Live from the sidelines at the Reach Australia Conference on the Central Coast of New South Wales, we sit down with Wade Burnett from McLean Bible Church in Washington DC and Derek Hanna, Reach Australia’s church planting and multisite specialist, for a fresh look at the multisite church model.
Multisite was a buzz seven years ago. Today, with thousands of campuses launched in the United States—and many hard lessons learned—the mood is more measured. What’s changed? What’s endured? And what can church leaders here learn today from the American experience?
We explore the personnel, strategic, and pastoral complexities of multisite ministry. From varied governance models to launch strategies, leadership fit to congregational model —
And how to decide whether we should launch a new campus, reassess a current model, or weigh multisite against church planting.
Anglican Aid
To find out more about giving tax deductibly to Anglican Aid.
The Church Co
thechurchco.com is a website and app platform built specifically for churches.
Advertise on The Pastor's Heart
To advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsor
Advertise on The Pastor's Heart
To advertise on The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/sponsor
Support The Pastor's Heart
For info on how to become a regular financial supporter of The Pastor's Heart go to thepastorsheart.net/support
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is the Pastors Heart and live from Rich
Australia.
Today, and just before we getinto it, a quick appeal from us.
In our tax deductible appealleading up to the 30th of June,
we still need to raise $26,000towards the production of the
Pastors Heart going forward.
So can you please help us bygoing to thepastorsheartnet
slash support.
We are at episode 409 today.
(00:21):
Pastors are benefiting allaround the world but we are
asking for your help.
You can make thattax-deductible gift in Australia
to our new Creative Arts Fundto support the research,
production, distribution andpromotion of the Pastors Heart.
Go to thepastorsheartnet slashsupport.
(00:46):
It is the Past's heart andDominic Steele and coming to you
live from a quiet moment at theReach Australia Conference on
the central coast of New SouthWales and today we're taking a
pulse check on multi-sitechurches.
Wade Burnett is with us fromMcLean Bible Church in
Washington DC.
He's been brought out to be oneof the lead presenters at the
Reach Australia Conference inthe multi-site stream.
(01:09):
Derek Hanna is also with us.
He is the church plantingwizard for Reach Australia.
And Wade look, thanks forcoming in and joining us on the
Pastor's Heart and you and Ispoke seven years ago and I
asked the question and we'lllink to that in this interview
that what can we learn here inAustralia from the American
(01:29):
multi-site journey?
And I want to come to that in amoment, but I mean firstly just
your pastor's heart and comingto Australia and the REACH
Australia conference and thethings you've seen so far.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, yeah, well, it's great to be back, certainly
to be back here with you, butalso just to be back.
In general, a lot's changedsince I was here all those years
ago.
I would say one of the mostnoticeable things for me that
has encouraged my heart is howfar different leaders here have
taken things forward.
So eight years ago, 10 yearsago, there would have been a lot
(02:06):
of meetings with teams herewith potential, and we were
talking about dreams, you know.
But we would have been meetingwith churches that, as they had
those big dreams, maybe had 40people and one of those that we
met with this Sunday had 1,400on Easter and could trace back
(02:27):
to some of those times that wespent together.
I have joked even this morningalready that it's been fun to
watch Australians squirm alittle bit as I talk flowery
about them, but there were somegenuine tears at that meeting as
we praised God for all that hehad done, and it filled my heart
(02:48):
.
Isn't that lovely?
Speaker 1 (02:49):
It was it was, I mean , and Derek, kind of super
encouraging to think that.
I mean, if you think sevenyears ago we were really just
talking about early days inchurch planting thinking in
Australia.
But yesterday, at the ReachAustralia conference and this is
not by any means the mainstreamof Reach Australia, but a
hundred-ish people I was at theback of the room watching a
hundred leaders at all differentstages of multi-site thinking.
(03:12):
I mean, as somebody passionateabout that kind of stuff, it
must have done your heart good,Amazing day.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Amazing day, I think it's not only the numbers in the
room, although that wasincredibly encouraging 100
thinking about multi-site withWade, 100 thinking about church
planting in all its forms but itwas, as I said to Wade
yesterday, it was the posturetowards these conversations
which I think has also shiftedfrom seven years ago Less
scepticism, more open-handedlearning with it as well, not
(03:41):
pushing aside of theologicalrigour, but an adaptation
between how we take biblicalprinciples and apply it, rather
than assuming that our biblicalprinciples can't push into these
ideas that Wade presents I'mgoing to come back to biblical
rigour and Knox Robinson and allthose kind of things in a few
minutes' time.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
But the question seven years ago, wade, what can
we here learn from the Americanmulti-site journey?
And so, starting in the sameplace, what can we here learn
from the American multi-sitejourney in the last seven years?
How's the thinking changed anddeveloped?
Yeah, great question.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I think seven to 10 years ago the dominant
assumption on American shoreswas that we would follow one
style of multi-site.
That was just beginning tochange 10 years ago, and was
that the kind?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
of mega church planning, daughter churches.
It was yes, and I supposethat's what makes us skeptical.
Yes, I do.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I do.
I think previous to me comingthere had been some interactions
with American leaders andpastors here that maybe weren't
as helpful around theimportation of one model to here
.
You can say, mark Griskell,well, I wouldn't.
But even coming into yourinterview I landed, came with
Scott Sanders to you.
(05:05):
You were the very first thing Idid on that first trip, and
Scott's counsel in the car wasbe careful about taking too
authoritative a position becauseof the skepticism that's here.
What I tried to stress then andit's really in the nature of
what I've wanted to work on andbeen privileged to work on these
(05:30):
whole 10 or 15 years is thedevelopment of new ways of
thinking about multi-site thatare different to that one
prevalent model that comes tomind for everyone.
It may have emerged out of that, but that was what I was
sharing then.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
What's happened in America since then is that each
of those different variationshave had a lot more development
and now there are somerecognized streams that was
really helpful for me to hearthat when, when I talk more so,
when somebody tells you theirstory of what they're doing, you
are putting them into acategory of your part of this
(06:03):
stream, and this is going to bethe things.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
They're going to be easy for you and these are the
things that are going to be hardfor you yes, yeah, I think
multi-site for a significantpoint, a significant period of
time in its development, wasassociated with one way, and so
if I said to you I'm amulti-site specialist or
consultant, everybody assumesit's that one way we're going to
be selling me on that.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
That's right'm going to have to persuade you that I
want to be bespoken.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yes, that's exactly the dynamic that was present
eight years ago, I think.
What happened is severalleaders here took us up on the
idea that it could be donedifferently and began to
implement those ideas around thebigger thing that we all agree
on, which is reproducing healthycongregations in ways that
could actually help you reachAustralia.
(06:49):
I mean, that was the idea then,and so I would say the most
encouraging thing to me is,through work that Derek's doing
or Scott is doing or many ofthese leaders on the ground, we
spend less time here looking atwhat's happened in America over
the last seven years than we dolooking at what's actually
happened in Australia over thelast seven years, because you're
(07:12):
now developing your own streamshere that have unique
application in the culture thatyou guys understand way more
than me.
It's been fun to see that takenin and then applied in ways
that have been uniquelyAustralian.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
So I'm going to ask you I mean, the big question
that you guys keep getting askedis which is better, multi-site
or church planting, independentchurches?
But before that, you broke itdown super helpfully in the
seminar I listened to you onyesterday under five L's and we
might just put them out on thetable, and the first one was the
(07:48):
leader.
And the leader and the kind ofleader is the person who
influences whether you're goingto go multi-site or independent
church plant.
