Maintaining Your Church Vision Across Multiple Sites
Finding the balance between individuality and consistency is a difficult line to tread, and it takes a lot of strong leadership and management tact. Keep reading as we dive into the heart of the consistency question, giving you essential answers on how to navigate it.
Consistency in Teaching
A church’s teachings are one of its central pillars, whether it's in lessons that occur throughout the weekly sermon, at Sunday school, or during Bible study groups. If the teachings of your church differ from location to location, think about the knock-on effects this could have.
The kids’ ministry curriculum you use to educate your children shapes the way they form a bond with God and influences the kind of person they become. Even the person who teaches at your children’s ministry affects the learning experience felt by each of your young learners.
To minimize the gap many multi-site churches opt for video teaching instead of hiring multiple teachers. Paul Alexander of the Unstuck Group went as far as to say, “If it's not on a screen, it's not multi-site.” Not using video teaching risks your church sites fracturing. Read our blog for tips on how to share videos at your multi-site church.
Consistency in Resources
What are your most valued resources at your ministry? Is it the learning materials your kids use daily, or the brand new Apple TV in the welcome area? How would your ministry function without these resources? Can you afford to share these with each of your campuses?
Asking these questions is vital, as if something is deemed essential to the running of your church, your remote campus will need it too. Provide the same quality resources to each of your multi-site church locations to ensure everyone has the same access. A decked-out ‘headquarters’ and limited satellite sites look a lot like favoritism.
Consistency in Look
Maintaining your church branding across all of your campuses will ensure that all your sites feel like the same church. Someone from each location should be able to step foot through the door and know that they are home. Otherwise, you are not one church meeting in different places – you are individual churches shared by management.
How far you take this is up to you. Some churches choose to have the same decor adorning your church walls, but others prefer artwork created by the youngsters of their kids' ministry for a more personal look. The specifics are not that important, but the overall style should match up from campus to campus.
Consistency in Events
If there is a great distance between your sites, it could be easy to throw an event without thinking about the other campuses, but this is one of the tell-tale signs of a fractured multi-site church network. Instead, standardizing your events offers a chance for connection between your campuses, as attendees of each site come together virtually.
Solidify this connection by getting each campus to post a short clip of their version of the event on your church's Instagram page. Sharing a sermon or a video clip across all the sites will boost the feeling of connectedness. Before planning an event at one site (but not at another), consider what the other campuses will miss.
Consistency in Vision
Your vision is the direction of your church. Your church vision statements should outline the brighter future your church wants for your community, and for the world. Having a consistent vision across your campuses is essential, as the vision is the greater purpose of your church. If this differs, it is not the same church.
Church mission statements are slightly different, as they are the reason why your church exists. It doesn’t change like a vision statement might and is a clear and concise statement that summarizes the essence of your church. Every member of your multi-site church should know your church mission without thinking about it. Learn more about the differences in this blog.
Connect your multi-site church campuses by keeping your vision and mission at the forefront of everything you do. Remind your attendees that they are part of the same family, leaders of the same mission, and visionaries of the same, brighter future. It requires a strong understanding of who you are as a church and where you want to be.
Church growth can be an inspiring opportunity to serve more people and expand your community. When done right, it opens the doors of your church to more attendees and welcomes people to your church community with open arms.
Maintaining consistency across your campuses is the most effective way of keeping your community bonds intact. While on the surface, variation between events and resources may seem irrelevant, a lack of consistency makes way for deeper differences that influence your church’s mission and vision. Avoid fracture by prioritizing coherence.