Leadership Network Innovation Series Sampler

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innov
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Full chapters from each book

in the Innovation Series
Endorsements for Confessions of a Reformission Rev:
After reading Driscoll’s Confessions, you will never go back to being
an inwardly focused church without a mission.
—Dan Kimball, author of They Like Jesus but not the Church
Driscoll’s Confessions is a necessary read for those who desire to take

the unchanging gospel into our ever-changing world.
—Darrin Patrick, founding pastor of The Journey
Endorsements for The Multi-site Church Revolution:

The multi-site church is not just another passing fad but a revolution-
ary remaking of the church. is a must-read.
—Robert Lewis, Pastor, Fellowship Bible Church
If you want to understand the rationale, benefits, and challenges of

multi-site, and to see some practical examples of how it works and
where it’s heading, The Multi-site Church Revolution is for you.
— Larry Osborne, Pastor, North Coast Church
Endorsements for The Big Idea:

Every ministry leader and church planter needs to read The Big Idea
—Craig Groeschel, author of It
The Big Idea is an approach to preaching that is as ancient as the

parables of Christ, but it will revolutionize the next generation of
preachers.
—Mark Batterson, Lead Pastor, National Community Church
Endorsements for Leadership from the Outside:
Kevin Harney has a heart for people in ministry. And he writes as
one who knows.
—John Ortberg, Pastor and Author, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church
If Christian leaders will prayerfully absorb Leadership From the Inside

Out, I am confident that they will emerge with a fortified soul, more
in love with their God, more aware of their own heart, more settled in
their calling, and more passionate about loving others.
— Gary Thomas, author of Authentic Faith and Sacred Pathways
Endorsements for The Monkey and the Fish:

I couldn’t put down The Monkey and the Fish until I finished it all.
Dave writes about our global and cultural context that most western
Christians are oblivious to . . . but not for long.
— Bob Roberts, author, The Multiplying Church
In The Monkey and the Fish, Dave Gibbons delivers insight that will
challenge your view of our world and the role of the local church.
— Tony Morgan, Chief Strategic Officer, The NewSpring Church
The Monkey and the Fish is an essential book for Christians and
church leaders seeking the answer for how the church should be in
the twenty-first century. Dave Gibbons brings us to a whole new level
to understand the perspective of Jesus, who is third-culture God.
— Namjung Lee, Pastor, Sarang Community Church, Seoul, Korea
Endorsements for Deliberate Simplicity:
Dave cuts through all the mess with practical ways to make church
natural, simple, & effective. Regardless of the form or stage of your
church, Deliberate Simplicity will save you time, money, and misery.
— Hugh Halter, Author of The Tangible Kingdom
Deliberate Simplicity is a valuable contribution to the move toward

lowering the bar on how church is done and raising the bar on what
it means to be a follower of Christ.
— Neil Cole, author, Organic Church
Endorsements for Servolution:

In all my years of exploring the power of leadership, I have learned
that the true expression of leadership is found in serving. I have wit-
nessed the incredible story of Dino Rizzo and Healing Place Church
and have seen the eternal impact that serving has made on so many
lives in their community and throughout the world. Servolution is a
must-read for anyone who wants to transform their life and the lives
of others simply by choosing to serve with no strings attached.
John C. Maxwell
Author, Speaker, and Founder of EQUIP
“Louisiana is a beautiful state with tremendous resources. But our

land and bounty cannot match the magnificence and generosity of
our people. I saw it first hand, when the levees broke, and the waters
rose. Dino and thousands like him took in the homeless, fed the
hungry, and served those in need. The power of love, the power of
serving, binds us together as a people and honors the truth of our
highest calling.”
Bobby Jindal
Governor of Louisiana
About the Leadership Network
Innovation Series
Since 1984, Leadership Network has fostered church innovation and
growth by diligently pursuing its far-reaching mission statement: To
identify high-capacity Christian leaders, to connect them with other
leaders, and to help them multiply their impact.
While specific techniques may vary as the church faces new oppor-
tunities and challenges, Leadership Network consistently focuses on
bringing together entrepreneurial leaders who are pursuing similar
ministry initiatives. The resulting peer-to-peer interaction, dialogue,
and collaboration — often across denominational lines — helps these
leaders better refine their individual strategies and accelerate their
own innovations.
To further enhance this process, Leadership Network develops
and distributes highly targeted ministry tools and resources, includ-
ing books, DVDs and videotapes, special reports, e-publications, and
free downloads.
Launched in 2006, the Leadership Network Innovation Series
presents case studies and insights from leading practitioners and
pioneering churches that are successfully navigating the ever-chang-
ing streams of spiritual renewal in modern society. Each book offers
real stories, about real leaders, in real churches, doing real ministry.
Readers gain honest and thorough analyses, transferable principles,
and clear guidance on how to put proven ideas to work in their indi-
vidual settings.
With the assistance of Leadership Network — and the Leadership
Network Innovation Series — today’s Christian leaders are energized,
equipped, inspired, and enabled to multiply their own dynamic king-
dom-building initiatives. And the pace of innovative ministry is grow-
ing as never before.
For additional information on the mission or activities of
Leadership Network, please contact:
800-765-5323 • www.leadnet.org • client.care@leadnet.org

sampler
r eal stories
in n o v a t i v e i d e a s
transferrable truths
Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s
Confessions of a Reformission Rev, by Mark Driscoll

Chapter Zero
The Multi-site Church Revolution, by Geoff Surratt,

Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird
Chapter One
The Big Idea, by Dave Ferguson, Jon Ferguson and Eric Bramlett
Chapter One
Leadership from the Inside Out, by Kevin Harney

Chapter Eight
Sticky Church, by Larry Osborne

Chapter Four
The Monkey and the Fish, by Dave Gibbons

Chapter One
Deliberate Simplicity, by Dave Browning

Introduction
Servolution, by Dino Rizzo

Chapter Two
A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip, by Geoff Surratt,

Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird
Chapter One
This is the story of the birth and growth of Seattle’s innovative
Mars Hill Church, one of America’s fastest growing churches
located in one of America’s toughest mission fields. It’s also the
story of the growth of a pastor, the mistakes he’s made along
the way, and God’s grace and work in spite of those mistakes.
Mark Driscoll’s emerging, missional church took a rocky road from its start in a
hot, upstairs youth room with gold shag carpet to its current weekly attendance of
thousands. With engaging humor, humility, and candor, Driscoll shares the failures,
frustrations, and just plain messiness of trying to build a church that is faithful to the
gospel of Christ in a highly post-Christian culture. In the telling, he’s not afraid to skewer
some sacred cows of traditional, contemporary, and emerging churches.
Each chapter discusses not only the hard lessons learned but also the principles and
practices that worked and that can inform your church’s ministry, no matter its present
size. The book includes discussion questions and appendix resources.
“After reading a book like this, you can never go back to being an inwardly focused
church without a mission. Even if you disagree with Mark about some of the things he
says, you cannot help but be convicted to your core about what it means to have a heart
for those who don’t know Jesus.”
—DAN KIMBALL, author,The Emerging Church
“… will make you laugh, cry, and get mad … school you, shape you, and mold you to
have the right kind of priorities to lead the church in today’s messy world.”
—ROBERT WEBBER, Northern Seminary
MARK DRISCOLL is considered one of the fifty most influential pastors in America. He is
the founder of Mars Hill Church in Seattle (www.marshillchurch.org), the Paradox Theater, and the
Acts 29 Network, which has planted scores of churches. The author of The Radical Reformission,
Mark speaks extensively around the country. He lives with his wife and children in Seattle.
RELIGION / Christian Church / Growth
US $16.99/UK £9.99/CAN $21.99

ISBN-10: 0-310-27016-2
Cover design: Kirk DouPonce, DogEaredDesign.com ISBN-13: 978-0-310-27016-4
Cover photo: Thomas James Hurst, The Seattle Times 5 1 6 9 9
EAN
This book is part of the

Leadership Network 9 780310 270164
Innovation Series.
Contents
Acknowledgments 7
Prelude 9
0. Ten Curious Questions 13
1. Jesus, Our Offering Was $137 and I Want to Use It to Buy Bullets 37
0 – 45 People
2. Jesus, If Anyone Else Calls My House,

I May Be Seeing You Real Soon 57
45 – 75 People
3. Jesus, Satan Showed Up and I Can’t Find My Cup 73

75 – 150 People
4. Jesus, Could You Please Rapture the Charismaniac Lady

Who Brings Her Tambourine to Church? 91
150 – 350 People
5. Jesus, Why Am I Getting Fatter and Meaner? 115

350 – 1,000 People
6. Jesus, Today We Voted to Take a Jackhammer to Your Big Church 139

1,000 – 4,000 People
7. Jesus, We’re Loading Our Squirt Guns to Charge Hell Again 163
4,000 – 10,000 People
Appendix 1 — The Junk Drawer: Answers to Common Questions 188

Appendix 2 — Distinctives of Larger Churches 195
Notes 198
0310270162_confess_rev.indd 5 02/03/06 11:44:08 AM

I was not a Christian when
I came to the church.
Today I am a pastor.

Ten Curious
Questions
This book is about the hard lessons we have learned at Mars Hill
Church in Seattle (www.marshillchurch.org). Writing this book
caused me to reflect on our past and subsequently conjured up a
horrendous feeling eerily similar to seeing my high school yearbook
photo in which I sported a soccer-rocker mullet. Like me, most
people prefer not to dwell on past moments of folly, embarrassment,
or failure. But the providential hand of a gracious God commonly
uses exactly such occasions to shape ministers and their ministries.
At each step of the crazy journey God has had us on, we have made
mistakes that should have killed us. But God has continually saved
us from ourselves and, like the perfect Father that he is, has taught
us important lessons.
Before we get started, I want to ask you a handful of questions
that I continually ask myself to ensure that our church remains
faithful to Jesus and his mission in our city. These questions will
help provide us a common jargon for understanding one another.
They are intended to help clarify your church’s identity, gospel,
mission, size, and priorities.
Question 1
Will your Rev. require reformission?
In my previous book, The Radical Reformission: Reaching Out
without Selling Out, I explained the growing reformation of what
it means to be a Christian missionary.1 Missions once solely meant
sending American Christians into foreign lands and cultures to live
among the people there and to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to
14

Ten Curious Questions • 15
them in a relevant way. But reformission also seeks to determine

how Christians and their churches can most effectively be mission-
aries to their own local cultures.
Reformission, therefore, begins with a simple return to Jesus,
who, by grace saves us and sends us into reformission. Jesus has
called us to (1) the gospel (loving our Lord), (2) the culture (lov-
ing our neighbor), and (3) the church (loving our Christian broth-
ers and sisters). One of the causes for the lack of reformission in
the American church is that various Christian traditions are prone
to faithfulness on only one or two of these counts. Consequently,
when we fail to love the Lord, our culture, and our church simul-
taneously, reformation ceases, leaving one of three holes: the para-
church, liberalism, and fundamentalism.
Gospel + Culture – Church = Parachurch
First, some people become so frustrated with the church that

they bring the gospel into culture without it. This is referred to as
the parachurch and includes evangelistic ministries such as Young
Life and Campus Crusade for Christ. The parachurch has a pro-
pensity to love the Lord and love its neighbors but not to love the
church.
Culture + Church – Gospel = Liberalism
Second, some churches are so concerned with being cultur-

ally relevant that, though they are deeply involved in the culture,
they neglect the gospel. This is classic liberal Christianity. Liberal
Christians run the risk of loving their neighbors and their Chris-
tian brothers and sisters at the expense of loving their Lord and his
gospel.
Church + Gospel – Culture = Fundamentalism
Third, some churches are more into their church and its tradi-
tions, buildings, and politics than they are the gospel. Though they
know the gospel theologically, they rarely take it out of their church.
This is classic fundamentalist Christianity, which flourishes most

16 • Confessions of a Reformission Rev.
widely in more independent-minded, Bible-believing churches.

Fundamental Christians are prone to love their Lord and their
brothers and sisters but not their neighbors.
The only way out of these holes is repentance, which enables
reformission. Through repentance, Christians and churches are
empowered by the Holy Spirit to simultaneously love the Lord, love
their neighbors, and love their Christian brothers and sisters.
Gospel + Culture + Church = Reformission
Reformission combines the best aspects of each of these types

of Christianity: living in the tension of being culturally liberal yet
theologically conservative Christians and churches who are abso-
lutely driven by the gospel of grace to love their Lord, their neigh-
bors, and their fellow Christians. This book is a painfully honest
chronological account of our church’s reformission and how it
caused us to grow from 0 to 4,000 people in eight years.
Question 2
Will your church be traditional and institutional, contemporary and
evangelical, or emerging and missional?
For the past one thousand years, the Western church has enjoyed
a privileged position in the center of culture, during what was
known as Christendom. Because of this, the church also provided
a common moral framework and language for our nation. Simple
examples would include the frequent biblical allusions in the writ-
ings of our founding fathers and, more recently, the deeply biblical
imagery in the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.
During the era of Christendom, it was generally believed that
our national culture was Christian, or at least Judeo-Christian.
Consequently, it was the job of the church to make converts for
the nation by challenging people to commit themselves to Jesus
and live morally. The upside of Christendom was that many people
did attend church. The downside was that the church in large part
became the servant of morality and the national good. The result

was a mean-spirited hypocrisy among “Christians” who wrongly

believed morality and redemption were synonymous and lived lives
more dominated by the American values of pride and selfishness
than by the gospel virtues of humility and selflessness. Also, Chris-
tendom churches defined themselves in contrast to other competing
churches, which often led to unnecessary hostility between Chris-
tian traditions that were distinct but not altogether different.
The era of Christendom was dominated by the traditional and
institutional church, which is marked by the following traits:2
• Missions is solely funding Americans to evangelize in foreign

countries.
• Culture is where the church expects to occupy a privileged
position of influence.
• The primary culture to reach is modern.
• Theology is liberalism or fundamentalism, with fighting
between the two sides.
• Churches exist largely to meet the needs of church members.
• Churches grow through births and attracting people with
denominational loyalties.
• Community means the church is a subculture that is closed
to outsiders.
• Pastors are selected and trained in seminaries, outside of the
local church.
• Pastors are servants and teachers who do most of the church
ministry, especially evangelization of the lost.
• Lost people are not frequently pursued for evangelistic
relationships.
• Faith is private and personal.
• Worship ser vices are based on tradition (e.g., robes, hymnals,
organs, liturgy).
• Church buildings are considered sacred places (e.g., crosses,
stained glass, icons) where people are to dress and act
formally.

