I recently read A Multi-Site Road Trip. This book was essentially a tour of several different churches that are implementing Multi-Site methodology into their church. There were many great lessons to be learned and it is a book that I plan to go back to over the next year.
Today I wanted to share one quote with you from Wayne Cordiero at New Hope in Hawaii:
“Our goal for satellites is not necessarily to add locations,” explains Wayne. “It is to develop new leaders. It is to edge these emerging leaders into their own teaching, where one day we can release them as stand-alone churches. When young leaders go out with this model, they have time to build relationships, develop teams, think about evangelism projects, do community outreach, and build leaders,” he says.
One of the key elements of multi-site church is raising up leaders. I’m a firm believer that the church will never have too many leaders. The key is willingness in current leaders to train people and then release people. At Creekside we have talked a lot about being a sending church. We send thousands of dollars to missions projects every year. But we also need to send people. One of the ways that we can send people is through campus launches.
But it starts with multiplying leaders. So as we launch the Lynnwood Campus, we are looking for people who want to grow as leaders or become leaders. But we are also looking for people who want to lead the next campus. Lynnwood can’t be the end.
When Jesus told his disciples, “You will be my witnesses” he didn’t stop at Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. He left it pretty open when he said to the ends of the earth.
The only way that the church is going to faithfully carry out it’s mission is by sending out leaders who are called by God to specific communities. Maybe Jesus is calling us by saying, “You will be my witnesses to Mountlake Terrace, Lynnwood, Everett, Lake Stevens, and on and on.
But we need to multiply leaders in order to keep multiplying opportunities.