Just unpack that for us, sureyeah.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
We've learned over the years that there is a bent
to leaders that's difficult, ifnot impossible, to change.
It can be developed.
You know more in one directionthan the other, but over time
what you start to see is aninclination to a model with
leaders.
The problem is when you'retalking with younger leaders.
(08:23):
He's so gentle, isn't he?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Would you say, one of them has mongrel.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
I think they do, but that's the and that's what
Wade's picking up on there Again, that's Wade's
contextualization, that's thenuance that he brings to this
conversation.
But, yeah, keep going.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Thank you for the permission to be direct.
So we would say church planterswant to do things their way and
you can find that andmulti-site campus pastors the
best possible location.
Pastors in the world in themulti-site model are ones that
have come up through your churchand been transformed by the
(08:59):
ministry of that church and theydon't want to do their own
thing.
They want to do the thing thatthey experienced in such a
profound way at your church.
They want to see more peopleexperience that same thing.
And so, yes, I'm trying to bediplomatic, but if we see people
say, dominic, I love whatyou're doing, but as soon as we
hear that, but I say you need totalk to Derek about church
planning Because I want to do itmy way.
(09:22):
Yeah, as soon as we hear that welean this way.
If instead we don't hear thebut and we hear, I love what
you're doing as a church.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
That's where we start to lean more toward that being
a campus pastor, and so thetweak we've made to some of
these things and I'll let youget to your L's is we've
smuggled multi-site and actconversations in under this
church planning umbrella.
For this reason because we wantleaders who are starting new
(09:56):
things in different ways to notsee a multi-site campus as
something less than anindependent rogue church plant
itself, and so for a leader tobe able to see themselves in a
different model and understandthat there isn't one that's
better than another, they'rejust different in order to reach
new people.
That's been an important tweakin our context we've had to make
in order to understand A churchplan.
Isn't just that we're thinking,mark Driscoll, you don't have
to be like Mark Driscoll inorder to start something new.
(10:18):
We need people with mongrel,but we need people as well who
look at churches they love andthink we could reach more people
if we did this over there aswell.
It's not a lesser work, it'sjust a different work.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
One of the light bulb moments for me and I'm
embarrassed that I hadn't pickedit up before was that you were
really strong on if we were tohave I mean, this is almost one
of your non-negotiables onlocation.
You know that it shouldn't befive minutes away, it shouldn't
be three minutes away, 20't bethree minutes away, 20 minutes.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
You said yeah it's one of the lessons we've learned
.
We've learned it through, uh,really really hard experiences.
You know my, my uh observationin, almost without exception,
all of the conversations withwith leaders, senior ministers,
teams uh is it's it's motivatedin the right place and by the
right things.
All that Derek just mentioned.
(11:12):
We want to see more healthycongregations reproducing and
reaching out to more people.
The church is growing, thekingdom being established.
We all want to see those things,and so one of the hardest parts
about being in these seats iswatching when people go all in
on that kind of hope and itdoesn't work.
It's a really, really painfulthing, and so we tend to try and
(11:35):
learn from those experiences inways that can help people avoid
it, and one of those lessonshas been if you plant too close,
you're creating somedifficulties that are
unnecessary.
It will become harder toestablish momentum if people can
just go five more minutes andbe back to the mother church
when times get hard.
And, by the same token, you cancreate some difficulties that
(11:57):
are unnecessary.
If you go too far, it can bereally, really hard to.
There's a point at whichstretching reaches a breaking
point.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
What's the advantage of?
I mean, I'm sorry, I can getwhy you're saying not too close,
yes, but what's the advantageof of?
I mean I'm sorry, I can get whyyou're saying not too close,
yes, but what's the advantage of20 minutes versus 45 minutes?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
and we used to call these rules and tell everybody
that you know there areexceptions and you're not one of
them.
That used to be our, our joke,because everybody tends to think
we're an exception.
But the 20 minute rule, uh, isa sweet spot, so it could be 18
or 25 or you're in a dense area.
There are some.
We now call them principles.
It's 20 minutes driving.
(12:36):
20 minutes driving on a Sundaymorning, typically without
traffic, or whenever your churchgathers and whatever traffic
conditions are there.
The idea of going too far and Idon't know the magic number it
is here in Australia but youlose, or again really stretch,
the ability to reproduce culture.
It's hard for staff to get outthere every Sunday morning and
(12:56):
so you get less time with all ofthe same people.
But again, as you heardyesterday, people address that
here with differentcongregational times at
different locations.
But I would say the 20-minuterule is a hard-won lesson.
But I would say the 20-minuterule is a hard-won lesson and if
you're going to go very far onedirection or the other, be very
, very mindful of how difficultit's been for some other really,
(13:19):
really good teams.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I mean, I was talking yesterday after your
presentation to a couple ofpeople and they said what was so
helpful was ah, that's why wehad the problem.
Helpful was ah, that's what wehad.
The problem yes and yes, and itwas just helpful for them to
have categories to understandsome of the difficulties that,
when one of the big ones was thefive minute one but yes, and
actually it's, it's been part of, I'd say, the conventional.
I'll look forward to youchallenging on this, derek, but
(13:45):
in the tribe that I'm swimmingin, it's been part of the
conventional wisdom that youshould go five minutes away, you
know, or you should go to thechurch next door.
That's not going so well.
But Derek yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Well, I think part of that is driven by the location
of the buildings and the parishmodel, if we're thinking Sydney
Anglican, but even in Queensland, wherever in Brisbane where I'm
, the churches often aren'tfurther than haven't been
planted further than fiveminutes away.
So you have a building that'ssitting, dormant or vacant or
dying and the natural expressionis to want to extend your
(14:17):
congregations into that down theroad.
So it's a natural expression todo that.
But because it is so close, Ithink in this day and age,
because people are more mobilethan they were, this 15, 20
minute rule means that they doexactly what Wade says.
We plant with good intentionsfive minutes down the road, but
this plant will never quite beas strong or as healthy as we
(14:37):
are, so people will drive pastso it can never quite get the
traction that we want it to getin those places.
So there's a geographical thingthat drives us towards it, but
there's a practical thing thatdrives us away from it.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
We took.
I mean just going through thoseL's.
Next one is launch team and themulti-site church starts.
You're saying 50 to 80, wemight go a slightly smaller
number in Australia, but thechurch plant starts 304 in a
lounge room.
Do you know?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
That's Derek.
Yeah, so this is great to haveus here in the same conversation
.
The 50 to 70 is actually fromPaul Harrington, so that is a
little smaller number than wewould recommend, even in the
United States.
But when we use those largernumbers here, that's where
people start to think okay thismay not apply, that's a whole
(15:25):
church that you're talking abouttaking and launching.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah well, I'm not planted with 15.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yes, exactly, and that's.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
That was before Reach Australia, when we knew that
you were supposed to have 15.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Well, I would say Derek and his work calling out
church planters is looking formen who are willing to step out
and plant with 15.
That's a wonderful thing.
This is where, again, this isthe encouraging development over
the last 10 years.
There used to be a conversation.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
It was actually a good night when we got to double
D yes.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
See this does his heart well.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
You're talking about a pastor's heart.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
That encourages him.
I think 10 years ago there wasa divide between church planting
and multi-site and those whoviewed one as better than the
other.
I genuinely think that Now wetalk much more about best fit
and so, for example, if somebodycomes with theological
convictions and they say, Idon't think you can fully that's
(16:18):
not a church to be a multi-site, I would say then it's not the
best fit for you.