As the era of Christendom began to wind down, it became appar-

ent that two things were needed. First, the dwindling remnant of
Christendom included many people who attended church but did
not know Jesus and needed to be saved. Second, the growing baby-
boom generation was less likely to attend church and less attracted
by tradition or the denominational heritage than their parents had
been. The result was the birth of a new form of church, the con-
temporary and evangelical church, which sought to evangelize the
unsaved in the church and to bring other unsaved to the church to
be evangelized. Today, the traditional and institutional church is
hemorrhaging to death. In 1906, 40 percent of all Sunday worship-
ers were in mainline denominations.3 By 1999, that number had
fallen to only 16 percent of all worshipers because less people were
attending church and those who did were choosing the newer form
of church.4
The end of Christendom and the transition to a post-Christian
culture is currently dominated by the contemporary and evangelical
church, which is marked by the following common traits:
• Missions is a church department that sends people and

money to foreign countries.
• Culture is where the church battles to regain a lost position
of privileged influence.
• The primary culture to reach was modern and is
transitioning to postmodern.
• Theology is conservative and is built on a modernistic view
of truth and knowledge.
• Churches exist to meet the felt needs of spiritual consumers.
• Churches grow through marketing that brings people to
church events.
• Community means the church is a safe subculture that
welcomes lost people into the church.
• Pastors need not have formal theological training or
ordination.

• Pastors are CEOs who lead and manage their staff, which is
responsible for ministry.
• Lost people are invited to evangelistic church programs that
target seekers.
• Faith is private and personal but is openly shown at church.
• Worship ser vices are based on styles from the 1980s and
1990s (acoustic guitars, drama, etc.).
• Church buildings are functional places (e.g., no crosses,
no stained glass, no icons) where people can dress and act
informally.
With Christendom essentially winding down now in the United

States and officially over in Europe, the traditional and institutional
church is dying as its market share dries up, and the contemporary
and evangelical church is scrambling to adjust to emerging post-
modern cultures and generations. A third incarnation of the church
is arising, the emerging and missional church, which is marked by the
following traits:
• Missions is every Christian being a missionary to their local

culture.
• The church accepts that it is marginalized in culture and
holds no privileged position of influence but gains influence
by serving the common good.
• The primary culture to reach is postmodern and pluralistic.
• Theology ranges from ancient orthodoxy to heterodox
liberalism built on postmodern denials of true truth and
known knowledge.
• Churches are the people who love Jesus and serve his mission
in a local culture.
• Churches grow as Christians bring Jesus to lost people
through hospitality.
• Community means the church is a counterculture with a new
kingdom way of life through Jesus.

• Pastors need not be ordained or formally educated in

theology and are trained in the church.
• Pastors are missiologists who train Christians to be effective
missionaries.
• Lost people are saved by the Holy Spirit when and how he
determines.
• Faith is lived publicly together as the church and includes all
of life.
• Worship ser vices blend ancient forms and current local
cultural styles.
• Church buildings are sacred, as is all of God’s creation.
Because the declining, dominant, and emerging church types

each work from a different set of assumptions, it is incredibly impor-
tant that churches and church leaders determine which church
form they will adopt. And to answer this question, they must care-
fully consider what the people in their local culture are like. For
example, a church ministering to modern-thinking retirees would
likely have better success with a traditional and institutional church.
This explains why Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, with a tradi-
tional liturgy, a robed choir, a pipe organ, and the classic oration
of preacher Dr. James Kennedy, is flourishing among retirees in
Florida. Conversely, a church ministering to suburban baby boom-
ers would likely have better success with a contemporary and evan-
gelical church, such as Willow Creek or Saddleback, and a pastor
like Rick Warren or Bill Hybels. And a church ministering to spiri-
tual young creative types would likely have better success with an
emerging and missional church and pastor.
This book is about our church, Mars Hill, which is an emerg-
ing and missional church because that is the most effective church
form for reaching the city of Seattle, to which God has called us. I
believe that the emerging and missional church will eventually dis-
place the contemporary and evangelical church in much the same
way that it displaced the traditional and institutional church. But

as long as there are varying cultures of people, there will be mul-

tiple church forms.
The point is not that one of these church forms is good and the
others are bad. Rather, one is likely more effective for reaching the
people in your local culture than the other forms are. Therefore,
those using one church form need not critique the other forms as
long as all are faithful to the functions mandated for the church in
Scripture.
To be effective, churches and their leaders must first evaluate
what type of church they presently are. Churches must also evalu-
ate what their culture will look like in the future and how their
church can best prepare to reach that emerging culture. They must
then become the church that their future culture will need, if they
are not already.
Question 3
Will your church be an emergent liberal church or an emerging
evangelical church?
I was part of what is now known as the Emerging Church Move-
ment in its early days and spent a few years traveling the country
to speak to emerging leaders in an effort to help build a missional
movement in the United States. The wonderful upside of the emerg-
ing church is that it elevates mission in American culture to a high
priority, which is a need so urgent that its importance can hardly
be overstated.
I had to distance myself, however, from one of many streams
in the emerging church because of theological differences. Since
the late 1990s, this stream has become known as Emergent. The
emergent church is part of the Emerging Church Movement but
does not embrace the dominant ideology of the movement. Rather,
the emergent church is the latest version of liberalism. The only
difference is that the old liberalism accommodated modernity and
the new liberalism accommodates postmodernity.

During dinner one evening with a friend, Dan Kimball, who

wrote The Emerging Church, I was struck by his distinction between
the emergent church and the emerging church.5 There has been
much confusion on this matter, partly due to the similarity in names.
The emerging church is a growing, loosely connected movement of
primarily young pastors who are glad to see the end of modernity
and are seeking to function as missionaries who bring the gospel
of Jesus Christ to emerging and postmodern cultures. The emerg-
ing church welcomes the tension of holding in one closed hand
the unchanging truth of evangelical Christian theology ( Jude 3)
and holding in one open hand the many cultural ways of showing
and speaking Christian truth as a missionary to America (1 Cor.
9:19 – 23). Since the movement, if it can be called that, is young and
is still defining its theological center, I do not want to portray the
movement as ideologically unified because I myself swim in the
theologically conservative stream of the emerging church.
I am particularly concerned, however, with some growing trends
among some people: the rejection of Jesus’ death on the cross as
a penal substitute for our sins;6 resistance to openly denouncing
homosexual acts as sinful;7 the questioning of a literal eternal tor-
ment in hell, which is a denial that holds up only until, in an ironic
bummer, you die and find yourself in hell;8 the rejection of God’s
sovereignty over and knowledge of the future, as if God were a
junior-college professor who knows only bits and pieces of trivia;9
the rejection of biblically defined gender roles, thereby contribut-
ing to the “mantropy” epidemic among young guys now fretting
over the best kind of looffah for their skin type and the number of
women in the military dying to save their Bed, Bath and Beyond
from terrorist attacks;10 and the rejection of biblical names for God,
such as Father, which is essentially apologizing before the unbeliev-
ing world for the prayer life of the flamboyantly heterosexual Jesus,
who uttered the horrendously politically incorrect “Our Father”
without ever having the decency to apologize for being a misogynist
patriarchal meanie.11 This is ultimately all the result of a diminished
respect for the perfection, authority, and clarity of Scripture, all of

which was written by patriarchal men. After all, how in the world
can we possibly know what anything means after we have a college
degree?12 Come to think of it, I’m not even sure what I mean when
I say that I’m not sure what Scripture means — know what I mean?
For some Emergent leaders, this critique may be as welcome
as water on a cat. But I assure you that I speak as one within the
Emerging Church Movement who has great love and appreciation
for Christian leaders with theological convictions much different
from my own. And because the movement has defined itself as a
conversation, I would hope there would be room in the conversation
for those who disagree, even poke a bit of fun, but earnestly desire
to learn from and journey with those also striving to be faithful to
God and fruitful in emerging cultures. Standing with my brothers
and sisters in our great mission, I hope this book can in some small
way help the greater church emerge in biblical faithfulness and mis-
sional fruitfulness.
Therefore, it is very important that any church seeking to be
emerging define whether it is an emerging evangelical church or an
emergent liberal church. Our church is emerging and missional in
its practice and evangelical and biblical in its theology.
Question 4
Will you proclaim a gospel of forgiveness, fulfillment, or freedom?
Traditional, contemporary, and emerging churches also differ
in how they present the gospel. The traditional church generally
proclaims a gospel of forgiveness. According to the gospel of for-
giveness, we have sinned against God and are under his wrath until
we ask for his forgiveness and live changed lives of repentance. This
gospel worked for people in Christendom because they had a gen-
eral knowledge of authority, sin, judgment, hell, and Jesus.
Though this gospel made sense to most people at one time, this
sort of gospel seems judgmental, mean-spirited, naive, and narrow-
minded to the ever-growing number of people who do not under-
stand the basic tenets of Christianity. Such people do not appreciate

being pushed to make an immediate decision to reject sin and accept

Jesus because they don’t know what sin is or who Jesus is until we
have taken the time to inform their understanding, which may take
months or years in a friendship.
The contemporary church generally proclaims a gospel of ful-
fillment. This gospel is influenced by the non-Christian psycholo-
gist Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs.13 His point is that
people move from basic survival needs to higher needs of actualiz-
ing their full potential to be and do all that they desire. The prob-
lem with Maslow’s theory is simple but significant. He establishes
each individual human being as their own god, on their own mis-
sion, pursuing their own glory. In this framework, I do not exist for
God but rather God exists for me. For example, if the Lord’s Prayer
were rewritten according to Maslow’s priorities, it would read “My
kingdom come, my will be done, for mine is the kingdom, power,
and glory.”
The contemporary church’s gospel of fulfillment essentially
accepts Maslow’s faulty hierarchy and teaches that God exists to
enable each of us to actualize our full potential. So in this therapeu-
tic gospel, you use Jesus to achieve your ends, which can vary from
health to wealth to emotional contentment, or whatever personal
vision you have for your own glory.14 What hinders the fulfillment
of our full potential is not that we are sinners but rather that we
don’t love ourselves enough and don’t have enough self-esteem and
positive thinking. God exists to worship us, by telling us how love-
able we are and how valuable we are. In this gospel, the cross is an
echo of my own great worth, since God found me so loveable and so
valuable that he was willing to die for me so that I could love myself,
believe in myself, and achieve my full glory.
The therapeutic gospel is a false gospel and an enemy of mis-
sion for many reasons. First, it does not call me to love God and my
neighbor, but instead only to love myself. Second, it does not call
me to God’s mission but rather calls God to my mission. Third, it
does not call me to be part of the church to serve God’s mission,
but instead to use the church to make me a better person. Fourth,

it does not call me to use my spiritual gift(s) to build up the church

but rather to actualize my full potential. Fifth, it takes pride, which
Augustine called the mother of all sins, and repackages it as self-
esteem, the maidservant of all virtue.
The emerging church proclaims a gospel of freedom. Accord-
ing to the gospel of freedom, we were made to live in community
with God and with each other without the pains of sin and death.
But because of our sin, we have wrecked God’s good creation and
brought death and havoc into all of life. And though we are self-
destructive, God in his loving-kindness has chosen to save us from
ourselves. Our God, Jesus, came to live without sin as our example,
die for our sin as our substitute, and rise from death as our Lord
who liberates us from Satan, sin, and death.
The gospel of freedom says that only through Jesus can we be
brought back into friendship with God and with each other, because
he takes away the sin that separates us. And only through Jesus can
we be brought back into his original intentions for us: worshiping
God instead of ourselves, serving the common good, making cul-
ture, and through his grace, helping to right what has been made
wrong through sin. The Bible is replete with the gospel of freedom,
beginning with Moses. Perhaps the most obvious example is found
in the story of the Exodus, from which Paul adopts his understand-
ing of redemption to mean being freed by God from slavery to
evil.
Question 5
Will your church be attractional, missional, or both?
The contemporary church growth movement and its evangeli-
cal seeker churches are attraction-based, meaning that the church
functions as a purveyor of religious goods and ser vices. Therefore,
the primary task of these churches is to bring people from the cul-
ture into the church to partake of programming that targets their
felt needs.

Conversely, emerging and missional churches see the church’s

primary task as sending Christians out of the church and into the
culture to serve as missionaries through relationships, rather than
bringing lost people into the church to be served by programming.
Pastors of emerging and missional churches routinely criticize the
attraction-based model as caring only about bringing more people
in to grow a bigger church. And pastors of attraction-based churches
commonly defend themselves by stating that their churches are
larger than most emerging and missional churches, which they say
proves that attraction-based churches are more effectively making
disciples as Jesus commanded.
The growing criticism between these camps is in large part
unnecessary, because they are working for the same goal — the
reaching of lost people for Jesus — but simply using different meth-
ods, methods that are complimentary, not contradictory. Conse-
quently, churches must both bring people in and send people out
and must therefore structure themselves to achieve both objectives.
Additionally, we see both attractional and missional ministry meth-
ods in the life of Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ incarnation is in itself missional. God the Father sent God
the Son into culture on a mission to redeem the elect by the power
of God the Ghost. After his resurrection, Jesus also sent his dis-
ciples into culture, on a mission to proclaim the success of his mis-
sion, and commissioned all Christians to likewise be missionaries
to the cultures of the world (e.g., Matt. 28:18 – 20; John 20:21; Acts
1:7 – 8). Emerging and missional Christians have wonderfully redis-
covered the significance of Jesus’ incarnational example of being a
missionary immersed in a culture.
But sadly, they are also prone to overlook the attractional nature
of Jesus’ earthly ministry.15 In addition to immersing himself in
a culture for a mission, Jesus’ ministry was also marked by the
large crowds that were drawn to him because of his preaching and
miracles.
One important example of the attractional elements of Jesus’
ministry is found in the sixth chapter of John’s gospel. A very large

crowd, numbering thousands of people, came to see Jesus perform

miracles and to hear him preach. Jesus appears to be modeling
attractional church growth strategies of doing what was needed
to gather many people to hear the preaching of the gospel. Jesus
then fed the entire crowd by miraculously multiplying a little boy’s
lunch, which would only have increased the crowds that thronged
to see him.
But Jesus then preached that he was the bread of life, which
drove many people away from him in confusion and disagreement.
We see that Jesus not only gathered a crowd but also intentionally
drove many people away because they were not among the elect
chosen for salvation ( John 6:37). Some disciples, however, remained
with Jesus and continued to be trained as missionaries by Jesus.
They were later sent out to follow his pattern of incarnating in a
culture, attracting crowds, preaching hard words that harden some
hearts and soften others, and then training those who believe to be
missionaries who follow Jesus’ principles of attractional and mis-
sional ministry.
Therefore, the growing hostility between attractional-ministry
pastors with larger churches and missional-ministry pastors with
smaller churches need not occur. Instead, each needs to learn from
the other; each has a vital piece of the truth gleaned from the life
of Jesus.
Attractional churches need to transform their people from
being consumers in the church to being missionaries outside of the
church. Missional churches need to gather crowds to their church
so that hard words of repentance can be preached in an effort to
expose people’s hearts. Those whom God saves can then be trained
to go back out into the culture as missionaries to gather more people
to repeat the process. Simply, the goal of a church that is both mis-
sional and attractional is to continually follow Jesus’ example so
that more people are saved for God’s mission and more influence
is spread for God’s kingdom, without rejecting one aspect of Jesus’
ministry in favor of another.

