By: UnSeminary

In this season, many churches have been stalled by their plateaued or declining attendance, while other congregations are thriving and making an impact. 94% of all churches in the country are losing ground against the communities they serve. That means that if this trend continues, the message of Jesus will in turn lose ground in cities across the country. Is there a way for churches to combine forces and draw on each other’s strengths to increase the impact of the message of Jesus? 

While 2020 has presented challenges for some churches, it has offered unique opportunities for others. This might be the perfect year for your church to consider a church merger to drive the message of Jesus forward! 

In some ways, the pressure of coronavirus and the resulting economic fallout is simply accelerating changes that already existed before this crisis came into play. While it’s still too early to gain a statistical analysis on exactly what’s happening, it does seem like churches that were struggling before coronavirus continue to struggle now at an even deeper level because of debt and leadership issues. On the other hand, churches that are thriving are using this season to reach new people, expand their influence and ultimately see more people get connected with the message of Jesus. 

I believe there’s no better time than today for your church to consider being a part of a merger.

Broadly speaking, there are two types of churches involved in mergers. Joining churches are those looking to combine their ministry with a stronger church to further their mission. Lead churches are churches with more momentum that are looking to potentially adopt or rebirth another church. 

I’ve been a part of multiple church mergers. In my experience, something incredible happens in the heart of a leader when they connect with the bigger vision of what God is doing and ultimately work together with other believers to see the mission of Jesus grow. It’s humbling to see what takes place in a church as it turns around to pursue that mission. 

3 Reasons this is a Great Season to be a Joining Church

Your Mission is Bigger Than the Troubles COVID-19 Brought 

Why did God start your church? 

What was the original vision behind why the church started? 

What is it that has animated your church for all these years? 

That mission is so much bigger than any troubles brought on by this current crisis. The missional drive to connect with people and to care for your community is bigger than the problems that your church is facing. 

If you and your leaders are not sure what step to take next because of the pressure that COVID has put on your church, then this is a perfect season to consider becoming a joining church. 

Now is the time for you and your leadership to ask the question, “What other churches have a similar heart as us and have a similar mission that we could potentially join with?”

This could be the time for your church to consider joining a lead church in order to pursue the mission that God has given you.

If it’s just financial resources and leadership that’s holding you back, then maybe the answer for you is to join with a lead church. Before you consider closing or any other drastic measures, consider joining with another church in this season.

Pastoring People Means Making Tough Calls

You know that you started leading in the local church to make a difference. Over the years, you’ve had to make a lot of tough calls. 

The pastoral leaders in joining churches are some of the bravest leaders I’ve ever seen. It takes a lot of internal drive and gumption to lead your church through the experience of dying in order to be reborn and rebirthed, to be a part of a resurrection of the church.

You’ve been caring for and loving these people. Now is the time to create the kind of structure that will ensure that the ministry will continue on, albeit in a different form, for years to come. This will be a tough call, but you’re used to caring for people in tough ways.

Others Have Gone Before You

If you’re considering becoming a joining church in this season, you should reach out to other leaders in churches that have been a part of a merge to learn about their experience.

(If you’re looking for some personal references, reach out to me. I’m happy to point you in the right direction.)

The reality is that church mergers are becoming increasingly normalized across the country as joining churches like yours consider how to continue the mission in a new form in their communities. We’ve seen time and again how these mergers, when done right with thoughtful, caring leaders like yourself, can ultimately produce more fruit and help churches reach even more people. 

You can be confident that if you walk through this in a measured and caring way with the right lead church, you will see an acceleration of your mission, not a deceleration.

4 Reasons Lead Churches Should Accelerate Merger Plans

The Big-C Church is Bigger than Your Church

Your church is a great outpost of the kingdom of God and maybe over the last few years, you’ve seen increased effectiveness. You’ve been reaching people and seeing them get connected to your church. You’ve found a way to communicate that seems to resonate within your culture. That’s great, but the Church is bigger than your individual local church. 

God is already at work in the communities around you and there are churches that could use your help. Although your church might have a lot to offer as a lead church, joining churches have much to bring to the table as well. They bring length of service in a community. They bring deep relationships. They bring the ability to localize the ministry in a way that you may not be able to if you just launched another campus in that location. 

The Church is bigger than yours.