You know, I think that's thekind of difference in this.
We don't get into a prolongeddebate around either one and
then you just drop that one off.
If you come to a planter whocan and is excited about
launching with 15 people, likeyou did, I don't try to convince
them into a multi-site modelthat they can't do it until they
(16:39):
get 50.
Because there's somebody righthere who will equip them to
launch with what we put on theboard yesterday three or four
around a table and let's go.
And that's just as excitingthree or four around a table and
let's go.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
And that's just as exciting.
All next L, lots of money.
Do you know?
Now, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Derek.
Well, again, we've grabbedthese Ls from Wade.
In Australia it's slightly well, I don't know if the number is
slightly different it costs acouple of hundred thousand,
particularly over a few years,to launch a new congregation.
So I think Wade's saying iswhatever you think it'll cost,
increase it.
And that's what it is.
It's more than you think itcould possibly be.
(17:16):
And so, in order to startsomething new again Wade might
talk about this in a second thefirst recommendation they would
have is maximise what you havehere, because whatever you do
offside is going to costsignificantly more than what you
will do here.
So, heaps of money to startsomething new, to do the
multi-site, to do the multi-site, to do any campus off-site, but
here we're talking multi-site,right.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, I would agree.
People ask me how much Istruggle to put a figure on it
because it's all so differentdepending on where you are.
But property is only gettingmore expensive.
Staff costs are significant,whether it's a church plant or a
multi-site location.
This is not an inexpensivestrategy and what you're
essentially doing, if you breakit all the way down to just a
(18:00):
practical level, is you arehelping cover a lot of those
barriers for someone until theycan get established on their own
.
The way they get established isa little different depending on
the model or how long it takes,but there's a significant cost
either way.
I would say multi-site is atypically slower, more stable
(18:21):
kind of safer, maybe lower onthe risk profile approach than
church planting.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
But does the percentage of multi-site things
that work is higher than thepercentage of church plants that
work?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
And work is always a difficult term because of the
theological convictions we havebut survive is what I would use
that are still there three yearsin.
I don't know the data here, butin the States we would see up
to 90% of multi-site locationsstill there three to five years
in, and often half that in someof the church planting streams,
Derek.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Well, this is where we've seen, so we would agree
with that number.
In fact, the closer it's abouteight in our network, about 87%
of churches that we've launched.
So we've launched about 100,well, 153 at the moment.
87% have reached sustainabilityand still going.
So that's irrespective of thechurch plants, that's
irrespective multi-site motherdaughter pioneer plans 87
(19:19):
percent um.
What what we've seen, though,is the early days, where the
risk factor was much higher.
They were more pioneer churchplans.
They some of those did stall alittle bit as we learned and got
through um.
We've learned, no matter themodel we've worked out as a
network, what are some of theprinciples in order to get to
sustainability.
(19:39):
So we've seen that increase.
But 87 is where we're at forall models, but I think way's
right, it probably would bemaybe mid 90s for a multi-site
model, which is quitesignificant seeing as, uh, mid
2000s it was about 44,irrespective of the model um
back then that survived.
So that's a huge increaseacross the network.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
That's exciting, yeah now one of the things you said
the big driver for multi-siteshould be.
I've run out of space at myplace.
Just explain that to me.
Sure?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah, I think the well not only is it the big
driver, it was the originalmotivation for Multisite in the
first place is running out ofroom for churches, and so it was
originally.
I tried to stress this, andPaul Harrington, who is one of
my favorite people in the world,as he was teaching with me,
shared this was true for him inAdelaide.
I can't remember the number,but I think he said they were
(20:33):
full for 80 years.
They had been right around 800people for 80 years.
Finally, but not without somechallenges, but, yeah, I do
think the desire to do somethingis significant, and so what you
(20:56):
see and this is again what wewere putting on the board,
dominic that you saw, what Iwould encourage for churches is
you have something that you'restewarding and leading.
There's a building or a certainnumber of seats or a staff team
.
The first task really is tosqueeze every bit out of that.
You can, as a leader andsteward that well.
I do think people look to theseother strategies too quickly in
(21:18):
some cases, maybe when theyhaven't fully leveraged what
they're currently doing orstewarding.
Paul was a he's a very, verygood leader.
He made a decision that I lovedhearing about yesterday not to
reproduce additionalcongregations at times that
weren't as helpful for them andto call it full earlier with the
specific intention of planting,and so that was one of the
(21:41):
reasons why they've been able tosee so many generations.
I think there are up to threegenerations in some places of
churches planting churches and14 overall.
That was something I took away.
That was a light bulb momentfor me yesterday to really
include a step there whereyou're evaluating do we launch
more service times orcongregations within our current
facility or do we move towardchurch planting earlier if there
(22:03):
are really strategicopportunities out there?
Both were helpful evaluationsfor me to see here.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Let's talk conflict and just navigating as the lead
guy with your campus pastors,because I'm imagining that's one
of the big questions it is.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
It is, and that conflict can be everything from
just practical decision-makingon a Sunday to a shift in
theological convictions thathappens over three or four or
five years for a leader at alocation.
You may be able to pull this up.
If not, though, you cancertainly point your listeners
to the chart that I showed aboutdecision rights and where those
(22:45):
lie.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
We'll get that on the screen as people are watching.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
So as you move from left to right on this diagram,
you're essentially moving towardmore and more autonomy or
decision-making power at thelocation, which is wonderful,
until a conflict comes up andthen you can get stuck in your
model if too much has been givenaway too soon and that conflict
is unresolvable.
So we highly recommend in theearly stages of development for
(23:14):
a church with either of thesemodels that more authority stay
in the more mature sendingchurch.
More decision-making authoritystay there for as long as it
takes to establish trust and theability to get over those
hurdles.
Because you want PaulHarrington resolving that
conflict, you want him to stillhave the authority to tackle
(23:34):
that In those early days, inthose early days.
that's right and so it can feelthe word I've heard here.
It feels mean to say to alocation pastor, you know what?
I'm going to keep this for nowand if we have an issue I'll
resolve that.
I'll keep that authority.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
But I still would recommend it, even if it feels a
little uncomfortable to someone.
What kind of negotiations haveyou seen that have been complex
in Australia on those issues?
Because I'm imagining it's thesame issues.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
It is, and I think there is an Australian attitude
towards this.
When Wade came out, it washelpful to hear him because I
think Australians think we'llwork it out.
She'll be right.
We'll, no, no, no.
It was helpful to hear himBecause I think Australians
think we'll work it out.
She'll be right you know we'll.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
No, no, no, it's all going to blow up in your face.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
That's exactly right and that's exactly what we saw.
And so the early days of thismulti-site attempt, we're
thinking, no, no, we'll justwork it out.
We're the exception, we'realways the exception, and it's
in the first campus.
You might get away with it, wesaw.
You might get away with itbecause, relationally, the
sending church, the campus andthe senior are so strong in
there.
Um, but actually, over time,what you see is a pull towards
(24:36):
this launch team, this campusgrowing, and they have no
connection to the start.
And so that's the point inwhich you, you begin to see the
relational tensions happening.
And so we realized early on um,we need to, we need to ensure
that the, the campus that'sgoing to happen and ascending
church have a memorandum ofunderstanding, have decision
rights, have these campusconstants locked down.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
You've got those kind of memorandum of understanding.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I do we, uh, we, we call them working agreements.
Um, because you know you areworking together as you, as you
do, I do think, on front end youguys may know this term, but
good fences make good neighbors.
