Many people may not realize this but while I work for Seacoast Church, I actually do not work for any one of the Seacoast campuses.  I serve in what we call Central Support. Central Support serves all our campuses by providing support, resources and training.  One of the questions we get on occasion is: How do you guys know what’s going on at all 13 of your campuses?  Well there are many ways we do this but probably the most interesting is the Seacoast Skybox.  In this video Shawn Wood, our Experiences Pastor, gives a glimpse of his very helpful high tech tool.

Seacoast Church Skybox from Maclake on Vimeo.

Two weeks ago I announced a new social networking community for multi-site leaders called Leading Multi-site.  Well after only two weeks the site now has over 300 members from 140 different churches.  The response has been overwhelming.

Here are three things that have surprised me:

1. The level of conversation taking place.  The members have started over 30 discussion forums with over 130 comments in less than two weeks.
2. There are churches from six different countries who have joined LM: USA, Canada, Netherlands, Portugal, United Kingdom and Australia. (So spread the word to your international multi-site friends)
3. More than just campus pastors and Multisite executives have joined the site.  Worship leaders, children’s pastors, youth pastors, technical directors and more have joined and started groups or conversations for their specific areas. 

Here are three desires for the site:

1. Multi-site is still a very young movement, so our desire is to see multi-site leaders sharing their learnings and discovering best practices.
2. We want to see multi-site leaders getting to know other multi-site leaders and building a sense of community and camaraderie. 
3. We want to see LM become a place where current and future multi-site leaders can develop their leadership skills.

Here are three prayer requests I would ask you to pray:

1. This week we are hosting a phone call with over 30 different churches asking them to join us in an effort to develop Leadership Training content for the site. 
2. As I have researched Ning (the platform LM is hosted on) I’m beginning to see we have only scratched the surface of the power of this tool  Pray that God will send someone who has technical expertise in Ning to help us take it to the next level.
3. Pray that multi-site churches will catch the vision of this collaborative effort because as more churches catch this vision the more multi-site leaders will be helped and become more effective in their efforts to reach the lost.

Here are four quotes from those who are using the site:

1. “Love this site, like a facebook for multisite peeps. Looking forward to connecting and learning from others here” – Mary
2. “We are just looking into the multi-site concept. We do have a video cafe on site and working out the video stuff for that, but haven’t ventured off site yet. I’m looking forward to learning a lot. Thanks tons for creating this community!” – Dave
3. “Thanks for starting this awesome group. I look forward to the growth in the church that this site is going to bring! It’s a fantastic tool.” – Nick
4. “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for since we launched. I have learned a lot but I know there’s so much still to learn.”  – Doug

What started as an odd little movement has now exploded into an all out church growth strategy.  I’m talking about Multi-site ministry.  If you’re not familiar with multi-site go to this wikipedia link to get up to speed.  Multi-site churches use video or satellite feeds from their original campus to send the weekend message to other locations, enabling churches to expand their reach far beyond what was previously possible. 

According to Todd Rhoades of Monday Morning Insight, an October 2005 US multi-site church conference released statistics regarding growth in the number of churches in the United States operating as multi-site:

• In 1990, there were 10 multi-site churches.
• In 1998, that number had expanded to about 100.
• In late 2005, there were more than 1,500 multi-site churches in the United States.
• In mid-2008, there are an estimated 2,000 multi-site churches across the US. Multi-site church pioneer Jim Tomberlin of Third Quarter Consulting predicts that every major city and large community in America will have many multi-campus churches by 2010.

With the expansion of multi-site there is a growing need for leadership development.  Many of these multi-site churches are growing so quickly that it makes developing leaders a challenge.  I was talking with another multi-site church recently and said, “You know what we need? We need a fraternity for Campus Pastors and Multi-site leaders where they can learn from one another and share best practices, a leadership development site for Multi-site leaders”  And with that an idea was born.  Today I want to introduce you to Leading Multisite social Networking Community.

If you are a Senior Pastor, a Campus Pastor or a staff person that supports the multi-site work of your church then this site is for you.  Our intent is to create a network where multi-site leaders can build friendships, ask questions, find answers, develop leaders, and identify best practices.  So stop by and check it out.   If you’re not a staff person or a multi-site leader no worries you don’t have to be a member to see the content.  However, we do respectfully ask you not to join. 

Leading Multi-site also has a twitter so you can follow us at http://twitter.com/leadingmultisit

In yesterdays post I shared about my recent experience at Crossroads Church in Freeport, IL.  On Sunday night I spoke at their Leadership Rally which was followed by a night of worship.  At the worship service they showed the following video.  The crowd errupted in cheers and applause…they were witnessing what God was doing through their church. 

Freeport from Maclake on Vimeo.

What is God doing that you need to celebrate?  Are you sharing the wins with your congregation?