God is Already at Work There 

The amazing thing that I’ve seen time and again in these merger scenarios is that God has been laying the foundation for them long before the lead churches get engaged.

Oftentimes we see joining churches who have tried multiple things over many years to reach their community. For whatever reason, those efforts are not bearing the fruit that the team in the joining church was finding satisfactory. Maybe God was leading them through that process so they would come to the decision to join your church. 

We know that many joining churches have been trying different things in an effort to reach out to people, but those things may not be working or resonating. Today would be an incredible time for you to begin connecting with churches that could potentially want to join you. But remember, God has already done an amazing thing in that community. He’s been at work there for a long time. 

The work of God doesn’t begin when you open a church. You get the opportunity to join with him and partner with what he’s already doing.

Don’t Let False Humility Slow Your Church Down

Can we be honest for a minute?

I think the best church leaders to lead these merger scenarios are the ones who have a real sense of humility. The ones that aren’t sure why another church would want to join them in the endeavor. However, that can sometimes bleed over into a false humility that ultimately limits your church’s ability to reach more people. 

If your church is growing and making a difference, I believe God may be calling you to be a lead church in this season. What you’re experiencing at your church is different than what is happening in other churches across the country. You have something different to offer to the body of Christ, and this could be your next step.

However, if you pull back and hesitate to lead out of a sense of false humility, you may actually limit the work that God wants to do through you. He could be calling you to be a part of what he’s doing to make a difference in this new community.

Let’s be honest, it’s God that’s at work in your church, not you. It’s his work. So why not try to see your role in the spread of his work into new communities?

Your Community and Their Community Need Thriving Churches

The good, hard work that will have to be done in your heart, leadership, systems and approaches in order to merge will honor the Lord and ultimately help grow his plans for your community and beyond! 

Taking time to actually love the joining church leadership and their community will have a profound impact on you as a lead church. Take time to think through what it would look like to translate your church into a different community and think through the systems that will be needed to move the mission forward.

We know that a minority of churches are in the same position as yours. Your community, and the community of the joining church, need more thriving churches.

2020 is a perfect year to think about merging. 

Do you want to dive deep and get more information on church mergers? 

Thousands of churches are perplexed by plateaued or declining attendance, while other congregations nearby thrive. Is there a way for them to combine forces and draw on each other’s strengths in ways that also increase their missional impact?

Join us for a free webinar designed to help your church: 

Wednesday, August 12th, 2020, 1:00 – 1:45pm (EDT)

We will be joined by two leading experts in church mergers: 

Warren Bird // Warren Bird, Ph.D., is Vice President of Research and Equipping at ECFA.org (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability). Previously, he held the position of Research Director at Leadership Network. He is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading researchers of megachurches, multisite churches, large church compensation and high-visibility pastoral succession.Jim Tomberlin // Over four decades of diverse ministry, Jim has pastored churches in New Mexico and Germany, grown a megachurch in Colorado and pioneered the multisite strategy for Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago. In addition to being a multisite and merger specialist at The Unstuck Group, Jim currently serves as the Chief of Staff at Christ Fellowship in Miami.

[Click here to learn more and register.]

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Source: 7 Reasons Your Church Should Merge With Another Church in 2020

The post 7 Reasons Your Church Should Merge With Another Church in 2020 appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Source: Leadership in a Multicultural Church

The post Leadership in a Multicultural Church appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by unSeminary: Thanks for listening in to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jason Held, the Executive Pastor of Administration at Journey Church, which has campuses in Wisconsin as well as a campus in Lithuania.

Jason is with us today to talk about how Journey Church overcame the technological challenges that are inevitable with growth and developing multisite video venues.