You set those boundaries up inadvance and then again, if
you're the senior leaderlaunching someone out, you can
keep in mind over time.
I'd like this to eventually bemore autonomous, even maybe at
(25:22):
some point release it, but thoseare not necessarily things we
would recommend be embedded fromthe beginning.
We would recommend be embeddedfrom the beginning.
We would recommend autonomy andauthority in that central
sending church until it isestablished and trust is built.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
What do you do with where this theological shift
takes place?
Because I've got some friendswho are noticing that what about
the campus pastorshipstheologically?
What about the seniorpastorships theologically?
And they're not on the samepage.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah, it's an issue we see come up regularly because
again, you're dealing withyounger leaders who aren't fully
formed yet and they're thinkingthey get exposed to different
things now that can shift thatthinking in ways that maybe
weren't as prevalent 10 or 15years ago.
So we do see this come up.
If you have retained thatauthority centrally and you're
able to address it, you have acouple of choices.
(26:13):
You can change the leaderbecause you know, similar to
bishops, here you've gotoversight.
I know this is an issue indifferent ecclesiological
approaches, but you can, in amulti-site model, change the
leader if that theological bentgoes too far in one direction.
Usually there's a strongaversion to doing that because
(26:34):
people have connections withtheir pastor and you'd like to
work it out, but it is an optionon the table in this model.
The other thing that you can dois look at releasing.
If that genuinely can't beworked out and two churches are
teaching two fundamentallydifferent things theologically,
you can begin to look at whetherthat should exist as its own
church, separate to you.
(26:54):
That creates a whole differentset of questions around whether
they can make it as their ownthing.
But those are really reallyreally hard decisions to begin
to tackle and one of the reasonswhy we stay very closely
connected on the front end.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
What if the senior leader moves theologically?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Well, that's an even bigger question.
I referenced yesterday thatthis is a bit like high dive in
the Olympics and you go up indegrees of difficulty when the
senior minister changespositions again.
I'm assuming you mean in likecore theological convictions,
and there starts to be a changein the church.
We would expect to see thatexpressed across all of the
(27:33):
different locations as well,unless the church just says no,
and then you start getting intopolity questions around what
should happen then.
In those situations I oftenstep in and rather than serving
as a consultant, it's much morea mediator.
Can you hold this thingtogether?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Derek.
Well, we're seeing that at themoment in a number of areas that
the senior leader you know onoccasions is beginning to shift
in some areas and yet, as Wadesaid, it's creating some tension
underneath that at points, it'snot only for the campus pastors
, also often for those withinthe churches, so it's not just
(28:13):
felt at leadership level.
I think that, um, and I'm notsure, at least in australia,
we're not sure how that's allgoing to shake out at the moment
, um, but we're watching ithappen in real time.
Yeah, oh, I think it'll be messy, there's no doubt about that.
But, um, yeah, how we that,whether we can navigate that,
the releasing from the campus,we've seen happen and we've seen
it happen really well in anumber of circumstances.
(28:35):
So we have precedence inAustralia, if you're knowing.
But from the top I'm not surehow that will shake.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Can I just acknowledge something?
This is a just so everybody hasit.
You heard me say multiple times.
I don't think there's an intentto sell anything at all.
It's just to look at all thedifferent models and their
strengths and weaknesses.
I do think it's helpful to notethat one of the weaknesses of
this multi-site and even thedevelopment of different streams
approach where you're lookingat the best fit is that you fit
(29:04):
it to a leader or a leadershipapproach and when those things
change either the leaderthemselves through succession or
the philosophy of that specificleader the fit is not as good
anymore and everybody starts tofeel nervous and anxious and it
can be really hard to refitsomething to it.
And so big changes intheological convictions or the
(29:25):
changes in the leadersthemselves shake this model in
ways that are really reallydestabilizing and hard.
So what you see when it workswell is long tenure for Paul
Harrington and his team, longtenure for Greg Lee and Dave
Moore and their team.
That kind of stability speaksreally really well to this model
where you see change again atany level regularly.
(29:48):
This model is hard to refit.
Fragile it is, it can becomemuch more tenuous.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Let's talk the issue of merging churches, where
you've got one church that'skind of going well but may not
have filled its space andanother church that's struggling
, and there's been aconversation in our denomination
about well, that's probably away to help those things and
(30:17):
instead of putting two dyingchurches together, we put one
church with momentum withanother church that needs
momentum, and I mean theconversation has often been
quite close ones, whereas you'redefinitely saying 20 minutes
apart I'm hearing but what arethe um?
I mean, I picked up yesterday.
(30:39):
That's a conversation you'vehad many times and so I've only
had it with a few people.
I'm looking forward tolistening to you.
Who's had it with many people?
Speaker 2 (30:47):
yeah, this is an area where I think Scott Sanders and
Derek and the Reach Australiateam have excelled at initiating
and facilitating really gooddecisions.
It's not that you always wantto see a merger, it's you want
people to make good decisionsabout whether to merge or not.
So I'm very encouraged by theskill set that they've developed
(31:13):
in that we do continue to see,in fact, jim Tomberlin, who is
my mentor, but he's also sort ofthe voice on that original
model of multi-site.
He would say this is the nextiteration of multi-site across
America because we have so manydenominations that are
struggling and declining andchurches closing and all of the
(31:37):
challenges that go with that.
So you can see in this approacha multi-site merger, a church
that needs space.
So we'll just say, for thepurposes of this, that's your
church, you have momentum,you're out of room, you need
space and you've begun toexplore where that might be.
(31:58):
And then you have anotherchurch who has space but lacks
all those other things.
They don't have momentum.
They haven't seen people in thechildren's ministry in a long
time.
They've struggled to keep thedoors open or maintain the
property.
So it makes a lot of logicalsense to put those two things
together.
You now have space.
He now has leadership andvision and momentum.
The problem is they aren'tpuzzle pieces that just fit
(32:18):
together easily and everybodysays, okay, that is a really,
really difficult process and soI'll be the mean American here
and just dive right into it.
The lead church and the joiningchurch do not enter into that as
equals.
What we would say to the leadchurch and you heard a great
example of this from Paulyesterday is say exactly what
you would do if you were given apiece of property without a
(32:41):
merger.
What would you do?
And then let's present that tothem and say are you willing to
join that?
Because you shouldn't change itat all?
This is what's working.
And so for them to bring thatinto your building, your
decision really is, as thejoining church, do you want to
do this?
And Paul laid out a wonderfulexample of that, where a church
that he thought wouldimmediately say no because of
(33:02):
the level of change that wasinvolved.
He just said I hadn't heardfrom him.
I assumed that meant that theywere not going to do it.
I called him up and theirresponse was sounds good to us.
And you heard the wonderfuloutcome that came from that.
It's rare, so maybe 10 or 20%of the conversations go that way
.
But when they do, what we'veseen in America is a vibrant
(33:25):
outcome for both churches.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
That sounds like I mean we've run out of time, but
that's a whole other discussionthat would be super helpful to
have, because you just said awhole lot of churches in America
are facing that issue.
They are, I think, a whole lotof places in Australia are
facing that issue, and so we'regoing to have to wrestle them
through.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
You need a guide.
I know we're running out oftime, but I would be failing if
I didn't say that a guide thatcan help that's why I mentioned
Reach Australia and thecompetency they've developed can
speak to both churches in areally tense conversation.
Last word Derek Hanna.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
I would say on that that that is our next challenge
as well, and I think we need towork out how to clearly and
graciously, particularly withchurches that have momentum,
clear gospel, dna thatconversation, but not in a way
that compromises it.