Question 6
What size shoe will your church wear?
Churches, like children, have a shoe size that they will grow
into. As a church grows, it must accept its size. This can be diffi-
cult because people have different ideas of what constitutes “large”
and “small.” Additionally, people are prone to attach a moral value
to church size. This means that people who prefer a small church
will criticize a large church for being too slick and impersonal, and
people who prefer a big church will criticize a small church for not
experiencing enough conversion growth, diversity of people, or
quality of programming.
When it comes to church size, a few things are important to
remember. First, a church must determine what size they would like
to become and start acting like a church of that size if they hope to
achieve that goal. Second, a church must accept its size and not allow
people to demand that they receive the type of treatment they would
receive at a church of whatever size they prefer. An example of this
would be the expectation of some people in a large church that the
pastor be as accessible as the pastor of a smaller church. Third, for a
church to grow, it must also accept that the church will change. The
problem with most churches is not that they don’t want to experi-
ence conversion growth but rather that they do not want to change,
which negates their ability to grow and is a sin to be repented of.
Therefore, each church must ask how large they want to be and
prepare to work toward that goal. To help determine a reasonable
goal, it is helpful to see the various sizes of other churches. How-
ever, determining size categories for churches is very difficult. The
following is a rough estimate I came up with after reading some
books on the subject16 and interviewing John Vaughan of Church
Growth Today, who was particularly helpful. No one is exactly sure
how many Protestant churches there are in the United States, but
the general figures are somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000

churches.17 So for purposes of a rough estimate, I am assuming

that there are 400,000 Protestant churches in the United States.
I am also assuming that the reported attendance at these churches
is accurate, which is highly questionable since the overreporting
of church attendance is estimated by some to be as high as 50 per-
cent.18 Therefore, a rough estimate of weekly church attendance for
adults and children in America breaks down as follows:
Churches with 45 people or less 100,000 churches, 25% of all churches

Churches with 800 people or more 8,000 churches, 2% of all churches
Churches with 2,000 people or more 870 churches, 0.22% of all churches
Churches with 3,000 people or more 425 churches, 0.11% of all churches
Summarily, George Barna says, “Four out of ten church-going

adults (41%) go to churches with 100 or fewer adults while about one
out of eight church-going adults (12%) can be found in churches of
1000 or more adults.”19
According to church expert Lyle Schaller, the two most com-
fortable church sizes are 45 people or less and 150 people or less.20
Consequently, these are likely also the hardest size barriers a pastor
has to push through. Practically, it seems that churches of 45 people
or less are large enough to gather for worship and function as a
church but small enough for everyone to know each other and have
a say in everything that happens. A congregation of 150 or less can
usually gather in one ser vice and exist as one community, yet have
the resources to hire a pastor to care for all the people. These fac-
tors may help explain why the average church in America is report-
edly 89 people.21
Pushing through the 350 barrier can also be very difficult,
because it usually requires that the church transition to multiple

pastors, multiple ser vices, and multiple communities. The follow-

ing chapters will speak very practically of how we navigated through
each of these seasons, from being a church of under 45 people to
being a church of over 4,000 people. I acknowledge that some read-
ers may be turned off by my focus on numbers, even though we
have a book of the Bible titled the same word. But every number is a
person, so numbers do matter because people matter.
A megachurch is technically 2,000 or more adults and children
in weekly worship.22 The first modern megachurch was led by my
favorite Christian outside of the Bible, Charles Haddon Spurgeon,
whose church grew to more than 5,000 people in London in the
late nineteenth century.23 Perhaps the first megachurch in America
was led by the aberrant theologian Charles Finney, who preached
to between 2,000 and 3,000 people each week at Chatham Street
Chapel in New York City in the late nineteenth century.24 In 1970,
there were only 10 non-Catholic megachurches in the United
States.25 Today there are more than 1,000 U. S. megachurches, and
a new church breaks the 2,000-attendance threshold every 2 days,
according to megachurch expert John Vaughan.26
But emerging and missional churches will include more mega-
churches than ever, and they will be both attractional and missional
in their philosophy of ministry. If a church is truly missional, it
may become a megachurch for three reasons: (1) the power of the
gospel of Jesus Christ is powerful and effective, (2) a truly outward-
focused missional church will experience conversion growth, and
(3) a truly missional church has such a burning desire for cultural
transformation that it must grow large enough to serve a whole city.
Mars Hill is one of the first emerging and missional megachurches
in the country to target postmodern culture.
Schaller notes that most people born after 1965 are used to func-
tioning in much larger institutions (e.g., schools, grocery stores,
hardware stores).27 Therefore, younger people generally feel at home
in larger churches, which partially explains the popularity of mega-
churches and the willingness of younger people to drive greater dis-
tances to attend a megachurch.

Schaller’s teaching and our experience at Mars Hill confirms

that emerging generations indeed feel more comfortable in larger
churches. This information runs contrary to much of the popular
teaching today, which asserts that the future of the church will be
house churches and smaller church communities. I believe that the
megachurch phenomenon is not over but rather just beginning, that
the “experts” are simply wrong, and that the future trend will be
toward the extremes of very small and very large churches.
Nothing is wrong with a small church, providing it hates sin,
loves Jesus, serves people, obeys Scripture, and sees transformed
lives. However, I find the conversation among numerous young
pastors who prefer smaller churches to be theologically troubling.
The governing assumption is that the early church, described in
Acts, was not a megachurch with systems and structures but simply
small groups of Christians hanging out informally in one another’s
homes.
This position was reinforced in a conversation I had with Michael
Frost and Alan Hirsch, who wrote the popular and insightful book
The Shaping of Things to Come.28 During a lecture they gave in the
Seattle area, they stressed this point and referenced the account of
Acts 2:42 – 47, in which the early church is described as small, dis-
organized, and meeting informally in homes. But what they failed
to also note is that in those same verses, the early church did meet
in a larger gathering in the temple courts. And in Acts 2:41, God
added three thousand converts in one day, making the early church
an immediate megachurch. Curiously, this was accomplished by a
good sermon about Jesus — the very thing that many young pastors
decry as a modern act, when it is in fact simply biblical.
Additionally, church history confirms that from its earliest days,
Christianity was marked by megachurches. As early as AD 323,
church buildings were reportedly constructed that could accommo-
date upwards of 10,000 to 20,000 Christian worshipers at a time.29
Therefore, the existence of larger churches is not a modern phe-
nomenon but is in fact something God has been doing since the
days of Pentecost.

In 1980, the largest church in America was 13,000 people, and

in 2003, the largest church was 25,000 people.30 While a church of
25,000 people may seem very large to many, size is indeed relative
when you consider the world’s largest church, Yoido Full Gospel
Church, in Seoul, Korea, which has 763,000 church members.31
Therefore, each church must ask how large they expect to be and
labor toward seeing enough conversions to achieve that goal. In set-
ting this goal, a church must be realistic, since not every church
can or should be a megachurch. A church should also not seek to
limit its conversion growth simply because they wrongly believe
that smaller churches are closer to the early church model.
Question 7
Will your church have a mission of community or be a community
of mission?
The buzzword community is so often bantered about that it is
nearly devoid of meaning. But since the church is a community, it
is important to define what kind of community the church should
be. Without a clear definition of what a missional church commu-
nity is and does, tragically, community will become the mission of
the church. Consequently, the goal of people will be to hang out
together in love, like the family they never had. While this is not
evil, it is also not sufficient.
If taken too far, this can lead to the heresy of participatory
redemption, in which the goal is to have authentic friendships and a
loving community instead of repentance and personal faith in Jesus
Christ as the means of salvation. This error is a very real threat that
is overlooked by many young Christian leaders I meet who prefer
smaller and more loosely defined neo-church arrangements and so-
called new monastic communities, in which being in community
sometimes takes priority over being in Christ.
In Scripture, we see two prototypical communities: Babel/Bab-
ylon and Pentecost. Their similarities and differences are noted
below.32

Babel Community Pentecost Community

A small city A large kingdom
Built to house a few people Built to house many people
Marked by walls Marked by no walls
Intentionally resisted diversity Intentionally pursued diversity
Avoided hospitality Practiced hospitality
Gathered a homogenous people Gathered a heterogeneous people
Made their name great Made Jesus’ name great
God came down God came down
God judged their sin God forgave their sin
God confused their languages God unified their languages
The Babylonian version of community is godless affinity. Bab-

ylonian community does not aspire to grow except by internal
births, does not welcome people who are different, does not practice
hospitality, and seeks to remain safe and successful. Community is
the only goal for churches who think Babylonian. God’s response
to Babylonian community is judgment and scattering, because it is
a sin, especially in the church.
The Pentecost version of community exists for mission, not for
itself. Pentecost community is not held together because people are
similar but rather because they are on the same mission with the
same Lord. Because of this, Pentecost community is marked by a
desire to expand God’s kingdom through the salvation of many
diverse people, who are hospitably welcomed to learn about the
greatness of Jesus. People who think with a Pentecost mindset do
not see the building of community in their church as their mis-
sion. Rather, they see their church community as existing solely for
God’s mission, and they accept that the only way to have healthy
community is to pursue God’s mission of reaching lost people
because community is an effect of mission but not an effective mis-
sion. God’s response to Pentecost missional community is grace
and unity through the Holy Spirit.

Question 8
Will your leaders work from guilt or conviction?
One of the greatest inhibitors of keeping a church on mission is
the erroneous spoken and unspoken expectations people have for
church leaders and their families. In a missional church, the lead
pastor is the architect who builds the ship more than he is the cap-
tain who pilots it, the cook who washes dishes in the galley, or the
activities director who coordinates the shuffleboard reservations.33
The role of architect is incredibly important because most pastors
have been trained how to work on a ship instead of how to build a
ship. Having a skilled captain, cook, and activities director is impor-
tant but does not really matter if the ship can’t float, which means
that boat building is the most important job. Likewise, the pastor’s
highest task is to plan the building of a church that will float and to
allow everyone else to use their talents and gifts to accomplish the
overall mission God has for that church.
Most pastors, however, work in their boat and not on their boat
because often the Christians in a pastor’s church have mastered
the art of making him feel guilty and making their needs seem
urgent and important, when they rarely are.34 Therefore, leaders
of emerging and missional churches must work from the convic-
tion that comes from God and his Word instead of from the guilt
that comes from people and their words. Leaders must frequently
decide between offending Christ or a Christian, and Ghost-guided
biblical conviction alone must determine the duties of church lead-
ers. Otherwise, church leaders will waste their time washing dishes
while their church sinks.
Question 9
Do you have the guts to shoot your dogs?
Dogs are idiotic ideas, stinky styles, stupid systems, failed facili-
ties, terrible technologies, loser leaders, and pathetic people. Most
churches know who and what their dogs are but simply lack the
courage to pull the trigger and shoot their dogs. Therefore, it is

vital to name with brutal candor the people, programs, structures,

and ministry philosophies that are dogs needing to be shot. Be sure
to make it count and shoot them only once so that they don’t come
back and bite you.35
Question 10
Can you wield a sword and a trowel?
In the days of Nehemiah, when the Israelites’ mission was to
rebuild the wall, Nehemiah had his people carry a trowel in one hand
to build and a sword in the other to defend their work. As we build
our churches in a culture no less hostile than that of Nehemiah, we
too must learn how to both build a missional church and defend it
from Satan, demons, and evildoers. In the following chapters, I will
be painfully honest about the shots from hell that nearly killed my
family and our church. In the next chapter, we’ll start our journey
in the hot upstairs youth room of a fundamentalist church.

Reformission Reflections
1. Do you personally tend toward liberalism, fundamentalism, or
reformission? Why?
2. Does your church or ministry tend toward liberalism,

fundamentalism, or reformission? Why?
3. Should your church or ministry be traditional, contemporary,

or missional? Why?
4. Is your church or ministry better at being attractional or

missional? How could improvements be made where it is weak?
5. How large is your church or ministry? How large should it be

in the next year, five years, and ten years?
6. Does your church or ministry community exist for the mission
of reaching lost people or primarily for itself?
7. Name at least ten dogs in your church or ministry that need to

be shot.
8. What does your church or ministry need to be defended from

to remain healthy? What can be done to defend it?

Contents
Foreword by Erwin Raphael McManus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Preface: A Prediction for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Part One:
The Birth of the Multi-Site Movement
One: You Say You Want a Revolution? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Meet several highly successful multi-site churches
Two: A Wide Variety of Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26
Notice the broad range of models in this overview
of the multi-site movement
Part Two:
How to Become One Church in Many Locations
Three: Would It Work for You? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45
Consider why your church should explore multi-site
as a strategy
Four: On a Mission from God. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
Discern God’s call for your church and leadership
Five: Opportunity Knocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71
Don’t expect “We’ve always done it this way” to
become your church motto
Six: Selling the Dream. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84
Learn how to use effective vision casting, helpful
language, and strategic field trips
Seven: Who’s Going to Pay for This? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96
Discover how to do multi-site in ways your church
can afford
Eight: Launching the Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Evaluate these common factors in the successful
launch of a second location
0310270154_multisite.indd 5 3/2/06 3:39:42 PM

Part Three:
What Makes Multi-Site Work Best
Nine: Hitting the Sweet Spot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125
Make sure to define and replicate your unique DNA
with help from these ideas
Ten: Designing the Right Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .133
Learn to grow at multiple locations by modifying
the way you staff, structure, and communicate
Eleven: Building Better Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .142
Experience success by emphasizing the role of campus
pastors, developing the next generation of leaders,
and promoting from within
Twelve: Leveraging Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163
Find the right balance of technology, whether you
use in-person teaching or video
Thirteen: Avoiding Detours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173
Learn important lessons from churches that have
taken wrong turns or hit roadblocks
Part Four:
Why Extend Further and Reach More People?
Fourteen: Secrets of Ongoing Replication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185
Don’t let your dream stop short of developing an
entire movement of replicating campuses
Fifteen: Where Do We Go from Here? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .195
Be part of turning the tide in a battle being lost by
current approaches to doing church
Appendix A: Internet Link for Multi-Site Toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . .201

Appendix B: International Multi-Site Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .202
Appendix C: Directory of Multi-Site Churches Cited . . . . . . . . . . .204
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215
About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .222

Chapter
You Say One

You Want
a Revolution?
Meet several highly successful
multi-site churches
These men who have turned the world upside down have
come here also. — ACTS 17:6 ESV
It is coming . . . a movement of God. Some even call it a revolution.

