by Allen White | Feb 12, 2015 | Small Group Strategy
By Allen White
A few days ago, I introduced the idea of the Microsite Church here on the blog. These are video “campuses” just like a multisite campus, except they can meet in much smaller places. Here are three reasons to consider them:
1. A Geographical Reason.
The planning, budget and staff needed to launch a multisite campus in either a permanent or rented facility is quite an investment. While launching a campus in a small city or metropolitan area is a no brainer, launching in a small town or a rural community is indeed more of a “brainer.”
If a church will repurpose the content currently used for its multisite campuses into a living room friendly version, a campus can meet in any town in any place in the world. In fact, a microsite campus could be the trial balloon for a multisite campus down the road or it can be a tool to reach a community that you haven’t reached before.
2. A Demographic Reason.
Microsite campuses don’t have to be limited to remote areas. Think about how a microsite campus could serve even in a community that already has a multisite campus. Why would you need them?
Getting to church is hard for some people. Job schedules, special needs children, health issues and other reasons make it difficult to travel or maybe even to fit in at a large campus. With microsite, you can bring the service to them.
Some might object by asking why an online campus couldn’t serve them just as well. I am all in favor of using the internet to reach people. In fact, I had an online small group on CompuServe in 1992. But watching a service online is much different than worshipping in a community of believers. Issues that isolate people shouldn’t keep them out of a church community either. Microsite campuses are certainly a possible solution.
3. A Political Reason.
I spent some time with the pastors of an awesome, rapidly growing megachurch in a metropolitan area recently. They are reaching the lost in powerful ways. But, there is one limiting factor — their city won’t allow them to build on the 400 acres they actually own! The political climate is completely unfavorable. Multisite could be the answer, but in this political environment, that could be shot down too.
I made an offhand remark to them. My friends would be disappointed if I hadn’t. I said, “Maybe it’s time to just go underground.” I know that thought seems radical and extreme. It’s something we might imagine only under a dictator or a Communist regime. But, let’s face it, the church has lost the culture war and is living in an exceedingly secular climate.
Microsite could serve two purposes here. The first is unbelievers who are invited to a microsite could not only experience the service, but see the Gospel lived out in the lives of the group gathered at the campus. Rather than watching the service projected on a large screen, their experience is more up close and personal.
Second, it’s not illegal anywhere that I know of to have a dozen or so people over to your house. Some HOA’s might have parking restrictions. You’d have to abide by that, but it’s not impossible. Campuses would only be limited by the number of willing members who would open their homes to one.
The final reason to consider microsite is that one the code is cracked for your first microsite campus, you have a unit of one. If it can work in one home, it can work in many homes.
There are more thoughts to think and things to discuss. Join in on the conversation. I’d love to hear from you.
Related Posts:
The Rise of the Microsite Church
NewSpring Launches Microsite Campuses This Year
by Allen White | Feb 5, 2015 | Microsite
Multisite churches have multiplied ministries and reached the lost very effectively over the past decade in the US. What started as a desperate need for expansion at Seacoast Church’s Mt. Pleasant, SC campus and the subsequent denial by their city council to let them expand led to the launch of a new model that duplicated services across counties, states and eventually countries in the case of churches like Saddleback. The fix to a zoning problem became a launch pad for evangelism. Now, for the next wave.
A while back on a coaching visit to Seacoast Church, Josh Surratt mentioned to me that a family from their church had moved to the state of Maine and had 40 people meeting in their living room every Sunday watching the Seacoast service online. I said to Josh, “Maybe it’s time to redefine what a campus is.”
Prior to this, a multisite campus had always been a designated building, either rented or owned, some distance from the main/broadcast/original campus that provided a pastoral staff, worship, children’s ministry and other things associated with a church. Now there’s an opportunity for a new model that requires less overhead and could be put in any situation in a town of any size anywhere in the world.
While many churches will reach into the suburbs or into other metropolitan areas, few churches are reaching into small places. I don’t think it’s on the radar to plant a multisite campus in Possum Kingdom, South Carolina, the hometown of Bo and Bear from the band Needtobreathe. If you’re not familiar with Possum Kingdom, it’s right next to Honea Path. There are a lot of towns that no one’s ever heard of before and some of them have very strange names but every town has a group of people who could make up a microsite church.
Now some would object and say, “Doesn’t every small town have some sort of a small church already?” and the answer is yes. The problem is that we live in a national culture. We watch the same television programs and listen to the same music whether we live in New York City or in Podunk Holler, Arkansas. Small churches in small towns cannot compete with what the culture has to offer. It’s just hard to get people’s attention. There are churches, however, that have proven to develop effective ministries in our culture that have a broad reach. By bringing a microsite campus into a small town, you can bring in the quality and effectiveness of a large church ministry and package it for a living room. You could reach not just thousands of people in a metropolitan area but dozens to hundreds of people in a small town. If you do the math, there are more people in small towns than there are in large cities.
The idea of Microsite Churches is seminal at this point. A few churches are beginning to pilot this model or are considering a pilot. Let’s think about the keys to a worship service: you need music of some sort which can be prerecorded on video with subtitles and offered in a living room either through a download or DVD. You need teaching. Teaching on video is very common. I worship at a very large multi-site church and the teaching is by video. I’m at a multisite campus I have only ever met the senior pastor one time, but the video teaching makes you feel like you’re really there. The fact is when churches have the pastors on a screen, people will watch the screen even if the pastor is teaching live in the room.
There are a lot of things to think through: giving, childcare, counseling, marriage ceremonies, etc. But, let’s start with these few paragraphs and discuss what might be next. What do you like? What do you not like? Leave a comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