I think that's really key forthe next steps.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Thanks, so much for having this conversation with us
.
Wade Burnett has been my guestand Wade is from McLean Bible
Church in Washington DC and he'sbeen our speaking at the Rich
Australia Conference, along withDerek Hanna, who is the church
planting and multi-site wizardfor Rich Australia.
My name's Dominic Steele.
You've been with us on thePastors' Hub and we will look
(34:36):
forward to your company nextTuesday afternoon.
It is the Pastors Heart and live from Rich
Australia.
Today, and just before we getinto it, a quick appeal from us.
In our tax deductible appealleading up to the 30th of June,
we still need to raise $26,000towards the production of the
Pastors Heart going forward.
So can you please help us bygoing to thepastorsheartnet
slash support.
We are at episode 409 today.
(00:21):
Pastors are benefiting allaround the world but we are
asking for your help.
You can make thattax-deductible gift in Australia
to our new Creative Arts Fundto support the research,
production, distribution andpromotion of the Pastors Heart.
Go to thepastorsheartnet slashsupport.
(00:46):
It is the Past's heart andDominic Steele and coming to you
live from a quiet moment at theReach Australia Conference on
the central coast of New SouthWales and today we're taking a
pulse check on multi-sitechurches.
Wade Burnett is with us fromMcLean Bible Church in
Washington DC.
He's been brought out to be oneof the lead presenters at the
Reach Australia Conference inthe multi-site stream.
(01:09):
Derek Hanna is also with us.
He is the church plantingwizard for Reach Australia.
And Wade look, thanks forcoming in and joining us on the
Pastor's Heart and you and Ispoke seven years ago and I
asked the question and we'lllink to that in this interview
that what can we learn here inAustralia from the American
(01:29):
multi-site journey?
And I want to come to that in amoment, but I mean firstly just
your pastor's heart and comingto Australia and the REACH
Australia conference and thethings you've seen so far.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, yeah, well, it's great to be back, certainly
to be back here with you, butalso just to be back.
In general, a lot's changedsince I was here all those years
ago.
I would say one of the mostnoticeable things for me that
has encouraged my heart is howfar different leaders here have
taken things forward.
So eight years ago, 10 yearsago, there would have been a lot
(02:06):
of meetings with teams herewith potential, and we were
talking about dreams, you know.
But we would have been meetingwith churches that, as they had
those big dreams, maybe had 40people and one of those that we
met with this Sunday had 1,400on Easter and could trace back
(02:27):
to some of those times that wespent together.
I have joked even this morningalready that it's been fun to
watch Australians squirm alittle bit as I talk flowery
about them, but there were somegenuine tears at that meeting as
we praised God for all that hehad done, and it filled my heart
(02:48):
.
Isn't that lovely?
Speaker 1 (02:49):
It was it was, I mean , and Derek, kind of super
encouraging to think that.
I mean, if you think sevenyears ago we were really just
talking about early days inchurch planting thinking in
Australia.
But yesterday, at the ReachAustralia conference and this is
not by any means the mainstreamof Reach Australia, but a
hundred-ish people I was at theback of the room watching a
hundred leaders at all differentstages of multi-site thinking.
(03:12):
I mean, as somebody passionateabout that kind of stuff, it
must have done your heart good,Amazing day.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Amazing day, I think it's not only the numbers in the
room, although that wasincredibly encouraging 100
thinking about multi-site withWade, 100 thinking about church
planting in all its forms but itwas, as I said to Wade
yesterday, it was the posturetowards these conversations
which I think has also shiftedfrom seven years ago Less
scepticism, more open-handedlearning with it as well, not
(03:41):
pushing aside of theologicalrigour, but an adaptation
between how we take biblicalprinciples and apply it, rather
than assuming that our biblicalprinciples can't push into these
ideas that Wade presents I'mgoing to come back to biblical
rigour and Knox Robinson and allthose kind of things in a few
minutes' time.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
But the question seven years ago, wade, what can
we here learn from the Americanmulti-site journey?
And so, starting in the sameplace, what can we here learn
from the American multi-sitejourney in the last seven years?
How's the thinking changed anddeveloped?
Yeah, great question.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I think seven to 10 years ago the dominant
assumption on American shoreswas that we would follow one
style of multi-site.
That was just beginning tochange 10 years ago, and was
that the kind?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
of mega church planning, daughter churches.
It was yes, and I supposethat's what makes us skeptical.
Yes, I do.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I do.
I think previous to me comingthere had been some interactions
with American leaders andpastors here that maybe weren't
as helpful around theimportation of one model to here
.
You can say, mark Griskell,well, I wouldn't.
But even coming into yourinterview I landed, came with
Scott Sanders to you.
(05:05):
You were the very first thing Idid on that first trip, and
Scott's counsel in the car wasbe careful about taking too
authoritative a position becauseof the skepticism that's here.
What I tried to stress then andit's really in the nature of
what I've wanted to work on andbeen privileged to work on these
(05:30):
whole 10 or 15 years is thedevelopment of new ways of
thinking about multi-site thatare different to that one
prevalent model that comes tomind for everyone.
It may have emerged out of that, but that was what I was
sharing then.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
What's happened in America since then is that each
of those different variationshave had a lot more development
and now there are somerecognized streams that was
really helpful for me to hearthat when, when I talk more so,
when somebody tells you theirstory of what they're doing, you
are putting them into acategory of your part of this
(06:03):
stream, and this is going to bethe things.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
They're going to be easy for you and these are the
things that are going to be hardfor you yes, yeah, I think
multi-site for a significantpoint, a significant period of
time in its development, wasassociated with one way, and so
if I said to you I'm amulti-site specialist or
consultant, everybody assumesit's that one way we're going to
be selling me on that.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
That's right'm going to have to persuade you that I
want to be bespoken.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yes, that's exactly the dynamic that was present
eight years ago, I think.
What happened is severalleaders here took us up on the
idea that it could be donedifferently and began to
implement those ideas around thebigger thing that we all agree
on, which is reproducing healthycongregations in ways that
could actually help you reachAustralia.
(06:49):
I mean, that was the idea then,and so I would say the most
encouraging thing to me is,through work that Derek's doing
or Scott is doing or many ofthese leaders on the ground, we
spend less time here looking atwhat's happened in America over
the last seven years than we dolooking at what's actually
happened in Australia over thelast seven years, because you're
(07:12):
now developing your own streamshere that have unique
application in the culture thatyou guys understand way more
than me.
It's been fun to see that takenin and then applied in ways
that have been uniquelyAustralian.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
So I'm going to ask you I mean, the big question
that you guys keep getting askedis which is better, multi-site
or church planting, independentchurches?
But before that, you broke itdown super helpfully in the
seminar I listened to you onyesterday under five L's and we
might just put them out on thetable, and the first one was the
(07:48):
leader.
And the leader and the kind ofleader is the person who
influences whether you're goingto go multi-site or independent
church plant.
Just unpack that for us, sureyeah.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
We've learned over the years that there is a bent
to leaders that's difficult, ifnot impossible, to change.
It can be developed.
You know more in one directionthan the other, but over time
what you start to see is aninclination to a model with
leaders.
The problem is when you'retalking with younger leaders.
(08:23):
He's so gentle, isn't he?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Would you say, one of them has mongrel.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
I think they do, but that's the and that's what
Wade's picking up on there Again, that's Wade's
contextualization, that's thenuance that he brings to this
conversation.
