By Dave Ferguson
“I”m not sure I can get them to come to church with me.” I was surprised to hear Kathy say this because literally every week she brings people who are far from God to Community Christian Church (CCC). Often I will look out into the crowd during a weekend service and see a whole row of people sitting next to her and I know these are people just beginning their spiritual search. Kathy is as passionate about helping people to find their way to God as I am.
So I listened intently as she described a group of teenage girls in an eating disorder recovery group she was leading and told me, “I”m not sure I can get them to come to church with me.” She said the girls are overwhelmed and terrified to come into a room with several hundred people. She said some of the girls would come into the building but would stay in the lobby the whole time.
Then Kathy asked me, “Could we start something for people who won”t come to church?”
Kathy”s question took me back nine years ago when CCC first became a multisite church. Our motivation wasn”t to be innovative, but to be a church that would “go into the world.” We remain passionate about the mission of Jesus, and if it requires that we start a new site in a nearby neighborhood, we do it.
A Multisite Church Movement
In the last nine years we have been at the forefront of what has become a multisite movement. Today, one of four megachurches in the U.S. is multisite; seven of the 10 fastest-growing churches in the country have multiple sites; and nine out of 10 of the largest churches have multiple locations. We not only started a second site, but a third site, and are continuing to reproduce new sites. In a partnership with the Chicago District Evangelizing Association, Central Illinois Evangelizing Association, and Stadia New Church Strategies, we will reproduce our ninth site on March 2, and have plans for our 10th site next fall.
From a Multisite to a Polysite Church
I”m a huge fan of churches having multiple sites! I think every church should have multiple sites! Our dream is to start 200 locations all across Chicago.
I also think every church should be involved in church planting. Our NewThing Network dreams of being a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches. But Kathy”s question haunts me, “Could we start something for people who won”t come to church?”
The answer has to be “YES!”
My best estimate is at least 33 percent of the population will never come to churches like those most Christians attend. And even multiple sites won”t completely solve this problem. To do that, the church must become polysite.
We need to have churches that will not only have multiple places to gather, but will have multiple types of gatherings and with multiple sizes. We need different kinds of churches to reach different kinds of people. We can no longer be content asking people to come to us. We need to go to them! Jesus said “Go into the world”; he didn”t say, “bring the world to us” . . . right?
What if we started churches, sites, and small communities that practice the simple 3Cs (celebrate, connect, and contribute) where we work, in our neighborhoods, at coffee shops, at local hangouts, and where we work out or play in sports leagues? What if these gatherings reached people who would never walk through the doors of our churches? Could we reach people like those in Kathy”s recovery group?
“I Think I Accidentally Planted a Church”
Alan Hirsch, author of Forgotten Ways, told me a true story about a guy named Shawn. It gave me the vision for how we can become a polysite church; that is, a church of not only multiple sites but multiple kinds of sites and gatherings.
Shawn is one of the most thoroughly churched guys around. He couldn”t remember not being in church, but he also couldn”t remember ever enjoying it. Part of the reason for his not-so-positive experience in church was attributed to his attention deficit disorder and dyslexia diagnoses. Eventually, Shawn gave up on church and started using Sundays to pursue his love of waterskiing.
The first Sunday he went out with two of his non-Christian buddies and, just before he was about to get in the boat, he got an attack of the “guilties.” So he said, “Guys, I”m Baptist and I”m feeling kind of guilty for not being in church today. Do you mind if I read a bit of Scripture first?” His friends seemed a little uncomfortable, so he read the shortest Psalm he could find (he knew the short ones well because he is dyslexic). Then he said, “We Baptists pray for needs, so anybody got any prayer requests?” One guy said he was unemployed and the other guy said his grandma was in an ICU. So Shawn prayed for the guy”s job and the other guy”s grandmother, and then asked God to bless the day and the boat. Then they went skiing.
The next Sunday the two guys brought a bunch of friends and Shawn did the same thing again, first reading from the Bible. But this time he said, “We Baptists like to see if there are any answered prayers.”
The one friend said, “You know I did get a job this week, thanks!”
And the other friend jumped in, “And my grandma was released from the hospital this week.” At that point Shawn asked if there were any other prayer requests. Many hands went up. They prayed for each one of them, asked God to bless the day, and went skiing.
Shawn and his friends now do this weekly with more than 60 people. They gather near the dock, have breakfast, read a bit of Scripture, pray for each other, take up an offering for the poor, and water ski. Recently, they started bringing spare parts so if another boat breaks down, they can help out. Shawn looks back on this and says, “I think I accidentally planted a church.”
Single Site . . . MultiSite . . . PolySite
It was in the 1980s and “90s that the North American church learned about growth at a single site from such places as Willow Creek Community Church, Southeast Christian Church, and Saddleback Community Church. And today there are more megachurches in the U.S. than ever before.
It was in the late 1990s and early this decade that we discovered how to have one church in multiple locations. Today we are seeing more and more churches grow through multiple sites. Some surveys have suggested that 33 percent of all churches are considering the multisite option as a way to more effectively reach their community.
What”s next? I believe in the next decade we will see more and more churches that will have a variety of expressions of church, in a variety of sizes, in a variety of places to reach a variety of people.
What”s next? Polysite!
How to Become a Polysite Church
Maybe you”re reading this and thinking, “OK, Dave, you just made up a word””polysite“”and now you are predicting it is the future of the church in North America?”
Yep! Actually, I didn”t make it up, but you are right that it”s not a real word . . . yet! Although, you have to admit, isn”t there something inside you that knows for the church to accomplish all that God means for us to accomplish, we must find a way to get beyond the walls of our facilities? And at the same time, isn”t it unrealistic to insist that the rest of the world come to us and fit inside our church buildings?
I sometimes imagine a conversation with Jesus that goes like this:
Jesus: “Dave, welcome to Heaven”
Dave: “Wow, this is awesome!”
Jesus: “Yeah, I told you it would be. How many people did you bring with you?”
Dave: “Well, there are all those people that came to CCC.”
Jesus: “Great. But what about the people who never came to CCC?”
Dave: “I invited them, but they just wouldn”t come to church with me.”
Jesus: “I invited you to join me in Heaven . . .”
Dave: (silence)
Jesus: “. . . but for that to happen, I had to go.”
Dave: (silence)
DAVE FERGUSONÂ is the lead pastor of Community Christian Church (www.communitychristian.org), an innovative, multisite, missional community that is passionate about “helping people find their way back to God.” CCC has grown from a group of six (Dave, his wife, and four friends) to an attendance of more than 5,000 every weekend meeting at eight locations. CCC empowers more than 600 volunteer leaders to oversee difference-making ministry throughout Chicago and was recently recognized as one of the most influential churches in America.
Dave provides visionary leadership for the NewThing Network (www.newthing.org) whose dream is to be “a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches.” NewThing is a network of reproducing churches internationally and a resource to churches looking to reproduce multiple sites or new churches.
Dave is also the cofounder and serves on the board of directors for the Institute for Community (www.instituteforcommunity.org), which partners with real estate developers to accomplish the mission of “helping people build quality relationships where you live and work through the power of genuine community.”
Dave is the author of the newly released, The Big Idea””Focus the Message, Maximize the Impact along with Jon Ferguson and Eric Bramlett.
Next to Jesus, Dave loves his wife, Sue, the most and then his three terrific kids””Amy (16), Joshua (14), and Caleb (9). Dave and his family live in Naperville, Illinois. Dave enjoys hanging out with his family, reading, running, and playing any sport with a ball. Find his blog at www.daveferguson.org.
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