Determine your video needs. // Many multisite churches use some aspect of streaming video at their campuses. When Journey Church was approached by another church about a merger, it happened rather quickly. They needed to examine what sort of teaching structure would suit them best since this was their first foray into the world of multisite. Because they had amazing communicators and wanted a consistent teaching experience at all locations, Journey decided that streaming the video teaching would be best for them. In addition to being a cultural fit, it also allowed the campus pastor to focus on shepherding and community involvement at the new campus. If you’re planning to go multisite, or are approached about a merger, consider the format that would work best for your church and be ready to evaluate if you have the technology needed to move ahead.Examine your current technology. // After deciding on a video venue format, Journey Church realized that their existing systems and AV/tech equipment was nowhere near where it needed to be to support multiple campuses. Are your cameras and technology up to date so that you can get a strong signal to your campuses when streaming a message? What do you need to capture the sermon effectively so that your campuses have the same, excellent experience no matter the location? Work with experts in this field to learn what it’s going to take to get a successful multisite video venue off the ground and running well for the long term.Get advice from others. // Journey Church began by reaching out to other churches they respected who had gone through similar experiences and were connected with the company Risepointe. Journey and Risepointe met for several listening sessions so Risepointe could thoroughly understand Journey’s vision and needs for their campuses. Ultimately Risepointe provided multiple technology solutions in order to allow Journey to decide what route would be best for the vision they have for their church.Money well spent. // Jason found that working with strategic partners was critically important to the success of launching their first campus. The biggest barrier in finding the technology you need is thinking that you can get away with doing things on the cheap, or without outside help. But Jason advises that instead you should get the right people at the table early on to keep from prolonging the problem and making it more difficult to set up the system. Money well spent in the right areas will save you thousands of dollars when things are done right the first time.Find a long term partner. // When consulting experts, look for someone who has the experience and knowledge to train you and walk the path with you long term. Make sure they understand who you are as a church, what your core values are, and support your mission and vision rather than trying to push you into a solution that doesn’t fit your church. What it came down to for Journey Church was developing a relationship with Risepointe not just for a timeframe, but as a strategy for the long haul.

You can learn more about Journey Church at jrnychurch.com.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Article’s Sponsor: Risepointe

What is the facility lid that is preventing your church from living out its Mission? Let the team over at Risepointe get to know what makes your church unique and craft a realistic plan to help you continue to grow!

Head over to Risepointe.com/360 for your free Facility 360 Evaluation.

Source: Behind the Scenes of Mergers, Multisite & Campus Upgrades with Jason Held

The post Behind the Scenes of Mergers, Multisite & Campus Upgrades with Jason Held appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Jeff Reed: I meet with a mentor twice a month. This fall, one of us brought news to each meeting of a church that had closed, merged, etc. These were all types of churches. Some churches had  800-1000 just 10 years ago; others had 400-500 and multiple staff members. Others had been around 100 attenders for 20 years. All of them closed their doors and gave their buildings away this fall. Some of them gave their building to a church plant; others were trying to figure out what to do.

Research shows that 2014 had 3700 church closures.

Every church has to decide how to respond to their unique situation, but what happens when many churches take this option to close? I want to explore 3 implications of church closures.

My focus here is on what ministry in the context of increasing church closures looks like. This is not a prescription for turning around a declining church or for a pastor struggling to turn around a church. This is on ministry in our current context. What do healthy churches do in this context? What do young leaders like me need to consider?

Church Deserts are Coming

Frequent and widespread church closures are going to mean that a new phenomenon in the USA is going to spring up where there are pockets of “church deserts” or “gospel deserts.” These will be areas of the country where someone has to drive 30 miles or even farther to attend a church.

I got this idea from the term “food deserts’. Food deserts are areas of cities where there is no fresh and affordable food available. These are areas with no supermarkets and only have convenience stores.

Church deserts are coming as well. These can be in cities, suburbs, and especially rural areas. Imagine a rural area where there is no church at all for 60 miles or more. Cities can have large numbers of churches but there will be areas of cities with no church for the 100,000+ people living in a section of the city.

As more churches close, more areas will have no church and more people will have no access to our life-changing gospel. There will be no one to personally tell and show them the good news of Jesus. If someone heard the gospel, there would be no church nearby for them to attend and be discipled.

Application

Pray for church deserts as you see them.
Instill a discontent in your church for those gospel deserts.
Identify what is the minimum viable church in your strategy. Take steps to plant those.
Encourage people to be part of the solution to planting churches in those areas. Every church needs good preachers and good worship leaders, no matter the size. If you see a gifted person or someone with the ability to grow in that way, encourage them to be a part of reaching those developing deserts.
Consider planting an online church first to reach a desert.

