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I don’t know about you, but I’m sure tired of ministry leaders who assume that their BIG VISION for mobilizing the body of Christ automatically trumps my smaller vision for our local church.  

Yet, it happens all the time. A parachurch organization, a denominational leader or local pastor comes up with a plan to mobilize the body of Christ at large in order to do something great for God. It’s always a cause that’s hard to argue with: an evangelistic outreach, church planting, a mission project, a compassion drive, a citywide prayer meeting or even a political agenda that can only be pulled off if we all mobilize to fend off the latest crisis de jour.

For instance, we were recently approached about participating in a one-year campaign of community service designed as the pre-evangelism for a citywide evangelistic crusade to follow. It sounded like a great idea. I love the concept of uniting churches to serve. I love putting the music of service to the words of the gospel.

But here’s the problem. North Coast Church already has an extensive community outreach. We already average nearly two service projects a day. And every 18 months we close down our weekend services for an additional massive Weekend of Service that each time has provided over $1,000,000 worth of biddable goods and services to the community.

If we sign on for their BIG VISION it will mean putting our God-given vision on hold. It will kill our momentum and set us back a long way. Yet, if we don’t play along, we’ll be branded as self-centered megachurch that doesn’t know how to play well with others in the sandbox.

My guess is that I’m not alone. It’s not just megachurches that have to deal with this. Our size makes us a prime target because we look like a huge recruiting depot and a potential source of significant funds to the BIG VISION types. But the pressure to jump aboard everyone else’s bandwagon is nothing new. It began when we were a small church. It’s just that then we were last in line and now we’re the first to be hit up.

I’m not saying that God isn’t behind these BIG VISION initiatives. I’m not saying they’re unimportant. I am saying that in their zeal to mobilize the troops, these leaders too often forget a couple of very important truths – the priesthood of all believers and the diversity of the body of Christ.

We’re not all called to do or be the same thing. If my name isn’t on their vision, it’s not necessarily because I’m not listening to God. It might be that I’m hearing him quite clearly.

Instead of full-court presses and drive-by-guiltings, it would be far better if they would simply run the magnet through the sand, picking up and gathering all those who share their vision and letting the rest go home. It worked rather well for Gideon.

But instead they tend to cajole, hound, and pester – solicitous on the front end (when they’re still trying to gain my support), too often rude or condescending on the back end (if they fail to get it).

I’m not easily pushed around. I can dig my feet in with the best, especially when I know God has called our church to do something different.  But I sense that many of us do give in to the pressure and jump aboard not because we’re called, but because we don’t want to face the grief that comes from standing alone.

So tell me – what’s your experience with these BIG VISION folks? Am I all wet – or spot on? Am I the only one who wonders why these people always claim to love me and have a wonderful plan for our church, our people, and our money?

GOD’S WILL – Clarity In The Rear View Mirror

Published February 3, 2009 Leadership , Spirituality 4 Comments
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I’m convinced that one of the greatest sources of spiritual disillusionment for leaders is the goofy idea that God’s plan for our life – or for that matter, his plan for the next three weeks – should be easily and clearly discernable.

Over the years, I’ve watched more than a few friends and godly leaders wade into the deep weeds of an irreversible decision convinced that they knew exactly what God wanted them or their ministry to do. So, like the Spanish explorer, Cortez, they burned their boats and charged ahead, leaving themselves no way out.

(By the way, I’ve never understood why Cortez is put forward as an example of great leadership and motivation. Have we forgotten that he and his crew were all killed off with nowhere to go?)

Recently, while working through Acts, I was reminded again how hard it can be for even the best of us to discern with certainty exactly what God is up to. Paul’s final journey to Jerusalem is a prime example (Acts 20-21). 

  • Paul felt compelled to go. He was absolutely certain he knew what God wanted next.
  • His entire entourage, including Luke and all the prophets they met along the way, saw it differently. They warned and begged him not to go. And don’t forget, Luke was no spiritual slouch. He wrote two books of the Bible.
  • When Paul arrived in Jerusalem, James and the elders presented him with a plan to win over his enemies and skeptics. No doubt it was a plan they had prayed over and were convinced would work.
  • Their plan backfired. Paul’s enemies weren’t won over; they were provoked. They became angrier than ever.
  • After a near riot and an attempt on his life, Paul spent the next five years in legal limbo – surely not the outcome he or anyone had in mind.

So who was right? Who was wrong? Even with 20/20 hindsight it’s hard to know. The text doesn’t tell us. Perhaps Paul missed it. Maybe Luke and the prophets did. Certainly, James and the elders got it wrong; at least in terms of the results they envisioned. Seems to me the whole story serves as a warning to all of us who lead to be a little more cautious and humble the next time we’re certain that we’ve figured out God’s game plan or the next step for our family, our life, our church or the body of Christ at large.  It’s certainly a lesson James had learned by the time he penned these famous and powerful words:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. James 4:13-16

What do you think?

 

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