A recent Ministry Today magazine report said that many Megachurches are “getting bigger without getting bigger.”
How does a church get bigger without getting bigger?
The average megachurch in America has over 4,000 people attending weekend worship services and the average auditorium seats only 1,800.
They grow larger without building larger facilities by going multi-site. In the last five years, one-third of America’s megachurches have adopted the multi-site strategy to accommodate the growth. Rather than building larger buildings, they are simply adding new venues.
We (Victory Manila) went multi-site in 1986 and never looked back.
We now have 64 weekend worship services in 16 venues all over Metro Manila. We preach the same sermon in all 64 services in 16 different locations. No digital preachers. Only live preachers. (Some seem a bit dead, but we are praying for revival.) Requires lots of preparation. And lots of teamwork.
Too bad all the multi-site books, blogs, and seminars weren’t available in the ’80s and ’90s. Could have saved us lots of work.
We followed the “make it up as you go” multi-site strategy. Learned everything the hard way—by making mistake after mistake until we figured out what worked. By the time we figured out what worked, we outgrew it and had to change everything again.
That’s how we grew big without building a big building. We grew big leaders instead. Leaders with the capacity to lead strong congregations all over the city.
***new “accidental missionary” blog: Tues Top 10 List – Movies that Never Get Old