Church Risks are Too Risky, So Declines Will Be Faster

Another implication is that churches will not be able to ride out a difficult time, so declines will be faster. In the past, people often stayed at one church because it was near their home (driving a long way to church was not normal) and because they felt a commitment to the church that went beyond a pastor or a style. They were committed and stayed through change. Sometimes that was for the worse and contributed to the decline of the church. But it also meant that the giving and attendance could be stable enough to do a turn-around.

Now, most churches do not have that kind of commitment. People will not take a risk for their church. If the church needs a lot of change or a pastor transitions, asking them to stay longer and to be patient will not work in a society that moves as fast as ours. If people and money go, then there is no time for a turn-around.

This means that churches will decline faster. If the church doesn’t have the commitment of people and their giving to endure pastoral transitions, internal changes, and declines in attendance, then their decline and death will be faster in the future. Churches won’t take 10 years to close. They will close in 5 years or less.

I heard a pastor lament this just a few weeks ago. He is trying to initiate change in a small church and the one young family in his church came to him and said that it was too hard and too slow to see change so they were moving to another church more like what they want.

That is a phenomenon that has always happened but it is going to happen more. This will increase the speed of church closures.

Application

Those in leadership positions will need to pay attention and take seriously what decline means. Many people who attend church do not realize all the things that face a church in decline.
Pray.
Get help if you are in decline. Don’t wait until the bank account is low. Once that happens, there is usually no time.

Leadership and Transitions Will Be Critical.

If churches decline faster because they cannot handle risks and slow downs, then leadership, leadership decisions, and transitions will be critical. When one pastor leaves, the interim pastor and leadership will be very important to continuing the momentum of the church. A church that takes 3 years to find a pastor may create a lot of problems for the new pastor when he is hired because of the likely loss of vision and momentum.

A poor pastoral hire or promotion can also do great damage when declines can be so rapid. This will make the process of hiring a pastor even more important since many people are not committed enough to a church to wait out a difficult situation.

A pastor’s leadership skills and education will be more important in this kind of world. I would say that theological training and leadership training becomes even more important when there are fewer churches and more and faster declines.

Application

Churches will look for experience, education, and skill. It will be required. Get it. Leadership skills are important and not natural in the church. Learn true leadership skills like change theory and organizational efficacy (not simply pop leadership). Study Jesus’ leadership style. Jesus’ leadership had more do with shepherding and serving than some church leadership would have you think.
Churches and leaders should invest in training and education, both before ministry and for on-going ministry. Churches should consider developing their leaders and not depending on them to grow on their own. This is an investment in the church’s future.
Churches that thrive in this environment will make it as easy as possible for the pastor to stay. That means paying at a level that the pastor can live comfortably. If the work is stressful and finances are hard, then it will be easier for the pastor(s) to move elsewhere. That has risk. This also means that secondary staff who are usually paid very little will also need to be paid well enough to stay or the church will be in a constant state of transition.

Source: 3 Implications of Church Decline

The post 3 Implications of Church Decline appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by unSeminary: Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Steve Smith, Executive Pastor of High Point Church in Chicago, with us today.

As High Point Church grew and multiplied, it had to make some key shifts to the way it was structured. Listen in as Steve shares about some of the hurdles that came up as the church grew, as well as what the shifting to a multisite church has looked like.