On Sunday morning at Seacoast Church, where I (Geoff) serve on
staff in Charleston, South Carolina, a band launches into a hard-driv-
ing worship chorus as lyrics and background images are projected on
screens and television monitors throughout the auditorium. Everyone
begins to sing along with the worship team.
This describes the experience at many contemporary churches,
except that this scene happens eighteen times each weekend in nine
locations around the state, all of which are known as Seacoast Church.
Using many different bands and worship leaders, Seacoast’s eighteen
nearly identical weekend ser vices represent the look of a church that
chose not to fight city hall in order to construct a bigger building.
We instead continued to reach new people by developing additional
campuses.
15

16 • The Birth of the Multi-Site Movement
At another church across the country, a congregation just north of

San Diego sings “How Great Thou Art” in Traditions, one of six venues
on the same church campus. North Coast Church in Vista, Califor-
nia, developed six different worship atmospheres, all within a few feet
of each other. Traditions is more intimate and nostalgic, while other
venues range from country gospel to a coffeehouse feel to vibrating,
big subwoofer attitude.
The elements unifying these six on-site venues are the message (one
venue features in-person preaching, and the others use videocasts)
and the weekly adult small groups, whose discussion questions cen-
ter on the sermon that everyone heard, no matter which venue they
attended. North Coast has now developed multiple venues on addi-
tional campuses, so that on a typical weekend in early 2006, worshipers
chose between more than twenty different ser vices spread across five
campuses.
Over in Texas, Ed Young Jr., senior pastor of Fellowship Church
in Grapevine, preaches every Sunday morning on four campuses
— Grapevine, Uptown Dallas, Plano, and Alliance — all at the same
time. Ed delivers his Saturday night message in person in the main
sanctuary on the Grapevine campus. It is videotaped and viewed the
following morning by congregations at the other venues via LCD
projectors and giant projection screens, framed by live music and a
campus pastor. “We decided we could reach more people and save a
huge amount of money by going to where the people are and doing
smaller venues instead of building a larger worship center in Grape-
vine,” Ed says.
In downtown Chicago at New Life Bridgeport, a small church meets
in a century-old former United Church of Christ facility. The pastor,
Luke Dudenhoffer, preaches a sermon that he’s worked on with up to
ten other pastors across the city. Each pastor leads a satellite congrega-
tion of New Life Community Church, which is known as one church
in many locations.
At Community Christian Church in Chicagoland, eight different
drama teams perform the same sketch at eight different locations.
Then up to three different teachers deliver a message they’ve devel-
oped collaboratively. Most services have an in-person preacher, though
some sermons are videocasts.

You Say You Want a Revolution? • 17
These churches, and more than 1,500 churches like them across the
country, are discovering a new model for doing church. Going beyond
additional ser vice times and larger buildings, churches are expanding
into multiple venues and locations, and many of
them are seeing increased evangelism and even The
exponential growth as a result. The approach approach of
of taking one church to multiple sites seems taking one church to
to be the beginning of a revolution in how multiple sites seems to be
church is done in North America and the beginning of a revolution in
around the world. how church is done in North
When four university computers were America and around the
linked together for the first time on some- world.
thing called ARPANET in the fall of 1969,
there was very little press coverage of the event.
Aside from the scientists working on the project, no one considered
this event revolutionary; it was just an adaptation of concepts that had
existed for many years. In spite of such simple beginnings, ARPANET,
known today as the Internet, has revolutionized almost every aspect
of our lives in the twenty-first century — from how people get sports
scores to how they buy airline tickets to how they size up a church
before visiting it.
Revolutions often begin with little fanfare. They are usually built on
concepts that have existed for many years and are seldom recognized
in the beginning as revolutionary. The measure of a revolution is its
impact, not its origins.
That is why we believe the multi-site church movement is revolu-
tionary. The concept of having church in more than one location isn’t
new or revolutionary; the roots of multi-site go back to the church of
Acts, which had to scatter due to persecution. Elmer Towns points
out that the original Jerusalem church “was one large group (celebra-
tion), and many smaller groups (cells). . . . The norm for
the New Testament church included both small cell
The groups and larger celebration groups.”1 Likewise,
measure of Aubrey Malphurs observes that Corinth and other
a revolution is first-century churches were multi-site, as a num-
its impact, not its
ber of multi-site house churches were considered
origins.
to be part of one citywide church.2

Multi-Site Overview
What is a multi-site church? A multi-site church is one church meeting in

multiple locations — different rooms on the same campus, different loca-
tions in the same region, or in some instances, different cities, states, or
nations. A multi-site church shares a common vision, budget, leadership,
and board.
What does a multi-site church look like? A multi-site church can resem-
ble any of a wide variety of models. For some churches, having multiple
sites involves only a worship ser vice at each location; for others, each
location has a full range of support ministries. Some churches use video-
cast sermons (recorded or live); others have in-person teaching on-site.
Some churches maintain a similar worship atmosphere and style at all their
campuses, and others allow or invite variation.
What kind of church uses the multi-site approach? The multi-site
approach works best for already growing churches but is used by all types
of churches. The majority of multi-site churches are suburban, but many
can be found in urban contexts and some in rural contexts. Multi-sites are
found among old churches and new, mainline and nondenominational,
and in all regions of the country. Smaller churches (30 – 200 people) tend
to do multi-site as a niche outreach or as a regional-campus approach.
Medium-size churches (200 – 800 people) that go multi-site tend to have
only two or three campuses. Larger churches (800 – 2,000 people) and
megachurches (2,000 people and up) are the most likely to be multi-site
and to do it in a way that develops a large network of campuses.
Why become multi-site? The purpose of becoming a multi-site church is
to make more and better disciples by bringing the church closer to where
people are. The motivation is to do a better job of loving people, including
different types of people, with an outcome of making significant advances
in obeying Jesus’ Great Commandment (Matt. 22:37 – 40) and Great Com-
mission (Matt. 28:19 – 20).
How long do multi-site churches last? Several churches have been multi-
site for up to twenty years, and a handful for even longer. Some churches
use a multi-site approach as a transitional strategy during a building pro-
gram or a seasonal outreach. Other churches intentionally choose to be
multi-site only temporarily as a church-planting strategy to help new con-
gregations start out strong.

Until recent years, few churches in this century have purposely pur-
sued a multi-site strategy. In fact, many churches in the movement
have stumbled into multi-site almost by accident. The potential impact
of the multi-site movement, however, is extraordinary. Even though
the movement is still in the very early stages, multi-site churches are
beginning to have a significant influence on how people are being
reached with the good news of Jesus Christ.
For Most Churches, Multi-Site Is a “God Thing”

True to historic movements, this new paradigm is finding expres-
sion around the world, across all denominations, church sizes, and
structures. Churches with 20, 200, 2,000, and 20,000 attendees are
experimenting with the “one church in many locations” idea, while
denominations are testing multi-site as both a church revitalization
model and an alternative to customary church-planting models.
The multi-site movement, however, isn’t confined to the suburbs
or to the opening of new locations for growing churches. Urban
churches facing the prospect of closure due to dwindling membership
are being revitalized as they become satellite campuses of a growing
congregation elsewhere in their city. Rural churches are expanding
into other communities in their region as they continue to grow in
their own town or village. The impact of multi-site churches of every
size, shape, and denominational background is just beginning.
It seems to be happening everywhere, with each church having a
different trigger point.
After preaching the two Saturday evening ser vices, Craig Groeschel
went home with his pregnant wife, Amy, and in the middle of the
night, they headed to the hospital for Amy to give birth to their fourth
child. Craig was not going to make it for the next morning’s ser vices in
their fast-growing congregation, Life Church in Oklahoma City (which
stylizes its name as LifeChurch.tv).
Now what? they wondered back at the church. Someone had a crazy
idea: “Hey, let’s roll the video from Saturday night.” That decision
proved to be divinely inspired.
‘“Life Church even extended itself to Phoenix in July 2005. How can
a church in one location “jump the fire trail” almost one thousand

miles like that? It starts with the church’s leadership being convinced
that it is something God wants them to do as part of their mission.
A multi-site approach is well suited to fast-growing congregations
like Life Church, and high-visibility congregations tend to be the ones
highlighted in the recent wave of media attention to the multi-site
movement. But far more churches are flying under the media radar.
They come in all sizes and settings, but their results are equally as
impressive.
Take, for example, twenty-five-year-old Chartwell Baptist Church
in Oakwood, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, where Peter Roebbelen is
pastor.
“We backed into multi-site,” says Peter. “It’s not something we
intentionally tried to do. It was more like a disruptive moment when
we faced a problem and saw an opportunity.” In essence, their problem
became an opportunity.
For Chartwell, the initial motivation for becoming multi-site was
to accommodate growth. “We needed to go to a third ser vice, but
we wanted to do it during the optimal Sunday morning time,” Peter
explains. So Chartwell began experimenting with the use of additional
campuses. That was in 1993. Ten years later, Chartwell was offering
six Saturday night or Sunday morning ser vices on four campuses. By
2005, more than 1,200 people regularly attended one of the Chart-
well congregations, yet the original church’s seating
“We capacity was 260 — and still is — which is consis-
backed into tent with their particular strategy of creating a
multi-site. It was more sense of relational intimacy within each local
like a disruptive moment worship setting.
when we faced a problem Life Church and Chartwell are typical of
and saw an opportunity.” how a congregation becomes multi-site. Most
— Peter Roebbelen
churches that use a multi-site approach evolve
into it, rather than starting out with it.
According to our research at Leadership Network,
the 1,500-plus multi-site churches across North America become multi-
site by extending themselves to more than one location: some to loca-
tions across town, some across the state, and some around the world.
Church analysts have been observing this trend for a number of
years, which was initially seen only in the more innovative churches.

In the 1990 book Ten of Today’s Most Innovative Churches by Elmer

Towns, three of the ten featured churches have modeled, during some
part of their recent history, the practice that the book
calls “one church meeting in many locations . . .
a multi-staffed church, meeting in multi-loca- Most
churches that
tions, offering multi-ministries, with a single
use a multi-site
identity, single organization, single purpose,
3 approach evolve into it,
[and] single force of leadership.” rather than starting
Peter Roebbelen is one of the few people who out with it.
has researched the development in recent years.
Using a study grant from the Louisville Institute4
(funded by the Lilly Endowment), he visited a number
of different locations. His analysis? “I think this is a true movement,
a true new work because it’s popping up in independent situations all
over the place at about the same time, literally around the world.”
The people he interviewed don’t seem to be fad driven. “It’s a God
thing,” Peter concludes. “Most didn’t sit down to strategize and plan
and then conclude, ‘We’re going to try multi-site,’ because none of us
had heard of multi-site. We simply began doing it. The stories have been
remarkably similar from coast to coast and from north to south.”
Especially Helpful for Fast-Growing Churches

Among the ten fastest-growing churches in the United States, 70
percent use multiple venues or multiple campuses. Likewise, among
the ten largest churches in the United States, 90 percent use multiple
venues or multiple campuses (see the tables on pp. 22 – 23). Among
megachurches in general, 27 percent hold ser vices at off-site locations,
according to a 2005 research project on megachurches.5
Some megachurches continue to build and fill huge sanctuaries.
Willow Creek, Chicago, moved into a new 7,100-seat auditorium in
2004; Salem Baptist, Chicago, built a 10,000-seat mega-facility in 2005;
Lakewood Church, Houston, bought and refurbished the 16,000-seat
Compaq Center sports arena in 2005; First Baptist Church, Wood-
stock, Georgia, finished a 7,000-seat sanctuary in 2005; Without
Walls, Tampa, bought a 9,000-seat Lakeland campus and a 3,000-
seat Auburndale satellite campus in 2005; and Glory Church of Jesus
Christ, a Korean-American congregation in Los Angeles, bought and

America’s Ten Fastest-Growing Churches

(Fastest-growing church listed first)
Multi-Site? Church Name City/State
Yes Without Walls International Church Tampa, FL
Yes Mount Zion Baptist Church White Creek, TN
No Lakewood Church Houston, TX
Yes LifeChurch.tv Oklahoma City, OK
Yes Saddleback Church Lake Forest, CA
Yes The Fountain of Praise Houston, TX
Yes Second Baptist Church Houston, TX
Yes Franklin Avenue Baptist Church New Orleans, LA
No Prestonwood Baptist Church Plano, TX
No Fellowship of the Woodlands The Woodlands, TX
Adapted from Outreach’s 2005 annual ranking
moved into a 7,000-seat former boxing arena, known as the Grand

Olympic Auditorium, in 2006. (Two of these congregations — Willow
Creek and Without Walls — have at least one other campus as well.)
The bigger trend, however, is toward smaller auditoriums. As soci-
ologist Scott Thumma told National Public Radio’s All Things Consid-
ered, “Many of the very large megachurches are beginning to spin off
satellite or branch campuses around the city or area as a way to reach
their diverse populations but also so they don’t have to continue to
invest in larger and larger buildings.”6
Not a Growth Strategy by Itself
Bill Easum and Dave Travis have observed that the genius of multi-
site is not that it grows your church but that it keeps your church grow-
ing. In their book Beyond the Box: Innovative Churches That Work, they
comment, “The key to understanding the multi-site movement is to
remember that fulfilling the Great Commission drives these congrega-
tions, not a growth strategy.”7
In short, multi-site is a means toward an end, not an end goal in
itself. Most churches do generate growth through multi-site, but just

