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According to a study published late in 2022 by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), 96% of the 2,700 pastoral leadership respondents said that their primary reason for launching a multisite location was “to reach new people with Jesus’s gospel.”
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As the multisite movement has exploded in the last decade, this is a great reminder that the main goal of a church launching other locations isn’t about branding, “reach,” or visibility, it’s evangelism.
It's easy to claim that the emphasis should be on the technology plan and infrastructure for this, but in reality, it always starts with leaders and teams.
For churches that are currently single sites but have the vision to expand to one or more additional locations, there are a plethora of factors that must be considered, especially on the production side, when weighing this decision and beginning to plan out what the process will look like.
Few things have as much impact on the launch process (including budget and logistics) as the selection of a venue.
For instance, renting a facility on a weekly basis (like a movie theater, school auditorium, community center, or performing arts theater) will have different variables than a venue that a church either purchases or is able to use exclusively through purchase or lease.
In the latter scenario, there’s obviously more control over what gear is installed and left set up, and there’s a greater ability to install additional power or have a dedicated internet circuit.
However, a portable situation may have wildly varying degrees of what is or isn’t feasible, ranging from gear installations to power to on-site storage. And for volunteer teams responsible for setting up a portable venue, any way to limit how much work has to be done prior to services not only makes that process easier, it will greatly minimize the risk of mistakes or equipment issues.
“When this shift [to multisite] happens, your impact expands; you are no longer a church for your city, but a church for the region.”
—Rudy Gonzalez, The Father’s House, Northern California
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Rudy Gonzalez has been the production manager at The Father’s House, a multisite church based in Northern California, since 2011. Having been involved with numerous campus launch projects over the last decade-plus, he agreed that streamlining the pre-service load-in workflow is a critical part of setting up a multisite’s team for success.
“If you can permanently install items into facilities that are not easily removable that would be a huge benefit to cut down on setup time on Sunday mornings. Speakers, projectors, [and even] key or effect lighting install would greatly reduce setup times, giving you more time with teams or a later call time,” he noted.
This is where gear standardization becomes a huge piece of the puzzle.
Often times, this is something that can potentially be negotiated with the host facility. Some venues may not allow for a permanent equipment install, but they might have secure on-site storage available, which would eliminate the need for transporting (and storing) certain items during the week, and can save cost on rental/warehouse facilities or even box trucks needed for transport. Other venues might be open-minded to having a church install additional stage power or a dedicated internet circuit (for things like children check-in and receiving a video feed from a broadcast campus), just to mitigate the risk of the church’s usage impacting what that host facility needs (this also can help draw a nice line of demarcation for liability reasons, if the two entities essentially use parallel infrastructure that doesn’t cross over to the other side).
In other cases, a host venue may allow for the installation of certain technology pieces, but with the caveat that they themselves get to use it during the week (oftentimes with a reduction in rental fees to offset that extra usage).
Patrick Buescher, the Technical Operations assistant director at Crossroads Church, which has numerous locations in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky, has seen this play out firsthand.
“One thing we try to do is install as much as possible and allow the venue to use [it] when they desire,” he said. “While this causes some wear/tear and support needs, we find that the reduction in setup/teardown time is worth the exchange. In our contracts, we state we will install, train, maintain and remove at the end of the lease all at our expense. This also builds relationships, trust and can reduce the rates of the lease,” he added.
To the latter point, it’s critical to go above and beyond when nurturing and maintaining a relationship with the host facility or landlord. Having a single point of contact on the church’s side who regularly communicates with the venue is an easy and critical way of streamlining the communication flow. And proactively investing in that relationship is vital, since there will inevitably be times that the church needs to make a big “ask” from the venue, whether seeking permission to install additional equipment, asking for more storage, or negotiating a longer lease.
When that relationship is healthy, and a church navigates that interaction with attitudes of respect and healthy stewardship, it opens the door for more possibilities down the road. So, if a church would like to install lights or add power or hang speakers, it might be cheaper to do it in-house with volunteers or church staff. But is that the best way to earn credibility with a host venue, who carries the liability for the facility and its guests? Or, even though it may cost more, is it wiser long-term to use licensed, insured, and bonded contractors or integrators to do the work?
And treating a host venue well opens the door for them to be a reference down the road if a church is looking to add an additional portable venue, but that new site may be reticent to have a church as a tenant. But like a franchise concept in the business world, thinking of scaling to even more venues isn’t even an option if a church hasn’t first developed a plan to effectively grow from one (original) site to a total of two locations.
It's easy to claim that the emphasis should be on the technology plan and infrastructure for this, but in reality, it always starts with leaders and teams.
As Gonzalez implored, “Develop leaders to lead the campuses, [because] you can’t be everywhere. Make sure your leaders have your same DNA, exude the culture of the church, and maintain an atmosphere of excellence.”
Additionally, he emphasized that a tech team leader must “find ways of being able to review/critique your production teams at other campuses so that you can ensure the same standard of excellence is being executed everywhere.” This may mean that a leader must first replicate himself or herself at the primary campus so someone can lead that venue when the leader travels to the multisite location to do any coaching or training.