Recognize hurdles. // As High Point Church has grown, one of the key lessons the staff has learned is that there are many different ways to do church and reach people in a community. Where is God leading your church? For High Point this looked like scaling up and preparing to go multisite, so one of the first things they needed to address was the staffing, staff structure and the leadership of the staff in order to scale. Looking back Steve notes that it’s easy to idealize what has happened and overlook the hurdles that have come. But the reality is that it took a lot of work to get repositioned and reorganized for future scaling. High Point started with multiplying groups, leaders and ministries, and then moved to multiplying campuses and churches.Four team structures. // Larry Osborne talks about four different staff team structures: the track star, golfing buddies, basketball team, and football team. The ‘track star’ mentality wants to just get out there and run as fast as you can to make wins for the kingdom. This structure works when a church is young and doesn’t really have a staff. As the church grows, you hire your first few staff which often are a group of friends, your ‘golfing buddies’. As time goes on there’s a shift to a ‘basketball team’ mentality where the staff grows but the team can interchangeably play each other’s positions a bit. You may be watching from the bench, but you still know what each team member is doing. When a staff grows even larger, it shifts to a ‘football team’ structure where there are a lot of different groups on and off the field and you aren’t seeing everything that’s going on in the church. None of these team structures are better or worse than another, but rather these are a picture of the shift from a generalist position to specialist position in a certain area. Identify where your church’s staff structure is and what you are called to move to. Not every staff member will feel they are right for certain team structures.Different multisite strategies. // As High Point scaled up staff structures to support multiplication, they were then faced with different strategies of going multisite. In one case this looked like starting from scratch, developing a core group and sending them out to launch a campus. But in other cases declining or stuck churches reached out to talk about merging. Whether you pursue an organic launch or a church revitalization, there are opportunities in both.Alignment in mission. // Receiving a phone call from another church interested in merging can sound like a great opportunity, but Steve recommends caution in moving forward. First check whether you are aligned in motive and mission. Some churches may have just have lost their vision, or lost some leadership and don’t know what their next step is. There is opportunity to come together and relaunch with them. Other churches may not really understand or want the sort of changes that a merger will bring. On the backend, once you commit you will all have to do life and ministry together. Be sure that you’re unified in mission and vision. Bringing in a neutral third party can be helpful during merger conversations. Third parties can help determine if each church understands what the other is saying.

You can learn more about High Point Church at highpoint.church.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: House Right

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Source: Insider View of the XP Role at a Fast Growing Church with Steve Smith

The post Insider View of the XP Role at a Fast Growing Church with Steve Smith appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Is your church healthy but considering merging with another church?

Are you a multisite church that is thinking about helping another church through a merger and adding a campus at the same time?

Are you part of a struggling church that is looking at the potential of merging with another church in your community?

Over the last 10 years, church mergers have heated up and become a palatable topic for discussion, and what was once a taboo subject now seems to be a favorite topic of conversation among church leaders nationwide. A sizable number of multisite churches are considering merging and one recent study revealed that a third of all multisite church campuses exist because of a merger.

But how do you know if merging is the right next step for your church?

During my own ministry career, I’ve played a direct role in facilitating two mergers with churches that joined us to become campuses. Each time, the process required the leaders of our ministry team (myself included) and those of the joining churches to undergo an internal transformation. In my own heart, I had to get to the point where I was willing to do whatever it took to see the incoming church succeed.

Through the dialogue and conversation of this process, I found myself increasingly seeing the merger as an opportunity for us as a church. I got to the point where I just loved these people and wanted to see something positive happen. My own conviction led me to realize that the fundamentals of my own church needed to change in order to restore its original passion for reaching the community. Likewise, the leaders of the churches that joined us came to realize that a significant and necessary change on their part needed to take place. They realized that in order to reach new people, a type of death of their original church was required.

We often talk about church mergers using rebirth language because it supplies a framework for understanding what a healthy merger could look like, especially since both sides of these merger conversations need to experience a transformation of heart. There is a palatable sense of resurrection that needs to take place in the life of a church to experience the new life that is on the other side. We come as lead churches thinking that we want to do whatever it takes to serve, care and love for this community of believers. But because we see that brighter future ahead for our communities as they join together, it requires us to lay down what we’ve done in the past.

As I think about your church and what it might take for you to engage in a successful merger, there are a few things that came to the surface as warning signs against merging. My desire is that you would be a part of healthy, thriving church mergers. The two mergers that I was directly involved in resulted in a more than 20 times return on attendance, new life through baptisms, kids in church that hadn’t been in there in years, and all kinds of other amazing things. But if you’re thinking about a merger, I would advise you consider these five warning signs carefully before you step forward into one.

Too Far Away

The greatest success factor in the health of a merger is the lead church’s ability to invest a large, healthy volunteer core that is able to breathe new life into the joining church.

Oftentimes when a church has atrophied, the volunteer community has withered as well. If this new campus is too far away from your existing community, it will be difficult for you to inject a renewed sense of vitality into that community. If the distance between the two communities is too great, you won’t be able to ensure that a solid group of volunteers can serve that community well in the days ahead. 

Measure the distance between the two locations and plot your volunteers onto a map to see how many you might have at the new location. Let the data determine whether you have an existing community that could be a part of the merged campus.

A Cultural “Misfit”

It all comes down to the culture and vision of the church. 