But, yeah, keep going.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Thank you for the permission to be direct.
So we would say church planterswant to do things their way and
you can find that andmulti-site campus pastors the
best possible location.
Pastors in the world in themulti-site model are ones that
have come up through your churchand been transformed by the
(08:59):
ministry of that church and theydon't want to do their own
thing.
They want to do the thing thatthey experienced in such a
profound way at your church.
They want to see more peopleexperience that same thing.
And so, yes, I'm trying to bediplomatic, but if we see people
say, dominic, I love whatyou're doing, but as soon as we
hear that, but I say you need totalk to Derek about church
planning Because I want to do itmy way.
(09:22):
Yeah, as soon as we hear that welean this way.
If instead we don't hear thebut and we hear, I love what
you're doing as a church.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
That's where we start to lean more toward that being
a campus pastor, and so thetweak we've made to some of
these things and I'll let youget to your L's is we've
smuggled multi-site and actconversations in under this
church planning umbrella.
For this reason because we wantleaders who are starting new
(09:56):
things in different ways to notsee a multi-site campus as
something less than anindependent rogue church plant
itself, and so for a leader tobe able to see themselves in a
different model and understandthat there isn't one that's
better than another, they'rejust different in order to reach
new people.
That's been an important tweakin our context we've had to make
in order to understand A churchplan.
Isn't just that we're thinking,mark Driscoll, you don't have
to be like Mark Driscoll inorder to start something new.
(10:18):
We need people with mongrel,but we need people as well who
look at churches they love andthink we could reach more people
if we did this over there aswell.
It's not a lesser work, it'sjust a different work.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
One of the light bulb moments for me and I'm
embarrassed that I hadn't pickedit up before was that you were
really strong on if we were tohave I mean, this is almost one
of your non-negotiables onlocation.
You know that it shouldn't befive minutes away, it shouldn't
be three minutes away, 20't bethree minutes away, 20 minutes.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
You said yeah it's one of the lessons we've learned
.
We've learned it through, uh,really really hard experiences.
You know my, my uh observationin, almost without exception,
all of the conversations withwith leaders, senior ministers,
teams uh is it's it's motivatedin the right place and by the
right things.
All that Derek just mentioned.
(11:12):
We want to see more healthycongregations reproducing and
reaching out to more people.
The church is growing, thekingdom being established.
We all want to see those things,and so one of the hardest parts
about being in these seats iswatching when people go all in
on that kind of hope and itdoesn't work.
It's a really, really painfulthing, and so we tend to try and
(11:35):
learn from those experiences inways that can help people avoid
it, and one of those lessonshas been if you plant too close,
you're creating somedifficulties that are
unnecessary.
It will become harder toestablish momentum if people can
just go five more minutes andbe back to the mother church
when times get hard.
And, by the same token, you cancreate some difficulties that
(11:57):
are unnecessary.
If you go too far, it can bereally, really hard to.
There's a point at whichstretching reaches a breaking
point.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
What's the advantage of?
I mean, I'm sorry, I can getwhy you're saying not too close,
yes, but what's the advantageof of?
I mean I'm sorry, I can get whyyou're saying not too close,
yes, but what's the advantage of20 minutes versus 45 minutes?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
and we used to call these rules and tell everybody
that you know there areexceptions and you're not one of
them.
That used to be our, our joke,because everybody tends to think
we're an exception.
But the 20 minute rule, uh, isa sweet spot, so it could be 18
or 25 or you're in a dense area.
There are some.
We now call them principles.
It's 20 minutes driving.
(12:36):
20 minutes driving on a Sundaymorning, typically without
traffic, or whenever your churchgathers and whatever traffic
conditions are there.
The idea of going too far and Idon't know the magic number it
is here in Australia but youlose, or again really stretch,
the ability to reproduce culture.
It's hard for staff to get outthere every Sunday morning and
(12:56):
so you get less time with all ofthe same people.
But again, as you heardyesterday, people address that
here with differentcongregational times at
different locations.
But I would say the 20-minuterule is a hard-won lesson.
But I would say the 20-minuterule is a hard-won lesson and if
you're going to go very far onedirection or the other, be very
, very mindful of how difficultit's been for some other really,
(13:19):
really good teams.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I mean, I was talking yesterday after your
presentation to a couple ofpeople and they said what was so
helpful was ah, that's why wehad the problem.
Helpful was ah, that's what wehad.
The problem yes and yes, and itwas just helpful for them to
have categories to understandsome of the difficulties that,
when one of the big ones was thefive minute one but yes, and
actually it's, it's been part of, I'd say, the conventional.
I'll look forward to youchallenging on this, derek, but
(13:45):
in the tribe that I'm swimmingin, it's been part of the
conventional wisdom that youshould go five minutes away, you
know, or you should go to thechurch next door.
That's not going so well.
But Derek yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Well, I think part of that is driven by the location
of the buildings and the parishmodel, if we're thinking Sydney
Anglican, but even in Queensland, wherever in Brisbane where I'm
, the churches often aren'tfurther than haven't been
planted further than fiveminutes away.
So you have a building that'ssitting, dormant or vacant or
dying and the natural expressionis to want to extend your
(14:17):
congregations into that down theroad.
So it's a natural expression todo that.
But because it is so close, Ithink in this day and age,
because people are more mobilethan they were, this 15, 20
minute rule means that they doexactly what Wade says.
We plant with good intentionsfive minutes down the road, but
this plant will never quite beas strong or as healthy as we
(14:37):
are, so people will drive pastso it can never quite get the
traction that we want it to getin those places.
So there's a geographical thingthat drives us towards it, but
there's a practical thing thatdrives us away from it.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
We took.
I mean just going through thoseL's.
Next one is launch team and themulti-site church starts.
You're saying 50 to 80, wemight go a slightly smaller
number in Australia, but thechurch plant starts 304 in a
lounge room.
Do you know?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
That's Derek.
Yeah, so this is great to haveus here in the same conversation
.
The 50 to 70 is actually fromPaul Harrington, so that is a
little smaller number than wewould recommend, even in the
United States.
But when we use those largernumbers here, that's where
people start to think okay thismay not apply, that's a whole
(15:25):
church that you're talking abouttaking and launching.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah well, I'm not planted with 15.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yes, exactly, and that's.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
That was before Reach Australia, when we knew that
you were supposed to have 15.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Well, I would say Derek and his work calling out
church planters is looking formen who are willing to step out
and plant with 15.
That's a wonderful thing.
This is where, again, this isthe encouraging development over
the last 10 years.
There used to be a conversation.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
It was actually a good night when we got to double
D yes.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
See this does his heart well.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
You're talking about a pastor's heart.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
That encourages him.
I think 10 years ago there wasa divide between church planting
and multi-site and those whoviewed one as better than the
other.
I genuinely think that Now wetalk much more about best fit
and so, for example, if somebodycomes with theological
convictions and they say, Idon't think you can fully that's
(16:18):
not a church to be a multi-site, I would say then it's not the
best fit for you.
You know, I think that's thekind of difference in this.
We don't get into a prolongeddebate around either one and
then you just drop that one off.
If you come to a planter whocan and is excited about
launching with 15 people, likeyou did, I don't try to convince
them into a multi-site modelthat they can't do it until they
(16:39):
get 50.
Because there's somebody righthere who will equip them to
launch with what we put on theboard yesterday three or four
around a table and let's go.
And that's just as excitingthree or four around a table and
let's go.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
And that's just as exciting.
All next L, lots of money.
Do you know?