America’s Ten Largest Churches

(Largest church listed first)
Multi-Site? Church Name City/State
No Lakewood Church Houston, TX
Yes Without Walls International Church Tampa, FL
Yes Saddleback Church Lake Forest, CA
Yes Second Baptist Church Houston, TX
Yes New Birth Missionary Baptist Church Lithonia, GA
Yes Willow Creek Community Church South Barrington, IL
Yes World Changers Church International College Park, GA
Yes Southeast Christian Church Louisville, KY
Yes Potter’s House Dallas, TX
Yes Fellowship Church Dallas, TX
Adapted from Outreach’s 2005 annual ranking
as importantly, multi-site keeps them from capping the growth they’re

experiencing.
Multi-Site Churches Are Bridging Today’s Gap

In recent decades, American churches have morphed from seeker-
driven to purpose-driven to postmodern models, all as a response to
the skyrocketing number of unchurched Americans and the constant
need to apply a biblical worldview to current contexts. Church atten-
dance did increase slightly (from 42 percent to 43 percent), but the
actual number of unchurched adults has nearly doubled in the last
fifteen years, currently numbered at 75 million.8 The net result is that
despite the sincere prayers and efforts of thousands of pastors and
leaders across the country, current models of church growth are not
working well enough. We must continually find new ways to bridge
that gap.
The new multi-site approach, from all early indications, is begin-
ning to do just that. “Early indicators show that multi-site churches
are more evangelistic than those with one site,” reports Thom Rainer,
a prominent consultant and church researcher.9 A survey we helped

Becoming Multi-Site Increases Evangelism
We’ve become more evangelistic as a church 69%
No discernable difference at this point 31%
We’ve become less evangelistic as a church 0%
Source: Survey of 1,000 Multi-Site Churches © 2005 Leadership Network, available www.leadnet.org
conduct in 2005 (see the table above) found that churches have a
greater evangelistic impact when they become multi-site.
The many reports of conversion growth at multi-site locations
affirm that something is working well. Many people who are wary of
“established religion” are willing to come back to these same churches
in one of their multi-site expressions, as seen in this email Seacoast
Church recently received:
I am twenty-five years old and have spent the majority of my life ques-
tioning religion and Christianity. My wife, however, has always been an
amazing Christian woman and example to me. She attended a ser vice
[at Seacoast] last year, and she was so touched that she insisted I go. I
told her I would go with her, [although] I was as far from a relationship
with Jesus Christ as a person could be. I left that ser vice at the West
Ashley Campus moved by [Pastor] Greg’s words, relatability [sic], and
sincerity. I felt like, and have since that first ser vice, that each mes-
sage was delivered solely for me. I do not know how to thank you all
for bringing Christ into the life and spirit of a twenty-five-year-old
atheist.
Churches are discovering the power of multiplication as they begin

to grow beyond the four walls of the box they built. Moving beyond the
traditional outreach and discipleship model of multiple ser vices and
larger buildings, they are embracing the concept of “one church with
many congregations.” And the revolution is just beginning. Imagine
the impact of thousands of people in your town committing their
lives to Christ for the first time. Imagine churches in your community
whose attendance either has plateaued or is in decline finding new life
as they partner with growing churches to reach the lost. Imagine the

impact as the revolution crosses cultural and international boundar-

ies to reach people who have never been exposed to the good news of
the gospel.
The reasons for choosing to become a multi-site church are as varied
as the multi-site expressions that have evolved, but the vast majority of
multi-site congregations are finding the experience to be a solid win
for their mission as a church. The next several chapters will illustrate
how the multi-site approach is being used in a wide variety of settings
across North America, the lessons learned, the pitfalls to avoid, and
how your church can join the revolution.

Contents
Introduction: Idea Overload! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Part 1: Little Ideas or the Big Idea?

1. No More Christians! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2. Communities of Transformation, Not Information . . . . . . 29
3. Creating Missional Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Part 2: What’s the Big Idea?

4. The Genius of the “And” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5. Changing Churches One Big Idea at a Time . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Part 3: Create Your Own Big Idea

6. Creating Your One-Year Big Idea Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
7. Implementing Your Big Idea Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
8. The Two Most Important Players in the Big Idea . . . . . . . 115
9. The Big Idea Creative Team Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
10. The Big Idea Teaching Team Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
11. The Implicit Big Idea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Part 4: A Really Big Idea

12. Creating and Reproducing Big Idea Networks . . . . . . . . . . 189
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

P a r t
ONE
Little Ideas or the
Big Idea?
Chapter 1
No More Christians!
What do you expect to happen as you read this book? Be honest

now. In fact, I’m going to be honest too and put on the table what I
hope I can convince you of in this opening chapter:
1. If you’ve been calling yourself a Christian, you should stop.
Maybe not what you were expecting? It is exactly what you
and the church need — forget ever being a Christian again.
2. If you have ever encouraged someone to become a Christian,
you should never do that again. Seriously, I hope you will
never again ask a friend, family member, coworker, or neigh-
bor to become a Christian.
Why? Because the last thing the mission of Jesus Christ needs
is more Christians.
Here is the brutal fact: 85 percent of the people in the United
States call themselves Christians. Now, let’s pause long enough to
realize that’s a whole lot of people — 247 million people, to be exact.
But how are those 85 percent doing when it comes to accomplishing
Jesus’ mission? Here is what research tells us about people in North
America who call themselves Christians:
■ Those who call themselves Christians are no more likely to

give assistance to a homeless person on the street than non-
Christians.
13
14 Part 1: Little Ideas or the Big Idea?
■ Those who call themselves Christians are no more likely than

non-Christians to correct the mistake when a cashier gives
them too much change.
■ A Christian is just as likely to have an elective abortion as a
non-Christian.
■ Christians divorce at the same rate as those who consider
themselves non-Christians.
■ Even though there are more big churches than ever before
filled with people who proudly wear the title Christian, 50
percent of Christian churches didn’t help one single person
find salvation.
In fact, when the Barna Research Group did a survey involving
152 separate items comparing the general population with those
who called themselves Chris
tians, they found virtually no
The last thing the difference between the two
mission of Jesus groups. They found no differ-
Christ needs is more ence in the attitudes of Chris
Christians. tians and non-Christians, and
they found no difference in
the actions of Christians and
non-Christians. If the contemporary concept of a Christian is of
someone who is no different than the rest of the world, is Christian
really the word you want to use to describe your willingness to sac-
rifice everything you have to see God’s dream fulfilled? No way.
This absence of distinction between Christians and non-Chris
tians is a huge problem. But it is not a difficult problem. This is a
problem for which the solutions are simple, though not easy. So
this book is all about one of those simple but not easy solutions for
accomplishing the mission that Jesus gave to his church.
Let’s start with a typical Sunday as a family returns home from
church. The question posed to the children is the same every week:
“So what did you learn today?” And the response is too often the
CHAPTER 1: No More Christians! 15
same: (Silence.) “Ummm . . .” (More silence.) “Ummm . . .” (Still

more silence.) “Ummm . . .”
Parents have tried to think of different ways to word the ques-
tion for their kids, but it always
comes out the same. “So what
did you learn today?” It’s not This absence of
the most enticing question, distinction between
but it’s the question that gets Christians and non-
asked millions of times every Christians is a huge
week during the car ride home problem
from church. And the truth is,
if our kids asked us, we might
give them the same response: (Silence.) “Ummm . . .” (More silence.)
“Ummm . . .” (Still more silence.) “Ummm . . .”
How is it possible that so many people, young and old, can
respond with nothing but silence to such a simple question after
spending an entire Sunday morning in church? Is it too little teach-
ing? Is it too little Scripture? Is it too little application of Scripture
in the teaching? What’s the problem?
Well, let’s review a typical experience at church. Is it too little or
maybe too much? The average churchgoer is overloaded every week
with scores of competing little ideas during just one trip to church.
Let’s try to keep track.
1. Little idea from the clever message on the church sign as you
pull into the church parking lot
2. Little idea from all the announcements in the church bulletin
you are handed at the door
3. Little idea from the prelude music that is playing in the back-
ground as you take your seat
4. Little idea from the welcome by the worship leader
5. Little idea from the opening prayer
6. Little idea from song 1 in the worship service
7. Little idea from the Scripture reading by the worship leader

9. Little idea from the special music
10. Little idea from the offering meditation
11. Little idea from the announcements
12. Little idea from the first point of the sermon
13. Little idea from the second point of the sermon
14. Little idea from the third point of the sermon
16. Little idea from the closing prayer
17. Little idea from the Sunday school lesson
18. Little idea from (at least one) tangent off of the Sunday school
lesson
19. Little idea from the prayer requests taken during Sunday
school
20. Little idea from the newsletter handed out during Sunday
school
Twenty and counting. Twenty different competing little ideas
in just one trip to church. Easily! If a family has a couple of chil-
dren in junior church and everyone attends his or her own Sun-
day school class, we could quadruple the number of little ideas. So
this one family could leave with more than eighty competing little
ideas from one morning at church! And if we begin to add in youth
group, small group, and a midweek service, the number easily dou-
bles again. If family members read the Bible and have quiet times
with any regularity, it might double yet again. And if they listen to
Christian radio in the car or watch Christian television at home, the
number might double once more. It’s possible that this one family
is bombarded with more than one thousand little ideas every week
explaining what it means to be a Christian. No wonder when the par-
ents ask their kids, “So what did you learn?” the answer goes some-
thing like this: (Silence.) “Ummm . . .” (More silence.) “Ummm . . .”
(Still more silence.) “Ummm . . .”
More Information = Less Clarity

We have bombarded our people with too many competing little ideas,
and the result is a church with more information and less clarity than
perhaps ever before. But the church is not alone in its predicament.
Businesses also get distracted with lots of little ideas and forget the
Big Idea. Many marketplace leaders are relearning the importance
of the Big Idea in regard to advertising. It was a multimillion-dol-
lar sock-puppet ad during Super Bowl XXXIV that epitomized the
absurdity of the advertising during the dot-com bubble. This same
era brought us commercials with cowboys herding cats, singing
chimps, and a talking duck — all great entertainment, but they didn’t
convey a thing about the brands they represented. Brand consultants
Bill Schley and Carl Nichols Jr., in their book, Why Johnny Can’t
Brand: Rediscovering the Lost Art of the Big Idea, tell us this type
of advertising is not effective
branding. Schley and Nichols
exhort companies to redefine We have bombarded
their products in terms of a our people with too
single, mesmerizing “Domi- many competing little
nant Selling Idea.” They go ideas, and the result
on to explain that somewhere is a church with more
along the way, “Johnny” forgot information and less
the basics of revealing the Big clarity than perhaps
Idea in an easy, everyday way ever before.
that cements a brand as top
dog in the hearts and minds
of consumers without resort-
ing to puffery and shallow glitz. What are businesses learning? That
“more” results in less clarity. (And less money!)
Don’t misunderstand — this is not a rant against entertainment
or churches that are entertaining. I actually think churches should
be more entertaining. But that’s a chapter for another book. This
is a rant against churches (and businesses) that don’t discipline
t hemselves to create experiences that convey and challenge people

with one Big Idea at a time. Why? Because the lack of clarity that
we give our people impedes the church’s ability to accomplish the
mission of Jesus. “More” results in less clarity.
Dr. Haddon Robinson, in his classic book Biblical Preaching,
recognizes the simple truth that more is less and challenges teach-
ing pastors to communicate with crystal clarity “a single idea.” He
says, “People in the pew complain almost unanimously that the ser-
mons often contain too many ideas.”1 Robinson is right on. And it
is good news that people are complaining. Their complaints about
too many ideas tell us that people in the pew want clarity, direction,
and guidance in how to live out the mission of Jesus Christ. We can
no longer afford to waste another Sunday allowing people to leave
confused about what to do next. So let the change begin! But this
change can’t be relegated only to the preaching. It also must happen
in the teaching of children,
students, adults, and families
and in the overall experience It is one Big Idea at a
of church life. How? The Big time that brings clarity
Idea. And it is one Big Idea to the confusion that
at a time that brings clarity comes from too many
to the confusion that comes little ideas.
from too many little ideas.
More Information = Less Action

In 1960 when John F. Kennedy was elected president, more than $20
million was spent on the presidential campaign for the very first
time. The money was spent so the candidates could deliver their
political ideas to the people in a compelling way through the new
medium of television. Every year since then, more and more money
has been spent to better communicate each candidate’s politi-
cal ideology, with the amount increasing more than 400 percent
to $880 million in 2004. You would think that with all that money
and all those ideas being communicated in every imaginable for-

mat, people would be better informed and more convinced to take
action and cast their vote for the candidate of their choice. Wrong!
More has resulted in less action. Although the 2004 presidential
election saw a slight increase in voter participation from the 2000
election, overall, there has been a forty-year trend of declining
voter participation in national elections for U.S. president. Why?
In Thomas E. Patterson’s book The Vanishing Voter, he asks, “What
draws people to the campaign and what keeps them away?” He dis-
covered after the 2000 election that despite almost a billion dollars
spent to communicate lots of ideas, when surveyed on election day,
a majority of people flunked a series of twelve questions seeking to
ascertain whether they knew the candidates’ positions on prime
issues such as gun registration, defense spending, tax cuts, abor-
tion, school vouchers, prescription drug coverage, offshore oil drill-
ing, and affirmative action. Patterson concludes, “I don’t believe
that voters are more apathetic than they were 40 years ago. I think
they are more confused than they were 40 years ago.”2 Sure I vote,
but do you know one of the primary reasons I vote? It’s so I can say,
“I voted.” Seldom have I gone to the polls with a strong conviction
that I really knew the ideology of each candidate. The main feeling
I have in connection with voting is confusion, and confusion does
not produce positive action.
Around the Ferguson household you can see how “more” results
in less action. Having friends over for the evening usually means a
scramble to clean up the house and get things presentable for com-
pany. So my wife, Sue, and I start barking out orders to the kids:
“Vacuum the family room, dust the railings, put away your coat,
pick up your shoes, shut the door to your bedroom . . .” What hap-
pens next? Usually they stand there staring at us and say, “What?”
They are willing to help, but after our barrage of requests, they are
overwhelmed and do nothing. Now, my wife says that just the boys
and I have this problem and that girls can multitask. Maybe. But I
think it’s another example of the fact that more results in less action.
Experience has taught me that if I want the kids to get something
done, I’m farther ahead to give them one task, ask them to check in
with me once it’s finished, then give them the next task. This is the
Big Idea approach. It provides clarity and produces action.
I know that as church leaders we can’t control the media and
the barrage of information that comes at our people — and we don’t
want to control it. But what we do want is to challenge our people
with the truth of God’s Word and insist that it be lived out mission-
ally. When we contribute to the bombardment of little ideas, we
are implicitly telling our people that not all of God’s truth has to
be accompanied by obedi-
ent action. We are implicitly
We must challenge our telling our people that just
people with the truth because they hear the truth
of God’s Word and doesn’t mean they necessar-
insist that it be lived out ily have to live it out. We are
missionally. telling our people that what
is really important is saying
it and not doing it.
One Big Idea = More Clarity and Action

I was in a graduate class when I heard the Big Idea explained for the
first time. The professor, Jim Pluddeman, challenged my classmates
and me by saying that the Bible was written to be understood and
applied. He said, “The effective teacher is like a person who takes a
strong rope, ties one end around the big ideas of Scripture, ties the
other end around the major themes of life, and then through the
power of the Spirit struggles to pull the two together.” I was just
beginning to understand that accomplishing the mission of Jesus
would mean focusing on one Big Idea, not trying to juggle compet-
ing little ideas.
Jesus did not confuse people with a lot of little ideas. Instead,
he presented one Big Idea with a clear call to action: “As Jesus was
walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called
Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake,
for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will
make you fishers of men.’ At once they left their nets and followed
him” (Matt. 4:18 – 20).
I can’t help but notice that Jesus didn’t say to Peter and Andrew,
“Come, be Christians.” Here’s how Don Everts puts it in a terrific
little book titled Jesus with Dirty Feet:
Jesus was not a Christian.