What has God called your church to do? Require these conversations to take place to discover how strongly the joining church aligns with its own mission and vision. If there isn’t a fundamental understanding about why the church exists and what its role is in the world, it will set up the post-merger dynamic to drag down the mission of the church. Your conversations need to be united about what the mission of the church is and then focused on doing whatever it takes to achieve it. From my perspective, the church is the only organization in the world that exists for the people outside its doors, and the conversation needs to stay focused on that.

We would love to merge with other churches that share similar convictions but have just lost their way and don’t have a recent history of being able to engage their communities as a result. But if there isn’t a deep conviction within that church that they should be doing whatever it takes to reach and serve those in their community, then the merger is going to be difficult.

If you can’t achieve strong alignment in the mission and culture of the church, you will face problems.

A Large Financial Debt Load

More often than not, financial troubles become the straw that breaks the camel’s back as a church contemplates closing its doors.

Financial problems are common motivations for churches considering merging with another church, and while this is a frequent reality, the lead church needs to think very carefully about the implications of assuming that debt. For example, churches that have struggled with debt for years often defer maintenance on buildings (which may mask significant building issues that could drive into the tens of thousands—or hundreds of thousands—of dollars). Churches that struggle financially often underpay staff, which may have compromised the church’s ability to serve with excellence. There may also be reputational issues that the church may not be able to overcome—even with the new brand.

Straight up: if you are assuming debt in the form of a mortgage or other long-term commitments, you need to consider very carefully whether your church can carry that load.

We want to ensure that the financial institutions that are expecting to be repaid actually get repaid so that your church can move forward. Don’t just blow past or ignore the financial entanglement that is about to happen with the merger. Evaluate it and consider its full impact on your financial operations.

Mutual State of Decline

There used to be a type of church merger where two struggling churches would pool their resources to try to bounce back and have an influence. This is not a particularly promising idea.

Two organizations that are unclear on how to impact their community, raise the required financial resources, release volunteers, or develop leaders won’t get better at those things when they come together.

If your church is looking at joining another church, avoid churches that appear to be in decline. Combining two churches that are struggling will not somehow magically produce a church that suddenly thrives. Unless there is a change in the trajectory of where a church is going, then it won’t be able improve at what God has called it to do.

It’s Just An Asset Acquisition  

If you’re a lead church considering mergers and your primary reason for doing so is to acquire assets that could help your church’s balance statement, please don’t merge with other churches.

There is a high level of hard work that needs to be done to honor the generation that is passing on the asset to your church. If you think of these churches as just buildings that you can slap your brand onto, you are mistaken. These churches have been in their communities for years, or even decades, and you have the privilege of joining with another church in order to see amazing things happen in the community. Of course, there’s often an asset transfer in a church merger and that tends to be a positive outcome for your church. However, if that’s all it’s about for you as a lead church, I would caution you from moving forward.

Similarly, if you’re joining church and all you see is a building, you’re missing the opportunity to have your people join this new venture and see amazing things happen. I love seeing church leaders who have joined with the lead churches become reactivated in their leadership and service and re-energized with what God has in store for their community. Look at this as a positive way to get people more engaged in the mission of Jesus.

More help for you as you think about church mergers

There’s no doubt that church mergers are a hot topic, and we want to help you as you look for resources to make these mergers go better. Click here to download an audio recording and a PDF that will help your leadership team as you think about church mergers. Here’s what you’ll find:

An interview with Kristy Rutter where she talks through the best practices of being engaged in a church merging process. (Kristy has since passed away after a battle with cancer. She was one of the clearest voices and practitioners in this area and I was honored to interview her about her experiences.) A PDF download from Portable Church Industries on what every multisite should know for a merger conversation. This PDF offers some food for thought and acts as a great discussion starter as you and your team wrestle with campus expansion.

Thank You to This Article’s Sponsor: HarperCollins Publishers

Grab Liquid Church: 6 Powerful Currents to Saturate Your City for Christ and read it with your team. It’s an inspiring & practical guide for reaching people in a post-Christian culture.

Pick-up your copy and enjoy the other free resources for your church at www.LiquidChurchBOOK.com

Source: 5 Warning Signs That Your Church Shouldn’t Merge

The post 5 Warning Signs That Your Church Shouldn’t Merge appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by unSeminary: Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited to talk with returning guest, Dan Zimbardi, Executive Pastor at Sandals Church in California.