Now, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Derek.
Well, again, we've grabbedthese Ls from Wade.
In Australia it's slightly well, I don't know if the number is
slightly different it costs acouple of hundred thousand,
particularly over a few years,to launch a new congregation.
So I think Wade's saying iswhatever you think it'll cost,
increase it.
And that's what it is.
It's more than you think itcould possibly be.
(17:16):
And so, in order to startsomething new again Wade might
talk about this in a second thefirst recommendation they would
have is maximise what you havehere, because whatever you do
offside is going to costsignificantly more than what you
will do here.
So, heaps of money to startsomething new, to do the
multi-site, to do the multi-site, to do any campus off-site, but
here we're talking multi-site,right.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, I would agree.
People ask me how much Istruggle to put a figure on it
because it's all so differentdepending on where you are.
But property is only gettingmore expensive.
Staff costs are significant,whether it's a church plant or a
multi-site location.
This is not an inexpensivestrategy and what you're
essentially doing, if you breakit all the way down to just a
(18:00):
practical level, is you arehelping cover a lot of those
barriers for someone until theycan get established on their own
.
The way they get established isa little different depending on
the model or how long it takes,but there's a significant cost
either way.
I would say multi-site is atypically slower, more stable
(18:21):
kind of safer, maybe lower onthe risk profile approach than
church planting.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
But does the percentage of multi-site things
that work is higher than thepercentage of church plants that
work?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
And work is always a difficult term because of the
theological convictions we havebut survive is what I would use
that are still there three yearsin.
I don't know the data here, butin the States we would see up
to 90% of multi-site locationsstill there three to five years
in, and often half that in someof the church planting streams,
Derek.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Well, this is where we've seen, so we would agree
with that number.
In fact, the closer it's abouteight in our network, about 87%
of churches that we've launched.
So we've launched about 100,well, 153 at the moment.
87% have reached sustainabilityand still going.
So that's irrespective of thechurch plants, that's
irrespective multi-site motherdaughter pioneer plans 87
(19:19):
percent um.
What what we've seen, though,is the early days, where the
risk factor was much higher.
They were more pioneer churchplans.
They some of those did stall alittle bit as we learned and got
through um.
We've learned, no matter themodel we've worked out as a
network, what are some of theprinciples in order to get to
sustainability.
(19:39):
So we've seen that increase.
But 87 is where we're at forall models, but I think way's
right, it probably would bemaybe mid 90s for a multi-site
model, which is quitesignificant seeing as, uh, mid
2000s it was about 44,irrespective of the model um
back then that survived.
So that's a huge increaseacross the network.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
That's exciting, yeah now one of the things you said
the big driver for multi-siteshould be.
I've run out of space at myplace.
Just explain that to me.
Sure?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah, I think the well not only is it the big
driver, it was the originalmotivation for Multisite in the
first place is running out ofroom for churches, and so it was
originally.
I tried to stress this, andPaul Harrington, who is one of
my favorite people in the world,as he was teaching with me,
shared this was true for him inAdelaide.
I can't remember the number,but I think he said they were
(20:33):
full for 80 years.
They had been right around 800people for 80 years.
Finally, but not without somechallenges, but, yeah, I do
think the desire to do somethingis significant, and so what you
(20:56):
see and this is again what wewere putting on the board,
dominic that you saw, what Iwould encourage for churches is
you have something that you'restewarding and leading.
There's a building or a certainnumber of seats or a staff team
.
The first task really is tosqueeze every bit out of that.
You can, as a leader andsteward that well.
I do think people look to theseother strategies too quickly in
(21:18):
some cases, maybe when theyhaven't fully leveraged what
they're currently doing orstewarding.
Paul was a he's a very, verygood leader.
He made a decision that I lovedhearing about yesterday not to
reproduce additionalcongregations at times that
weren't as helpful for them andto call it full earlier with the
specific intention of planting,and so that was one of the
(21:41):
reasons why they've been able tosee so many generations.
I think there are up to threegenerations in some places of
churches planting churches and14 overall.
That was something I took away.
That was a light bulb momentfor me yesterday to really
include a step there whereyou're evaluating do we launch
more service times orcongregations within our current
facility or do we move towardchurch planting earlier if there
(22:03):
are really strategicopportunities out there?
Both were helpful evaluationsfor me to see here.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Let's talk conflict and just navigating as the lead
guy with your campus pastors,because I'm imagining that's one
of the big questions it is.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
It is, and that conflict can be everything from
just practical decision-makingon a Sunday to a shift in
theological convictions thathappens over three or four or
five years for a leader at alocation.
You may be able to pull this up.
If not, though, you cancertainly point your listeners
to the chart that I showed aboutdecision rights and where those
(22:45):
lie.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
We'll get that on the screen as people are watching.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
So as you move from left to right on this diagram,
you're essentially moving towardmore and more autonomy or
decision-making power at thelocation, which is wonderful,
until a conflict comes up andthen you can get stuck in your
model if too much has been givenaway too soon and that conflict
is unresolvable.
So we highly recommend in theearly stages of development for
(23:14):
a church with either of thesemodels that more authority stay
in the more mature sendingchurch.
More decision-making authoritystay there for as long as it
takes to establish trust and theability to get over those
hurdles.
Because you want PaulHarrington resolving that
conflict, you want him to stillhave the authority to tackle
(23:34):
that In those early days, inthose early days.
that's right and so it can feelthe word I've heard here.
It feels mean to say to alocation pastor, you know what?
I'm going to keep this for nowand if we have an issue I'll
resolve that.
I'll keep that authority.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
But I still would recommend it, even if it feels a
little uncomfortable to someone.
What kind of negotiations haveyou seen that have been complex
in Australia on those issues?
Because I'm imagining it's thesame issues.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
It is, and I think there is an Australian attitude
towards this.
When Wade came out, it washelpful to hear him because I
think Australians think we'llwork it out.
She'll be right.
We'll, no, no, no.
It was helpful to hear himBecause I think Australians
think we'll work it out.
She'll be right you know we'll.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
No, no, no, it's all going to blow up in your face.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
That's exactly right and that's exactly what we saw.
And so the early days of thismulti-site attempt, we're
thinking, no, no, we'll justwork it out.
We're the exception, we'realways the exception, and it's
in the first campus.
You might get away with it, wesaw.
You might get away with itbecause, relationally, the
sending church, the campus andthe senior are so strong in
there.
Um, but actually, over time,what you see is a pull towards
(24:36):
this launch team, this campusgrowing, and they have no
connection to the start.
And so that's the point inwhich you, you begin to see the
relational tensions happening.
And so we realized early on um,we need to, we need to ensure
that the, the campus that'sgoing to happen and ascending
church have a memorandum ofunderstanding, have decision
rights, have these campusconstants locked down.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
You've got those kind of memorandum of understanding.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I do we, uh, we, we call them working agreements.
Um, because you know you areworking together as you, as you
do, I do think, on front end youguys may know this term, but
good fences make good neighbors.
You set those boundaries up inadvance and then again, if
you're the senior leaderlaunching someone out, you can
keep in mind over time.
I'd like this to eventually bemore autonomous, even maybe at
(25:22):
some point release it, but thoseare not necessarily things we
would recommend be embedded fromthe beginning.
We would recommend be embeddedfrom the beginning.
We would recommend autonomy andauthority in that central
sending church until it isestablished and trust is built.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
What do you do with where this theological shift
takes place?
Because I've got some friendswho are noticing that what about
the campus pastorshipstheologically?
