Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the multi-site church conferences are all single-location events? Just google for “multi-site church conferences” and you’ll see what I mean.
It just seems… odd.
As programmers are want to say, eat your own dog food.
Glenn,
You make a good point. It is ironic.
But does the single site nature of the multi-site church conferences invalidate the model?
As far as eating their own dog food, I think you will find that the vast majority of the churches hosting these conferences and the speakers are already involved with the muli-site model. So I guess you could say that they already are.
I didn’t mean to imply that it invalidates the model altogether.
But it seems obvious that the logical way to educate the broader church world about the virtues of multi-site venues is by showing them: why not have three or four of the big multi-site churches jointly sponsor a multi-site conference with some content hosted at each site and broadcast to the other sites?
Perhaps it’s mere scheduling–it would be hard to clear out one day that all the churches could synchronize around. Perhaps it’s incompatible technologies–church A does things one way and church B uses a completely different approach.
Or perhaps it’s something deeper and is revealing an important limitation of the model.
I think you’ve got a good idea there, one conference at different locations.
Most of the multi-site churches that I am aware of so far still have multiple locations in a fairly small geographical area. And yet the different multi-site churches that are growing are relatively more separated. It’s not an insurmountable hurdle, for sure, but a challenge none the less.
You are right too when you point out that there are many different ways that churches are doing the multi-site thing. But again, I think having a multi-site multi-site church conference is a good idea.
Have you ever been to a multi-site church?
I was pretty skeptical when I learned about it, but having been a part of an off site campus start (over a year now), I’m a convert. I now see that the model makes some good trade-offs with resourse utilization, staffing requirements, and leadership development.
I’ve become a fan.
Is it perfect? Of course not. It may not even be the “best” model, whatever that is. But the model does bring some good things to the table.
It just occurred to me that Willow Creek has been doing multi-site conferences (their Leadership Summits) for years. Seemed relevant to mention.
Yeah. The model really isn’t anything earth shatteringly newfangled. The old time circuit riders were basically low tech multi-siters. The main difference I see now is the intentionality for a church planting methodology which requires fewer resources.
By the way I absolutely love the way comments fade into your posts. That is a totally cool effect.
I wish I could take credit for it, but it’s a feature built into the K2 template that I use. Thanks!