Sandals started 22 years ago in the living room of lead pastor, Matt Brown, and today has 11 locations throughout the middle and southern parts of California.

Dan is with us today to talk about revitalizing and replanting churches through church mergers.

Finding a solution. // Churches in America are facing many challenges in today’s world. 80% of churches have plateaued or are declining. About 59% of Millennials that grew up in the church have left. Thousands of churches are closing their doors each year. Sandals Church has had a front row view in witnessing church closures so they started the ROGO Foundation in response. The ROGO Foundation focuses on people and places. The “people” side of the service trains ministry leaders and the “places” side is all about merging with churches, remodeling them, and then replanting them.Honor the people. // Sandals Church has had the opportunity for eight different church mergers, and was able to remodel and replant seven of them. Another one was donated to them to sell and they used the proceeds to plant more churches and train more leaders. Sandals Church believes that everything belongs to the LORD. Through the ROGO Foundation they’ve found that by repurposing and repositioning these church buildings and assets, it’s been a great way to reach more people and raise up the next generation of leaders. But before you consider a church merger, it’s very important for the whole process to begin and end with honor. The ROGO Foundation asks God to help them keep a real posture of humility when entering into conversations with other churches.Lead with empathy. // As the lead church, when entering into a conversation with another church, think about how you can best respect the members and staff of the follow church. Sandals invites the members of the follow church they’re talking with to sit down with another one of the churches they’ve merged with so they can ask any question they have. Be patient with the process, which can take a year or more. Dan reminds us that we have to go at the pace of the other church. As the lead church you can’t be overanxious, pushy, or get frustrated. You have to lead with empathy and humility. Build relationships. // Spend time building a relationship with the people that are the body of Christ and get to know people from the follow church. If the church merger feels like a transaction to the follow church, it’s either not going to happen, or it’s going to leave a bad taste in people’s mouths after it’s done.Count the cost before saying yes. // Practically speaking, it’s important to make sure you have enough money to relaunch and replant the church. Don’t enter into a partnership before thoroughly researching the situation and having necessary inspections.Examine your motives. // When considering whether to partner and merge with another church, search your heart. If you are focusing on simply getting bigger or being the savior, the partnership won’t work and isn’t focused on God. Focus instead on how you can serve and build up the other church, whether or not you end up merging in the long run.Look for guidance. // If you are part of a small church that is facing a difficult time, reach out to Sandals for guidance on the course of action to take. You can also take time to talk with the team at Sandals if you are part of a lead church that is looking for counsel on how to partner successfully with a follow church.

You can learn more about Sandals Church at www.sandalschurch.com and about the ROGO Foundation at www.rogofoundation.com.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: INJOY Stewardship Solutions

Craft customized church capital campaigns to fund new facilities, up-fit existing facilities, buy land, and pay off debt.

Find out how much your church could raise in a capital campaign led by INJOY Stewardship Solutions.

Source: Insights from 8 Church Mergers with Dan Zimbardi

The post Insights from 8 Church Mergers with Dan Zimbardi appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Source: 5 Ways to Launch New Campuses

The post 5 Ways to Launch New Campuses appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by unSeminary: Welcome back to our monthly All About Multisite podcast! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows:

Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 (!) locations and is doing all kinds of great stuff, including a killer kids’ & youth curriculum that they give away for free. Natalie’s a lot of fun and will have so many great insights around leading in a thriving multisite church.

Greg Curtis is our guest connections and assimilation expert. He leads at Eastside Christian Church, one of the fastest growing churches in the country, and literally, is the “go to” source for getting people to stick and stay in the church. (Eastside has assimilated something like 1,500 people in the last 18 months!) His coaching practice around assimilation is amazing.

Ben Stapley is our communications and service programming expert. Ben is one of the most helpful leaders I know. His day job is the Weekend Experience Director at Christ Fellowship in Miami, but he does so much to help other leaders with the “big show” part of church world.

And I, Rich, have been involved with 14 different campus launches over the years and enjoy helping churches that are thinking about multisite.

We are here to answer your questions about running a multisite church and are excited to be here today with our eleventh episode.

Open Question: Where
do you find new volunteers to help fuel your ministry area?

