Multisite Church Launch Plans Put on Hold
Multisite church launch plans at Community Christian Church in White Marsh, Maryland, were put on hold after leaders recognized warning signs. The article highlights the humility required to pause a ministry plan rather than force it forward.
- Multisite expansion can include unexpected complications and setbacks.
- Community Christian Church delayed a planned campus launch after key goals were not being met.
- Leaders remained committed to reproduction while acknowledging they may have moved too quickly.
by Darrel Rowland
Unexpected complications and challenges are common in the multisite movement. Certainly not every expansion leads to a glowing success story. For example, Discovery Christian Church in Dublin, Ohio, tried to get a site going in a nearby Columbus suburb. It didn’t work. Journey’s Crossing Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, closed a second location in the Washington, D.C., area.
Community Christian Church in White Marsh, Maryland (www.communitycc.net), was preparing to launch a second site near Baltimore this year, but those plans are now on hold.
Community Christian, averaging about 750 in attendance, already was actively helping plant churches in the area and had absorbed nearby Harbor Christian Church when the idea to create a new site about 15 miles away emerged.
Warning Signs Before Launch
David Robinson, Community’s lead planter, said leaders used 2008 to build toward the planned March 2009 launch, just after the church’s three-year anniversary. They attended the multisite practicum at Community Christian Church near Chicago, prayed, planned, and put goals in place for everything from the size of the launch team to the number of children’s workers, artists, and leaders needed.
But by late 2008, it became apparent that the gradual ramp-up toward those goals was falling short.
During a meeting of key leaders, someone finally said, “Maybe we’re not supposed to launch,” Robinson remembered. There was a “collective sigh” of relief that someone had finally stated the obvious out loud.
“People were grateful that we saw these warning signs . . . and we didn’t force it anyway,” he said.
“We didn’t say, โNo we’re going to launch because we said we were going to launch; we prayed about this and, by golly, we’re going to do it.โ . . . It would’ve been much worse to go ahead and launch and have a year go by where people were killing themselves because there’s not enough workers to sustain this thing, and have to close anyway.”
Committed to Reproducing Wisely
Still, it caused leaders to question God’s specific will for the church.
“We thought we were on the right trail for sure,” Robinson said. “We may have jumped the gun launching a campus this early in the life of the church.”
Community remains committed to being a reproducing church, whether it’s through multisite, church plants, or something else, Robinson said.
“I really hope we’re humble enough to realize we’re not always right. And I hope we’re always honest enough to say, well, we may need to pull off this original plan,” he said.
“I hope we don’t have to do that a lot.”
Darrel Rowland is public affairs editor of The Columbus Dispatch and an adult Bible fellowship teacher at Worthington (Ohio) Christian Church.