What about the seniorpastorships theologically?
And they're not on the samepage.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Yeah, it's an issue we see come up regularly because
again, you're dealing withyounger leaders who aren't fully
formed yet and they're thinkingthey get exposed to different
things now that can shift thatthinking in ways that maybe
weren't as prevalent 10 or 15years ago.
So we do see this come up.
If you have retained thatauthority centrally and you're
able to address it, you have acouple of choices.
(26:13):
You can change the leaderbecause you know, similar to
bishops, here you've gotoversight.
I know this is an issue indifferent ecclesiological
approaches, but you can, in amulti-site model, change the
leader if that theological bentgoes too far in one direction.
Usually there's a strongaversion to doing that because
(26:34):
people have connections withtheir pastor and you'd like to
work it out, but it is an optionon the table in this model.
The other thing that you can dois look at releasing.
If that genuinely can't beworked out and two churches are
teaching two fundamentallydifferent things theologically,
you can begin to look at whetherthat should exist as its own
church, separate to you.
(26:54):
That creates a whole differentset of questions around whether
they can make it as their ownthing.
But those are really reallyreally hard decisions to begin
to tackle and one of the reasonswhy we stay very closely
connected on the front end.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
What if the senior leader moves theologically?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Well, that's an even bigger question.
I referenced yesterday thatthis is a bit like high dive in
the Olympics and you go up indegrees of difficulty when the
senior minister changespositions again.
I'm assuming you mean in likecore theological convictions,
and there starts to be a changein the church.
We would expect to see thatexpressed across all of the
(27:33):
different locations as well,unless the church just says no,
and then you start getting intopolity questions around what
should happen then.
In those situations I oftenstep in and rather than serving
as a consultant, it's much morea mediator.
Can you hold this thingtogether?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Derek.
Well, we're seeing that at themoment in a number of areas that
the senior leader you know onoccasions is beginning to shift
in some areas and yet, as Wadesaid, it's creating some tension
underneath that at points, it'snot only for the campus pastors
, also often for those withinthe churches, so it's not just
(28:13):
felt at leadership level.
I think that, um, and I'm notsure, at least in australia,
we're not sure how that's allgoing to shake out at the moment
, um, but we're watching ithappen in real time.
Yeah, oh, I think it'll be messy, there's no doubt about that.
But, um, yeah, how we that,whether we can navigate that,
the releasing from the campus,we've seen happen and we've seen
it happen really well in anumber of circumstances.
(28:35):
So we have precedence inAustralia, if you're knowing.
But from the top I'm not surehow that will shake.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Can I just acknowledge something?
This is a just so everybody hasit.
You heard me say multiple times.
I don't think there's an intentto sell anything at all.
It's just to look at all thedifferent models and their
strengths and weaknesses.
I do think it's helpful to notethat one of the weaknesses of
this multi-site and even thedevelopment of different streams
approach where you're lookingat the best fit is that you fit
(29:04):
it to a leader or a leadershipapproach and when those things
change either the leaderthemselves through succession or
the philosophy of that specificleader the fit is not as good
anymore and everybody starts tofeel nervous and anxious and it
can be really hard to refitsomething to it.
And so big changes intheological convictions or the
(29:25):
changes in the leadersthemselves shake this model in
ways that are really reallydestabilizing and hard.
So what you see when it workswell is long tenure for Paul
Harrington and his team, longtenure for Greg Lee and Dave
Moore and their team.
That kind of stability speaksreally really well to this model
where you see change again atany level regularly.
(29:48):
This model is hard to refit.
Fragile it is, it can becomemuch more tenuous.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Let's talk the issue of merging churches, where
you've got one church that'skind of going well but may not
have filled its space andanother church that's struggling
, and there's been aconversation in our denomination
about well, that's probably away to help those things and
(30:17):
instead of putting two dyingchurches together, we put one
church with momentum withanother church that needs
momentum, and I mean theconversation has often been
quite close ones, whereas you'redefinitely saying 20 minutes
apart I'm hearing but what arethe um?
I mean, I picked up yesterday.
(30:39):
That's a conversation you'vehad many times and so I've only
had it with a few people.
I'm looking forward tolistening to you.
Who's had it with many people?
Speaker 2 (30:47):
yeah, this is an area where I think Scott Sanders and
Derek and the Reach Australiateam have excelled at initiating
and facilitating really gooddecisions.
It's not that you always wantto see a merger, it's you want
people to make good decisionsabout whether to merge or not.
So I'm very encouraged by theskill set that they've developed
(31:13):
in that we do continue to see,in fact, jim Tomberlin, who is
my mentor, but he's also sort ofthe voice on that original
model of multi-site.
He would say this is the nextiteration of multi-site across
America because we have so manydenominations that are
struggling and declining andchurches closing and all of the
(31:37):
challenges that go with that.
So you can see in this approacha multi-site merger, a church
that needs space.
So we'll just say, for thepurposes of this, that's your
church, you have momentum,you're out of room, you need
space and you've begun toexplore where that might be.
(31:58):
And then you have anotherchurch who has space but lacks
all those other things.
They don't have momentum.
They haven't seen people in thechildren's ministry in a long
time.
They've struggled to keep thedoors open or maintain the
property.
So it makes a lot of logicalsense to put those two things
together.
You now have space.
He now has leadership andvision and momentum.
The problem is they aren'tpuzzle pieces that just fit
(32:18):
together easily and everybodysays, okay, that is a really,
really difficult process and soI'll be the mean American here
and just dive right into it.
The lead church and the joiningchurch do not enter into that as
equals.
What we would say to the leadchurch and you heard a great
example of this from Paulyesterday is say exactly what
you would do if you were given apiece of property without a
(32:41):
merger.
What would you do?
And then let's present that tothem and say are you willing to
join that?
Because you shouldn't change itat all?
This is what's working.
And so for them to bring thatinto your building, your
decision really is, as thejoining church, do you want to
do this?
And Paul laid out a wonderfulexample of that, where a church
that he thought wouldimmediately say no because of
(33:02):
the level of change that wasinvolved.
He just said I hadn't heardfrom him.
I assumed that meant that theywere not going to do it.
I called him up and theirresponse was sounds good to us.
And you heard the wonderfuloutcome that came from that.
It's rare, so maybe 10 or 20%of the conversations go that way
.
But when they do, what we'veseen in America is a vibrant
(33:25):
outcome for both churches.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
That sounds like I mean we've run out of time, but
that's a whole other discussionthat would be super helpful to
have, because you just said awhole lot of churches in America
are facing that issue.
They are, I think, a whole lotof places in Australia are
facing that issue, and so we'regoing to have to wrestle them
through.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
You need a guide.
I know we're running out oftime, but I would be failing if
I didn't say that a guide thatcan help that's why I mentioned
Reach Australia and thecompetency they've developed can
speak to both churches in areally tense conversation.
Last word Derek Hanna.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
I would say on that that that is our next challenge
as well, and I think we need towork out how to clearly and
graciously, particularly withchurches that have momentum,
clear gospel, dna thatconversation, but not in a way
that compromises it.
I think that's really key forthe next steps.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Thanks, so much for having this conversation with us
.
Wade Burnett has been my guestand Wade is from McLean Bible
Church in Washington DC and he'sbeen our speaking at the Rich
Australia Conference, along withDerek Hanna, who is the church
planting and multi-site wizardfor Rich Australia.
My name's Dominic Steele.
You've been with us on thePastors' Hub and we will look
(34:36):
forward to your company nextTuesday afternoon.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com