Natalie – I have a couple of different answers for that in our context. One is we literally raise them up. Luckily in kids and youth ministry we can start kids when they are young. And two is invite your friend, bring someone along with you. Greg – We have an ongoing process that through our steps they meet a ministry leader and sign up right then. What benefits us every month in assimilation ministry is they’re experiencing the environment they would serve in.Ben – I hit organizationally and then departmentally. We’re training for our teen nights, so for us that will be two birds with one stone where it’s going to be a training and recruitment time, high energy, high fun. The other tip is maybe every other year do a teaching service on volunteerism, giving back.

Question 1: What
should we expect as we look to the future with our expansion? What advice
should we consider as we look to mergers in the future?

A third of all new campuses are happening because of a merger. Ben advises to understand where your church is and how they are perceived in the local community before going down this road. How will other people perceive you when you reach out to them? Make the potential partnership a clear win-win where you are helping the other congregation and allowing them to learn from you even if they don’t merge with you. It will be a helpful journey for the church either way for the pastor and the congregation so they don’t have to feel threatened.

Having distinct clarity in as many areas as possible is important so that leadership from both churches come to the table and says they are all in this together. There are so many things to consider when it comes to a merger. Natalie warns that when you’re merging with a church that has been around for a long time there will be a lot of sacred cows that need to be sacrificed, even in the children’s ministry. Everyone needs to come to the same place, in everything from children’s ministry to security and all parts of the church.

Greg describes an 8 to 12 month process his church uses for
mergers:

Have a conversation with the pastor, which is always initiated by the pastor. The conversation is very candid and does not gloss over the difficulties ahead.Buy in from board. Eastside has had experiences where the pastor is all in, but the board not so much and the congregation voted against merging. An interest meeting that is open to the entire church. The church members all come for dinner in their fellowship hall and we show videos of other churches that we’ve been able to reboot with this process and we share our vision.Read the book Better Together by Jim Tomberlin and Warren Bird. It covers the area of the spiritual, social, political, and fiscal issues.Preview Service. Greg’s church sends their team over to the other church to do a worship service and includes all assimilation elements so the church can experience what would happen if they did merge with Eastside.The church has to vote. Determining the vote goes well, how many volunteers and staff will you need for critical mass for this campus? Greg’s group starts with 3 full-time staff: campus pastor, weekend experience director, and associate pastor.They have a final service and celebrate a mutual legacy.Construction phase. Installing audio/visual equipment, etc.Launch.

Question 2: Do you
have a tool you could share with our listeners?

Greg offers a link to Climbing the Assimalayas: Becoming Sherpas in People’s Journey to Connect. This PDF gives advice on connecting with guests and helping them connect and grow into the volunteer program at your church. With the assimilation follow up checklist in the PDF, Greg converts it into a checklist form on his computer and during meetings they check off what they’ve done. They are then able to see what still needs to be tackled and can make a plan for each item left.

Natalie offers help for home churches and making them kid friendly, as a lot of families are struggling with their kids being happy about going to home church. She offers three documents: Family Friendly Home Church Purpose, Family Friendly Home Church Sample Models, and Family Friendly Home Church Supply List.

Ben offers a link to the Bumper Checklist. The bumper is the 30-60 second video that usually plays before a message. It introduces the topic and practically speaking, it allows production teams to reset the stage in the dark. Great bumpers are a significant financial investment from you’re creative department. So you’ll want to make sure they’re as effective as possible. Here is a checklist to do just that.

Rich shares the link to 6 Dirty Secrets about Multisite Churches That (Almost) No-one is Talking About. If your church is thinking about doing multisite, this could be the kind of resource you could use with your team to get them thinking about multisite. Or if you’re already doing multisite, you could also use it with your team to flesh out some problems you may currently be having.

Contact us at our websites:www.themeetinghouse.comwww.curriculum.churchwww.eastside.comwww.gregcurtis-assimilation.comwww.cfmiami.orgwww.benstapley.info

Got a question for us? Record it and send it to rich@unseminary.com

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Source: All About Multisite // Mergers & Rebirths Plus Free Downloadable Resources For You!

The post All About Multisite // Mergers & Rebirths Plus Free Downloadable Resources For You! appeared first on Passion for Planting.