Ideally though, each site is able to develop and lead its own teams, although a broadcast site may have to be heavily involved at first if a campus doesn’t have the facilities available to do any consistent level of training. If that remote campus is portable, for instance, team members might have to come to the broadcast location during the week to do training or arrive early (or stay late) at the multisite location on Sunday when the gear is already set up. Or, a team may need to shoot simple “how to” videos that can help people understand how the system works (and how it needs to be set up), and have that serve as an introductory level of training that people can watch in advance of arriving on a weekend to serve.
Team training is arguably the most critical system that must be in place in order for scaling to work effectively across multiple locations. It starts with a definition of what excellence looks like in that particular environment and then provides a road map of coaching and skills training in order to help teams get there.
To think as a multisite entity is to think in terms of systems. Instead of being people-dependent (which requires a specific person to do a specific thing), how can a ministry become process-dependent? By building out a healthy framework and with proper instruction, this essentially allows the specific people to be interchangeable, but success is still possible when people follow the steps in place.
As an example, how will service flow be planned and communicated? Being multisite may eliminate much of the ability to add or modify service elements on the fly, so will details be mapped out in advance through a software like ShoFlo or Planning Center? Will there be a designated point of contact at the broadcast site who can communicate changes in real time to the other campus? If so, how will they be communicating? Text, Slack, GroupMe?
Will service start times be identical, or will they be staggered so an internet-based delivery system like Resi, Boxcast, or Wirecast will have enough time to build up a buffer prior to the sermon being aired in real time? If there’s an issue with a live feed, does everyone know what the backup plan is, whether it’s a local communicator or a playback file of a previously recorded message?
Does each site have the ability to choose its own set list and songs? If so, is there any standardized template that should be used in presentation software to ensure that song lyrics are input consistently across the locations?
Outside of the service flow itself, is there a communication system in place for the off-site campus to communicate during the week about any needs it has? Maybe there’s a maintenance issue that needs to be addressed, or more batteries and gaff tape need to be ordered. Who does that and how is that request being issued and tracked? If the campus isn’t in a position to do that (perhaps because it’s run almost exclusively by volunteers), is there someone centrally who can step in to help address those needs?
This is where gear standardization becomes a huge piece of the puzzle.
“Standardization is very important to us, as we only have so much capacity to support and troubleshoot as a team,” said Crossroads’ Buescher. “Not having to maintain an intimate knowledge of [multiple] brands of video switchers, audio consoles and lighting surfaces allows us to support effectively and efficiently. We ensure we don't choose new systems based on personal preference, but on the ability to support long term regardless of who is operating.”
While it’s important to standardize and build out some measure of consistent systems to allow for scalability, sometimes it’s ultimately the notion of flexibility that wins the day.
There are certainly ideal situations for venues (with power, rigging height, acoustics, etc.), budgets and teams, but it’s rare that those things are available in their dream state. Generators might need to be rented because house power is inadequate and can’t be expanded, cellular bonding might have to be a solution because an ISP can’t get new internet service to a location, floor stacked speakers and crank-up lights might have to be used because rigging isn’t available, and workflows may need to be streamlined and automated so that less volunteers are able to do more stuff simultaneously.
Colin Wells, the Creative Director of Raleigh, NC’s, Point Church, knows this all too well. In recent years, their church’s vision for multisite campuses has morphed to now start them so they can ultimately become standalone ministries, and all existing off-site campuses have all begun a process of separating themselves from the parent organization to become their own entities.
“We strive to make sure we don’t let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘great.’”
—Colin Wells, Point Church, Raleigh, NC
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This becomes a whole new filter for launching a site, because there now has to be a plan for it to be independent over time. So how will they do their own livestream with a broadcast audio mix? How will any sort of IMAG or camera system need to be introduced, and how does that affect what lighting is installed and how a backbone is designed?
With an entirely new filter of how decisions need to get made, Wells knows he must instead focus on the end result and be willing to find new ways to achieve that vision.
“We strive to make sure we don’t let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘great’,” he said. “One thing that we say a lot is ‘Blessed are the flexible, for they don’t get bent out of shape.’”
The vision must stay intact, but the means of achieving that vision may sometimes need to change. But as the process of becoming a multisite organization begins, there must still be a starting point with the systems in place to allow for scaling, such as planning, communication, maintenance and training.
In the ECFA survey from last fall, 80% of existing multisite church leaders surveyed said they expect to continue launching more campuses. So if a church is just now looking at doing its first off-site location, there’s a good chance that another one might be coming somewhere down the road.
Knowing that the landscape of a community is fertile and ripe for harvest is exciting for any ministry leader. For those of us serving on the front lines of production, it may be even more so, knowing that we have such a prominent part of helping ministry vision expand through technology.
This, as much as anything else, excites TFH’s Gonzalez.
“When this shift [to multisite] happens, your impact expands; you are no longer a church for your city, but a church for the region,” he proclaimed. “And we GET to bring the gospel to so many more people, and you get to be a part of someone’s life change!”