He never asked anyone to become a Christian,
never built a steepled building,
never drew up a theological treatise,
never took an offering,
never wore religious garments,
never incorporated for tax purposes.
He simply called people to follow him.
That’s it.
That, despite its simplicity, is it.
He called people to follow him. . . .
It is never more
than Jesus’ call: “Follow me”
and a response: dropping familiar nets
and following, in faith,
this sandaled Jewish man.
It is never more than that.
Two thousand years of words can do nothing
to the simple, basic reality of Christianity:
Those first steps
taken by those two brothers.
Peter and Andrew’s theology
was as pure as it gets:
Jesus said, “Follow me.” And we did.3
When Jesus met someone for the first time, he challenged them
with one Big Idea: “Follow me.” A Big Idea that was simple but not
easy. If Peter and Andrew were asked, “What did Jesus teach you
today?” there is no way they would respond like this: (Silence.)
“Ummm . . .” (More silence.) “Ummm . . .” (Still more silence.)
“Ummm . . .” And if they did, it would not be because they were con-
fused and didn’t understand, but rather because they were stunned
at the boldness and size of Jesus’ request. This Big Idea was very
clear, and the call to action could not be misunderstood. The sim-
plicity and clarity of that Big Idea, “Follow me,” was what catalyzed
a movement of Christ followers into action. And these Christ fol-
lowers knew what was expected of them and would do anything
and everything, including trade their very lives, to accomplish the
mission of Jesus.
What about “deeper teaching”? That is what the rich young
ruler wanted. He came to Jesus and began to explain that he already
knew the commandments — “Do not murder, do not commit adul-
tery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor
your father and mother” (Mark 10:19) — and that he had obeyed
these commands since he was a boy. He wanted more. He wanted
a midweek service. He wanted
graduate-level teaching. With
When Jesus met clarity and simplicity, Jesus
someone for the first challenged him with one Big
time, he challenged Idea when he said, “One thing
them with one Big Idea:
you lack. . . . Go, sell everything
“Follow me.”
you have and give to the poor,
and you will have treasure in
heaven. Then come, follow me”
(Mark 10:21). The message was clear. It was a call to action. It was a
Big Idea that was simple but not easy.
What would happen if we challenged people in the same way?
What if we gave people one clear and simple Big Idea and asked them
to put it into action? That is exactly what we have been attempting

to do at Community Christian Church and the NewThing Network
for the last several years. Every week, we give all of our people of
every age and at every location one Big Idea and ask them to put
it into action. The challenge is simple and clear — but never easy.
That’s the Big Idea.
Recently we were in the middle of a Big Idea series titled “Get in
the Game” for the adults and “U Got Game” for our Student Com-
munity and Kids’ City. Kids’ City puts every Big Idea into one con-
cise statement, and this time it was “God uses his teams’ offering to
change the world.” It was a powerful series. I received the following
email from a mom in our church:
From: Kirsten
Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2005 8:18 PM
To: Dave Ferguson
Subject: “U Got Game” Big Idea
I just wanted to let you know that my kids really, really got a lot out
of this week’s large group time in Kids’ City. It made such an im-
pact on them to know where their offering money goes every week.
Each week when they get their allowance on Saturday, 15 percent
automatically goes with them to church, but they’ve never really
understood where that money goes. (I guess I haven’t been very
effective at explaining what “giving back to God” means!) Anyway,
when they came home this week after experiencing the Big Idea,
they both went in and emptied their piggy banks into the offer-
ing bags they made and said, “We have to give it all to church.
There are orphans in Rwanda that don’t have homes. We have to
help those kids get a home!” Never mind that we talk about “poor
people” around this house all the time, but for whatever reason
they “got it” in a way they never had, thanks to the way you pre-
sented it in Kids’ City.
Thanks!
Kirsten
That same week another mom stopped me in Starbucks and said,

“Dave, I have to tell you what happened with my boys — it was the
most amazing thing. We were
going out to get an early start
Every week, we give on Christmas shopping at the
all of our people of mall. When we got to the door
every age and at every of the store, there was a Salva-
location one Big Idea tion Army bell ringer with his
and ask them to put red kettle and bell trying to
it into action. The get donations. I didn’t think
challenge is simple and much of it. Sometimes I give
clear — but never easy. and sometimes I don’t — you
That’s the Big Idea. know. This time I didn’t. But
when I got inside the store, I
couldn’t find my two boys. I
looked around for them, and then I saw them outside next to the
Salvation Army bell ringer emptying their pockets, giving every-
thing they had. My two boys gave away their entire allowance! I
was pleased but shocked. When they caught up with me, I asked
them why they did that. They told me, ‘Mom, isn’t that what they
were talking about at church?’ It was amazing.” That’s the power of
the Big Idea.
I asked Jen Pedley how the Big Idea impacted her. Here’s what
she said:
The Big Idea was the first time in my life that God’s Word applied
to my everyday, ordinary life. It helped me in a practical, “meet
you where you are and don’t worry, I’ll still love you” way. No one
had ever spoken so clearly about what it meant to be a Christ fol-
lower (I mean, come on, everyone in my hometown claimed to be
a “Christian,” but I saw firsthand how much that really meant in
many people’s lives), why you would even want to live this way,
and how to do it.
I never heard the Word of God speak to me personally until
coming to CCC. I never saw the point until then. Big Idea teaching
touches on so many basic truths that even though I had gone to

churches my whole life, I had never heard before. When you put
God’s Word into where people are at today — whew, I was blown
away. I still am.
Jen came to Community Christian Church in 2000 and soon

made a commitment to be a Christ follower. She was baptized,
began doing life with a small group of believers, and joined one
of our vocal teams. In 2004 she and her husband, Ken, packed up
their kids, leaving behind a
job and home to move with a
group of people from Chicago “The Big Idea was the
to the Detroit area to start first time in my life that
2|42 Community Church. God’s Word applied
Why? They were committed to my everyday,
to the Big Idea of selling all ordinary life.”
they had and following Jesus
to accomplish his mission.
The Power of the Big Idea

So what if we took that same trip to church, and instead of hearing
lots of competing little ideas, our whole family was taught only one
Big Idea?
One Big Idea is displayed on the church website.
One Big Idea is on the cover of the church bulletin you are
handed at the door.
One Big Idea is projected on the screen as you listen to the pre-
lude music while taking your seat.
One Big Idea is introduced in the welcome by the worship
leader.
One Big Idea is the focus of the opening prayer.
One Big Idea is the theme of song 1 in the worship service.
One Big Idea is supported by the Scripture reading by the
worship leader.

One Big Idea is at the heart of a secular song used as the special
music.
One Big Idea and how you can understand it further in a small
group is the only announcement.
One Big Idea is explained in the first — and only — point of the
sermon.
One Big Idea is reinforced through a video.
One Big Idea is the focus of the closing prayer.
One Big Idea can be explored even more deeply by going to the
“next steps” table and picking up a recommended reading
list.
One Big Idea and how to have a conversation with your kids
on this topic is the theme of the Kids’ City handout given to
parents.
One Big Idea is the central topic of discussion at small group
during the week.
One Big Idea is the focus of the prayer time during small
group.
One Big Idea is reinforced by a phone call (by your request) from
the teaching pastor at the end of the week.
(Silence.) “Ummm” would not be your response if you were
asked, “So what did you learn?” What the church needs is one
unmistakable Big Idea. A crystal-clear Big Idea that calls everyone
to act on the Jesus’ mission.
So why does the church in the United States have 247 million
Christians and not nearly enough Christ followers? And why is
it that we have access to the best and most thoroughly thought-
through theology in all of history yet still aren’t gaining ground
in accomplishing the mission of Jesus? Could it be that we have
forgotten the Big Idea and gotten lost in too many little ideas? Is it
because the church of Jesus Christ has not challenged people the
way Jesus challenged people — with one Big Idea, simple and clear:
“Follow me”?
I no longer call myself a Christian. I no longer try to convert
people to Christianity. It’s not that the title is wrong but that as
a label it has come to mean something far different than what it
means to follow Jesus. Being a Christian has been reduced to the
expectation of niceness. How pathetic. How boring. How easy. How
insignificant. And even that expectation of niceness doesn’t have to
be fulfilled, because the greater
expectation is hypocrisy — the
practice of professing beliefs,
I no longer call myself
feelings, or virtues that one
a Christian. I no longer
does not live out. Who would
try to convert people to
want to be associated with
Christianity. I am a Christ
that?
follower. I follow Jesus
I am a Christ follower. I
step by step as his
follow Jesus step by step as his
Spirit moves me in his
Spirit moves me in his commu-
community called
nity called the church. When
the church.
Jesus steps, I follow. When
Jesus speeds up, I increase my
pace. When Jesus slows down, I slow down too. The direction, the
speed, and the ultimate destination of my life are determined by
keeping in step with Jesus’ Spirit. Simple. Clear. Not easy!
Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Introduction: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
The Life-Giving Power of Self-Examination
1. Love Strengthens Every Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
The Leader’s Heart
2. Lifelong Learning Expands Our Horizons . . . . . . . . . 41
The Leader’s Mind
3. Attentive Listening Informs Wise Decisions . . . . . . . . 59
The Leader’s Ears
4. Clear Vision Sees What Lies Ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
The Leader’s Eyes
5. Aﬃrming Words Bring Blessing and Energy . . . . . . . . 99
The Leader’s Mouth
6. Humble Service Reveals Jesus’ Presence . . . . . . . . . . 119
The Leader’s Hands
7. Laughter Sustains Our Sanity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
The Leader’s Funny Bone
8. Understanding and Harnessing Our Sexual Desires . . 151
The Leader’s Libido
9. Bearing the Yoke of Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
The Leader’s Back
Concluding Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Discussion Questions and Prayer Prompters. . . . . . . . . . 181

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Suggested Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
0310259436_leadership.indd Sec2:7 9/19/07 2:58:13 PM

chapter 8
Understanding and
Harnessing Our
Sexual Desires
The Leader’s Libido

understanding and harnessing our sexual desires
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man com-

mits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins
against his own body. Do you not know that your body
is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you
have received from God? You are not your own; you were
bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
— 1 Corinthians 6:18 – 20
May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in

the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer —
may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be cap-
tivated by her love.
— Proverbs 5:18 – 19
It was a hard year. I received a one-two-three punch that knocked the

spiritual wind out of me.
Punch one came when a dear brother, who had been in a pastors
accountability group with me for many years, left his wife, children,
and ministry for a woman in his church. He shocked the members
of our group with a whole series of choices that turned his life upside
down. Sadly, he never came to us early in the process, when his heart
was wandering toward another woman. He told us after the damage
had been done, the sexual lines had been crossed, and his ministry had
been compromised. My initial response was anger. Our pastors group
prayed with him and challenged him to seek restoration with his wife.
But he rejected our council. We continue to pray for him and seek to
keep the door of our lives open to him.
A few months later, I was hit with the second blow. I received a
call from another pastor friend. “Can I come by your office to talk?
I need to come over right now.” I cleared my calendar for the morn-
ing. He walked into my office, sat in a chair, made no eye contact,
and pensively looked at the floor. Finally, he spoke. “I have sinned. It
could cost me everything. I don’t even know how it happened, but I
have sinned.” I prayed for him and then listened. He explained that he
had become involved with a woman, entered an emotional affair, and
finally had a sexual encounter. When the woman found out he was
a pastor, she blew the whistle. Again, I went through a strong emo-
tional response. But this time, I was not angry. I was numb, confused,
and filled with despair. Sadness came over me. I trusted this leader
152

the leader’s libido
like a brother. I did not see this coming. I was brokenhearted for his
wife, children, church, and for him. I mourned the effect his decisions
would have on so many people. One bright light in this situation was
that he committed to a process of confession and reconciliation.
The knockout punch came when I heard the accusations about
Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Reporters were talking about “accusations” of his involvement with
a male prostitute and illegal drug use. It seemed far-fetched, almost
too bizarre. But something inside me broke. I had never met this pas-
tor, but my gut told me that when the smoke cleared, things would
be even worse than initially reported. This wasn’t some kind of pro-
phetic insight but feelings based on what I had been experiencing
with my two pastor friends. I was growing painfully aware of the
sinister power of sexual temptation.
Once the confessions came and things were in the light, I entered
unfamiliar emotional territory. I was not angry, and I was not sad. I
was filled with fear and profoundly introspective. Leader after leader
was shipwrecking their lives through sexual compromise, and I had
a sober awareness that I was not beyond temptation. I found myself
scrutinizing my own ability to self-deceive, my propensity toward
sin, how I can rationalize poor choices, and how I can live a double
life if I’m not very careful.
Anger came when I realized my first friend was leaving his family
and ministry for another woman. Sadness engulfed me as I walked
with my second friend through his time of struggle. Sobering fear
gripped me when the news broke on Ted Haggard. The fear has not
gone away. I hope it never does.
Symptoms
Check
My Desires N
eed Harnessin
g
❏ I find myse
lf lett ing p
tiona l need eople in m
s that shou y church m
ld be met o eet emo-
n ly by my
spouse.
continued ➮
153

azines,
w s, in te rn et sites, mag
TV sho an effort
w movies, ulation in
❏ I vrieother sources of visual stimth ese secret b
ehaviors
o d s.” If
y sexual nee ssed and
to “meet m w o u ld be embarra
ome public,
I y ministr y.
were to bec ev en co m promise m
t
nd it migh ere I
ashamed, a y mind wh
a fa nta sy world in m e th ings in
I have crea
ted er do thes
❏ gage in sexual sin. I w self playing out mental
o u ld n ev
en nd my
rld, but I fi
the rea l wo rong.
k now are w ll
scenarios I e ha nd, I ca
u b le li fe . On the on m y per-
a do ut in
I a m liv ing holiness. B
❏ eople to moral pu ri ty a n d
iors I co nd em n
p e in th e ver y behav
I engag
sona l life,
publicly. undaries
g re lationa l bo
topic of se tt in want to face
When the ause I don’t
❏ mes up, I get def en si ve b ec
crossing bo
undaries.
co a h ab it o f
I have
the fact that
The Power of the Mind

I can’t believe that three decades have slipped by since I grew up on
Santa Barbara Street in Fountain Valley, California. As I write these
words, I sit two thousand miles and a lifetime away from my child-
hood home. Yet at the speed of thought, I can close my eyes and find
myself standing in our front yard. I can see the juniper shrubs, my
best friend’s house across the street, and the decorative giant Zs (one
frontward and one backward) on our garage door.
I can see the hallway of our home — the strip of carpet my dad
and mom made us run back and forth on when one of our feet fell
asleep during dinner. It was torturous running on a prickly foot,
but three or four times up and down the hall always did the trick. I
can even smell the homemade chocolate fudge my mom made when
we had company over. The scent still lingers, wafting through the
storehouse of my mind.
154

The mind’s power is staggering. It can transport us virtually any-

where in a flash. What we do with our minds, where we go, what we
focus on, is critical for leaders. The mind can be a glorious place of
hope, dreams, joy, and vision. It can also be a prison of lust, anxiety,
and fear.
It’s up to us.
Each of us can choose to harness our thought life and use it for
God-honoring activities, or we can let it run wild and suffer the
consequences. Like a spoiled child in a chocolate shop, if we let our
thought lives consume whatever they want, we will end up ill, sitting
in a pile of candy wrappers, wondering why we feel so sick when
everything tasted so good.
Leaders don’t have the luxury of living this way. Though every
leader has weaknesses and struggles with sin, we are called to offer
the full force of our mental capabilities to God. As we nurture our
thought lives, we discover what it means to “love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”
(Matt. 22:37).
Both leaders who are married and those who are single face this
challenge. In a sex-saturated culture, we must guard our minds. This
is the first line of defense. A leader whose outer world is squeaky clean
can still allow the world of the mind to be perverse. The same mind
that can catapult us back to a childhood home can create vivid sexual
scenarios that dishonor God. Healthy church leaders inspect their
thought lives and make sure they are seeking to live in holiness even
in the hidden compartments of their minds.
Doctor’s Insigh
t
You May Not See
It, but It’s There
With a know in
g look in his ey
did you notice es, Dr. Dek ki ng
the first proble a asked, “Whe
it and sa id, “W m w ith your sk n
hen I was thir ty in ?” I thought
-six years old.” ab ou t
head to conf ir Jack just nodd
m what he susp ed hi s
ec ted.
continued ➮
155

es
e, the on
b le m s I h av s
sk in p r o nty y re a
t th e k ind of u p a bout twe
ined th a d to p o p ent lo gn
He ex pla to th e sun, ten r ig h t. I h ad s p
verex po
su r e exac tl y of hig h
due to o d o n e . He was o p h o m ore yea r
is to my s y sk in
d a m a ge mers up ouble. M
a fter the m y s u m os ig n o f tr
d i-
e sun a ll e re w a s n or a ny in
days in th tw o d e cades, th e c u r r in g s or e s , a t the
ut for ots, r d ay s
school. B w e r e n o d r y sp f m y m a rathon
. T h e re es o
wa s fi ne s e qu e nc
e s e r ious con o n. nt in t h
e
c ation o
f th
e th is is com
m
y e a r s you s p e a t I
m ll t h e you th
ck told , “Did a ave told
beach. Ja m e ld h
ad a s k e d
?” I w o u he d - a m
I f you h a g e y our sk in b e e n w rong. T r.
ia su n d
a m
ut I wou
ld hav e bia l pipe
Ca lifor n it h it . B p a y th e prover
w to
en away g to have
had gott a n d I was goin e nt progr
a m.
e rea l-
s th e r e , r e d p a y m the sa m
a ge w a a d e fe r in fa c e
at I w a s
on x ua l s e w il l
It’s just th w it h h idden se a n d th at no on
who batt
le d up just
L e a de r s it covere w ing ha
bits a re
l th ey have r v ie e
mig h t fe e
ht liv e s o ome th to
it y. They p r iv a te thoug r, th e y a lways c e .
w. The ir a nc e ecom
ever k no ke sk in c things b
iv a te ! B ut just li e m , th e worse
r e th
that — p we ig nor
c e . T h e longer
su r fa
The mind is a battlefield. If the enemy can dominate here, he

can infiltrate, poison, and destroy every area of our lives. I discov-
ered this struggle early in my life as a follower of Jesus. I was a stu-
dent seeking to live out my faith on the campus of Orange Coast
College. Every day was a challenge. I found my mind wandering
places it should not have gone. There were attractive women in all
of my classes and everywhere on the campus. Since we had endless
summer, many wore beach clothes, and this only compounded the
problem.
156

Help from
My Friends
What Helps Y
ou Keep Your
Motiv es and Life P
My model fo
r morality an ure?
deep convict d integrity is
ions and pers my dad. He
versations w onal characte is a man of
ith him conce r. I have had
over the year rning what it regular con-
s. He constan means to liv
impeccable ch tly challenge e a moral lif
aracter. s m e and provid e
My wife, Clau es a model of
dia, and I ar
is ever a ques e open books
tion concern with each othe
each other. ing any value, r. If there
decision, or co
My personal n d u ct, we ask
motivation is
adore. When my two sons,
I’m tempted whom I deepl
ask myself, “H to go down th y admire and
ow will this d e w rong road m
is a huge mot ec is ion impact th or ally, I often
ivation for pu e lives of my
My board of rity ! so ns?” This
elders meets
questions. Th regularly wit
is is not alway h me to ask
My congregat s comfortable the tough
ion is fully aw , b ut it’s extremely
concerning m are of my lif valuable.
y values and e. I am open
be perfect an integrity issu w it h them
d will readily es. I have nev
and weaknes sh ar e my failures, er pr et en ded to
ses. I share struggles, tem
values and et w it h them my pers pt ations,
hics. onal choices
concerning
— Wes Dupin
, Senior Past
or, Daybreak
Community C
hurch,
Hudsonville,
MI
I wanted to devote my mind to higher purposes. But I had dif-

ficulty thinking about anything except women. I had been reading
the gospels and was struck by how Jesus had battled the temptations
of Satan by quoting Scripture (Matt. 4:1 – 11; Luke 4:1 – 13). If my
157

Savior used the Bible as a weapon against the attacks of the enemy, I
would give it a try.
I decided to memorize a few verses from the book of 1 Peter. Each
time my mind wandered, I would meditate on these verses. The first
week, I found myself walking around the campus constantly mut-
tering, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect, strangers in
the world . . .” Honestly, it didn’t help much.
I stuck with my commitment. If I was going to be a leader in the
church, if I was going to live for God, I wanted my mind to be under
his control and not running wild. So each time I found myself fixat-
ing on the lovely ladies of OC, I went back to 1 Peter. As one verse
became part of my thinking and was rooted in my heart, I would
add another.
To give you a sense of how much the battle raged and my eyes and
heart wandered, over that year of college I memorized all five chap-
ters of 1 Peter and also the book of Haggai. I did this not because I
was disciplined but because I was desperate. At first, when my mind
wandered to the wrong places, my response was mechanical. I would
begin at 1 Peter, chapter one, verse one. I would rattle off the words
as fast as I could. Even this remedial approach was helpful. Some of
my lust-filled moments subsided, and I thought more about God’s
Word. But with time, something more substantial happened. The
truth and power of God’s Word filled and dominated my thought
life. I slowly stopped dwelling on thoughts that dishonored God and
poisoned my view of women. I began to reflect on the goodness of
God, the value of people, the truth I was learning. I began praying
for people on campus. My mind was being shaped by God’s values
and not the values of the world.
Through the year, something amazing happened. The battle sub-
sided. It did not go away, but the intensity lessened. My mind focused,
more and more, on thoughts that honor God. Believe me, it was not
a quick fix. But with time, something inside of me changed. Close to
three decades later, I still turn to meditating on Scripture when my
eyes and mind wander where they should not be. Every time I do, the
truth of God’s Word brings power in the spiritual battle.
Memorizing passages of the Bible and reciting them might seem
old-fashioned. Some see this as a discipline for grade-school kids try-
ing to get stars on a chart in their Sunday school classroom. I disagree.
158

Doctor’s Insigh
t
Preventive Care
As I spoke w ith
Dr. John A lbre
about the impo cht, my dent ist,
rtance of preven he bega n ta lk in
1960s, a team fr tive care. John ex pl g
om the Univers ained that in th
periodonta l di ity of Michiga n had e
sease (g um di done studies on
cause was bact sease) and lear
eria l infect ion. ned that the pr
At the time, th imar y
dental hygienis ere were relativ
ts. Most dent is el y few
minute clea ni ts wou ld do a
ng of the teet h quick ten- to fif
but wou ld not te en-
the gums. address ta rtar
under
Once the cause
of periodonta l
measures coul disease was iden
d be ta ken. M tif ied, preventiv
clea n and scra os t de ntal hygienists e
pe the teet h at now ex tensivel
the gums and ea ch appointment. y
remove tarter T hey get unde
the gums. Den so bacteria ca n’ r
tists encourag t cling to it and
e thorough brus at ta ck
this clea ns on ly hing, but they
about 60 percen know
cate patients on t of the toot h su
how to floss an rface. So they ed
d clea n the ot he u-
patients enter r 40 percent. W
the preventive- he n
When they refu ca re process, de
se to do their pa ntal health incr
rt, problems gr eases.
ow.
I believe the best way to practice preventive care of our souls, when it
comes to sexual temptation, is to saturate our minds with God’s Word.
Meditating on Scripture is a cleansing process, and at any time, we can
draw on portions of the Bible we have memorized.
The Wisdom of Setting Boundaries

Another way to keep from falling into sexual sin is by setting clear
and God-honoring boundaries. Wise leaders understand that the
most benign of relationships can become a problem if you don’t set
159

clear physical, emotional, and relational boundaries. This is some-

thing I gave a lot of thought early on in my ministry training.
The assignment was simple. Write a case study on some aspect of
relationships in ministry. Each of us would present our papers the
next time our seminary colloquy group met. I decided to address the
issue of boundaries in ministry. As a young man doing ministry with
high school students, I had established some boundaries that I found
helpful, and I decided to discuss them in my case study.
Two weeks later, we met to present our cases. I had worked hard
to list my boundaries and reasons for establishing them. I felt good
about my paper. I really believed my presentation would be helpful
and well received by the members of my colloquy group.
I was wrong.
I began by addressing the reality that all who serve in the church or
in any Christian ministry face temptation. I made it clear that people
in leadership roles have the responsibility to take great care not to fall
to sexual temptation, and that we are also called to “avoid even the
appearance of evil.” The group members seemed resistant to these
concepts, and their eyes let me know that they were not with me.
Then I presented the boundaries I had established in my youth
ministry. First, I would never meet one-on-one with any of the young
women in the youth group unless my wife or a church secretary was
within earshot. The group members looked at me with skepticism.
Next, I explained that I was careful not to be overly physical with
the young women in the youth group. In particular, I told them that
when I hugged the girls, I would do so with one arm, from the side,
with what I had come to call a “buddy hug.” I avoided the frontal
hug. At this point, the group was glaring at me, but I pressed on.
Apparently, my final boundary was the straw that broke the camel’s
back. I told them that I would never drop off a girl from youth group
last, but I would go out of the way to drop a girl off first so that I was
never in the car alone with any of the girls in the youth group.
At this point, one of the members of my colloquy group launched
into me. “That is just ridiculous! You have got to be kidding!”
I didn’t get the reasoned and thoughtful group discussion I had
hoped for. Instead, the group members castigated me for being so
rigid. They explained that I was entirely out of line and that my
boundaries would actually get in the way of my ministry.
160

I looked to the professor, hoping for support. He focused on me

with great concern in his eyes, chose his words carefully, and said, “I
think you are afraid of your own sexuality.”
I paused, thought long and hard, and said, “You better believe I
am! I’m terrified of it!”
The silence was palpable.
Finally, one of the guys in the group spoke in a scolding way. “I
am married, but my best friend happens to be a woman other than
my wife. She is a fellow student here at the seminary. We spend time
together one-on-one. I feel comfortable hugging her, and I don’t see
any problem with this.” As I listened to him, I had a flashback to the
first time I’d seen him on campus with his “best friend.” I’d actually
thought she was his wife and was shocked when I discovered she was
not. It was clear to me that he was deeply infatuated with this woman
and was drawing unhealthy attention from her.
Now I was ticked off.
I said, “Let me tell all of you something. In twenty years, I will still
be in ministry. My boundaries might get in the way of some things,
but they will also protect me from all kinds of pitfalls.”
Two decades later, I am still in ministry. I also have a set of bound-
aries for my relationships with women, and they are even more rigid.
If you were to ask me if I am still afraid of my sexuality, I would put
it a little more gently than I did twenty years ago, but I would still
say, “Yes, I am.”
Help from
My Friends
How Do You E
stablish Boun
d aries?
As a woman
, my guidelin
especially a e is not to
married man be alone wit
spiritually, em . I also keep h a man —
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problem, I tr d physically. ndaries —
y to avoid th Even if I th
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r a problem. a
continued ➮
161

sense I
th er e is a scene that I
, but !)
a good movie imes my ears
When I go to cl os e m y ey es (and somet e w hat I
to be seeing,
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do not need as io na ll y, I just have to k lik e
Occ ords st ic
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as the scene ov ie . W ro n g for ev er y
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th ou avoid th
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— Nancy Gri
At Corinth Church, we address boundaries with our staff mem-

bers. We have guidelines for how we relate to other staff members
and people in the congregation. Here are some of the boundaries that
are part of the staff culture:
• When a staff member meets with a person of the opposite
sex, it needs to be in a room with a window or the door must
remain open.
• Staff members can’t meet after hours with a person of the
opposite sex unless there are others in the building.
• Staff members may not meet one-on-one with a person of
the opposite sex off church grounds.
• Generally, staff members do not drive in a car alone with
a person of the opposite sex. (Obviously they can drive in
groups or help someone in an emergency.)
No pastor or leader at Corinth would go out to lunch with a per-
son of the opposite sex, either from the staff or the congregation. We
feel this looks and feels too much like a date. Our staff and church
board know that these boundaries are strict and that they can occa-
sionally lead to complexities for travel and scheduling meetings. We
also know these boundaries can’t be absolutely rigid, that they are
general guidelines. But we believe the benefits of clear boundaries far
outweigh the drawbacks. And by God’s grace, we have never faced a
situation in which a staff member has ended up in a compromising
relationship with someone on staff or with a church member.
162

I have friends in ministry whom I respect who feel the boundaries

our church has set are too strict and would not work in their church
cultures. My counsel is that they think through what is appropri-
ate for their contexts, but that they set clear boundaries that protect
their leaders, congregational members, and the name of Jesus.
The Power of Accountability

Along with meditating on Scripture and setting clear boundar-
ies, wise leaders embrace accountability. This involves courage. It
demands vulnerability. And it can save our lives.
A church leader asked if I could do him a favor. He said, “When I
travel, I stay in hotels . . . alone.” He was having a hard time making
eye contact but pressed on. “I . . . well . . . I have been watching movies
that a Christian leader should not watch. I don’t want to. I know it’s
wrong. But I am having a hard time stopping.”
I asked him, “How can I help you?”
“Maybe, before I travel, I could tell you, and you could pray for
me. Then when I get home, I could give you a report.”
I told him I though he was very wise, and I committed to hold him
accountable for two months. The next couple of trips, he resisted the
temptation to watch inappropriate movies. When we hit the two-
month mark, I asked if he felt he needed me to be the one to keep
him accountable over the long haul. “No, I have a couple of close guy
friends who would be great at this. I just came to you first because I
knew you would not look down on me.”
Help from
My Friends
How Do You S
eek Purity W
hile Traveli ng?
When I travel
in the West, I
me in a hote usually reques
l, unless I am t that my host
find that in th traveling with s not put
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normal TV is is because I
often unedifyi
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I
continued ➮
163

the TV
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ay of for a
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and wat be alone w he
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of st le to id ent talk-
op po rt u n ities as possib d o n ot lik e the time sp
man y cher s lps me
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know e get clos
ink it helps m
ing. But I th them. ist, Sri Lanka
r m or e ef fe ctively among r, Youth for Chr
ministe n d o, D ir ec to
— Ajith Ferna
The beauty of accountability is that we can tailor it to our needs.

When we find a brother or sister we trust, we can ask them to keep
us accountable in a very specific way. If our struggle is emotional
attachment to someone in our ministry, we can have them pray for
us and ask us if we are being careful to keep clear boundaries with
this person. If our struggle is the hidden world of lust, we can invite
an accountability partner to support us in prayer as well as ask us if
we are keeping our thoughts heading in the right direction. If we are
tempted with internet pornography, we can have a monthly report of
all our internet activity sent to an accountability partner. Whatever
ur Back
I’ve Got Yo y
untabilit
Serious Acco hese a re n
ot
p p o rt g roups. T s
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where we g
164

passionatel
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g roups, we nd honest
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internet p il it y. In on
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our need, a trusted friend who asks us the hard questions as well as
encourages and prays for us is an amazing gift.
The Goodness of Sexuality

Christians should have great sex lives. In the context of marriage,
of course. God created male and female and declared them “very
good.” The picture is compelling. A man and a woman in a beautiful
garden — paradise! They were naked. They were not ashamed. God
invited them to “be fruitful and multiply.” When God created men
and women, he intended for them to experience sexual intimacy. It
is a good gift.
Christian leaders who want to honor Jesus need to embrace the
goodness of God’s creative plan. We need to celebrate the wonder,
mystery, and passion of godly sex. For too long we have abdicated the
realm of sexuality to the world. No more! It is time for God’s people
to recapture the world of sexuality.
Married leaders should make their sexual lives a high priority.
Single leaders should live in sexual purity but still bless and cel-
ebrate the goodness of sex when it is expressed in the covenant
relationship of a married man and woman. There are far too many
church leaders who have decided that their sex lives will never be
life-giving, joyful parts of their marriages, and they have become
165

places of hidden pain and silent anger. When a ministry couple fails
to embrace the goodness of their sexual relationship, it creates a rift
between the husband and wife where the enemy of our souls can
drive a wedge, creating a breeding ground for sexual temptation
and indiscretion.
Most of the time, when a godly Christian man or woman begins
crossing lines in the area of sexuality, it has to do with an emotional
need. They feel far from their spouse. The rigors of ministry are tak-
ing a toll. The physical and emotional needs they carry deep inside
begin to surface. Then someone comes along who will meet their
emotional need. They are drawn to this person, first, because they
“care about me.” Once the emotional link has been established,
sexual temptation begins to grow.
There is an amazing passage in Proverbs that addresses the good-
ness of sexuality, the call to fidelity, and the danger of sexual temp-
tation. Read this passage closely. Catch the imagery of water as a
picture of sexual intimacy:
Drink water from your own cistern,

running water from your own well.
Should your springs overflow in the streets,
your streams of water in the public squares?
Let them be yours alone,
never to be shared with strangers.
May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer —
may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be captivated by her love.
Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress?
Why embrace the bosom of another man’s wife?
For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord,
and he examines all his paths.
— Proverbs 5:15 – 21
The writer of Proverbs gives a series of warnings in the early sec-

tion of chapter five. He calls us to avoid sexual temptation, to stay
166

far away from those who seek to draw us in. He goes on to talk about
the wisdom of receiving discipline and listening to the wisdom of
others. We are called to ferocious fidelity and warned of the dangers
of adultery. Yet in the middle of this serious caution comes a celebra-
tion of intimacy and sexual fulfillment.
All through the Bible there is a call for sexual celebration. Within
the marriage covenant, there should be sexual blessing. Just as we are
called to bless with our words, we are also called to bless with our
bodies. Our genitalia, specifically, are to be fountains of overflowing
blessing. The breasts, vagina, and penis are all part of the celebra-
tion of one-flesh intimacy. Romance and sexual intercourse are gifts
from God to his people.
There is a clear sense in Scripture that we are to satisfy our spouses
with our bodies. Read the words closely, and for heaven’s sake, don’t
be embarrassed! “May her breasts satisfy you always.” The passage
could just as unashamedly say, “Let his penis satisfy you always.” I
know some will blush when they read these words. Some in God’s
family have relegated the realm of sexuality to a low place in life.
They have missed the biblical reality that one-flesh sexual intimacy
is a gift from their Creator.
When our sexual relationship is one that satisfies and our “foun-
tain” is blessed, it leads to captivating love. Christian couples who
make their sexual lives a priority discover that the emotional and
physical desires that God has placed deep in their souls are satisfied.
When we drink deeply from the fountain of marital intimacy, we
no longer need our waters to be scattered in the streets. When our
sex lives are healthy, growing, passionate, fulfilling, the need to look
elsewhere drops significantly.
This is not to say that Christian leaders who have rich and fulfill-
ing sexual relationships with their spouses won’t face temptation.
This is also not to say that those who enter into an inappropriate
sexual relationship can somehow blame their spouse for not meeting
their needs. But nurturing healthy sexual, romantic, and intimate
relationships with our spouses will meet many of the needs God has
placed inside of us. When we sense deep satisfaction and fulfillment
in our sexual lives, we are quicker to recognize the counterfeit offers
of the enemy and turn them down.
167

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168

Contents
Part 1 The Sticky Church Advantage. . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Sticky Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Why the front door is highly overrated • A parable lots of people know
but not many understand • Why stickiness is so important • The purpose
and format of this book
2. Who Are These Guys? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Why it might not matter if your church stinks at marketing • Small
leaks, big messes and church growth • Come and see evangelism • The
80 percent factor • Scalability and Slow growth
3. How I Learned about the Importance and Power of Stickiness . . . . . . 23

Killing the dream — and why it was one of the best things I ever did •
Tools or sheep? • Pastors who don’t like Christ ians • Why marketing too
early can actually keep people away
4. Why Stickier Churches Are Healthier Churches. . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Why closing the back door can make the front door seem bigger • The
tell-tale mark of a raving fan • The high price of bait and switch • How
one seeker church made sure no one brought any seekers
Part 2 How Small Groups Change Everything . . . . 37

5. Velcroed for Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Why most of our discipleship models don’t work very well • How people
grow • Velcroed for growth • Why the New Testament is absolutely silent
about small groups
6. How Small Groups Change Everything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Critical mass — why it’s so important and what it takes to get there •
The Holy man myth • The Holy place myth • Why empowerment needs
a platform
7. Still More Ways That Small Groups Change Everything . . . . . . . . . 50

Why small groups make a church more honest and transparent • Why
they always increase the level and practice of spiritual disciplines • The
very best gift we can give a child — or teenager
8. Making the Message Memorable: How Sermon-Based

Small Groups Made Me a Much Better Preacher. . . . . . . . . . . 55
A bunch of stuff that didn’t work and the one change that did • The
simplest way to increase attention and note taking • Why my sermons
are always worth talking about • Four stages of knowledge and why lots
of people tend to bail out before they’re finished
6
Contents
9. Making the Message Accessible: How Sermon-Based

Small Groups Made Us a Much Better Church. . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Reeling in the marginally interested • Why it doesn’t matter why someone
joins a group • Why even the unmotivated will spend an hour preparing for
their small group • Facilitators and teachers • The death of idiot questions
Part 3 Sermon-Based Small Groups . . . . . . . . . . 69

10. Why Some Groups Jell and Some Don’t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Why size matters • Comfort zones • The “me too” factor • The magic
number when attendance becomes predictably sporadic • Getting the
right people in the right group • The difference between Christ ian unity
and close friendships • Schooling fish • Why people are like Legos • Why
friendly people can leave new people feeling frustrated • New groups for
new people • Why dividing to grow might not be such a good idea
11. Flies on the Wall: What Happens When a Sermon-Based

Small Group Meets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Why there is no such thing as a “typical” sermon-based small group
• Refreshments and personal updates • Why it’s vitally important that
everyone answers their homework questions ahead of time • Three types
of questions • Why silly questions can be important questions • Why you
always want to look at some passages that weren’t mentioned in the sermon
• Prayer • Freedom to digress • Worship • Service projects and socials
12. Overcoming the Time Crunch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Why most of us have just two time slots to work with • The difference
between selling out and adapting wisely • Why cutting the competition
is so important • What Henry Ford taught me about small groups • Cut-
ting too much too fast can be hazardous to your ministry • Hamstring-
ing the competition • Making leadership manageable • Why summer
breaks are essential for long term success
13. Determining Your Primary Purpose. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Determining your primary goal • What happens when everyone uses
a different measuring rod • Alignment • What we can learn from Wall
Street and LA Fitness • Making disciples • Staying healthy • The need for
warmth • The dangers of mission creep • Measuring success
14. Entry Points and Escape Routes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

My first small group • The dreaded weasel factor • Entry ramps and escape
routes • Why ten weeks is nearly magical • How groups grow deeper •
What happens when life happens • What happens when it doesn’t • Align-
ing sermon series and small group schedules — why it’s no big deal
15. Why Dividing Groups Is a Dumb Idea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

What most church leaders think • Why those who are actually in a small
group see it so differently • Small groups and steroids • Another look at
Legos • What the military taught me about small groups • Mayberry in
San Diego • Fresh blood • Hiving versus dividing
7
Sticky Church
16. Finding and Developing Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

What to look for • Who to avoid • The best fishing pools • The worst
f ishing pools • Why you don’t want to ask for volunteers • How to scare
off p otential leaders
17. Training Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Why staff members and lay leaders see training so differently • Bite-sized
training • Time shifting • Why turning down the intensity won’t harm
your leaders or your groups — and why it might help • What every rookie
needs to know • The one thing every veteran leader needs to know
18. Why Cho’s Model Didn’t Work in Your Church . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Why most of our small group models don’t work very well • The Korean
connection • Coming to America • A nagging question, a surprising
answer • Why my parents won’t walk into the Buddhist temple • Prayer
Mountain, military coups, and powerful pastors • What a mobile society,
extended families, Armenians, and mutts have in common — and what
they don’t
19. Before You Start: Five Key Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

What a poorly aligned set of tires can teach about vision and ministry
• Who are you trying to reach? • What are you trying to accomplish? •
How do these two match up? • The funnel test • Mentoring, education,
and apprenticeships • Speed modeling
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Appendixes
1. Writing Great Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
2. Sample Sermon Note Sheet and Study Questions. . . . . . . . . . . 153
3. Sample Growth Group Covenant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
4. End of the Quarter Evaluation Form. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
5. Leader Training Topics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
6. Leader Responsibilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
7. Host Responsibilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
8. A List of the New Testament “One Anothers”. . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Study Guide: Follow-up Questions for Each Chapter. . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
8
Chapter 4
Why Stickier Churches Are

Healthier Churches
We’ve already seen that sticky churches have an advantage when it

comes to discipleship. Shutting the back door gives them more time to
grow people up to full maturity. But they also have an advantage when it
comes to outreach.
Ultimately, a church grows in one of two ways: It gets more people to
come through the front door, or it stops losing people out the back door.
While most churches give lip serv ice to the importance of both, in reality
there’s usually a strong bias toward one or the other — and in most cases
it’s not too hard to tell which one it is.
Front-door churches tend to look for the newest and best ways to be
noticed and bring people in. If you could be a fly on the wall at an evalu-
ation meeting, you’d find most of the discussion centered on how many
people came to the big event.
Sticky churches might have great marketing and incredible programs,
but if you could be a fly on the wall at their evaluation meeting, you’d
find a different discussion. Instead of celebrating how many people came,
the most important measurement would be how many came back.
While many would assume that a church focused on bringing people
in the front door would have an advantage when it comes to reaching the
lost, that’s not necessarily true over the long haul. Churches that close
29
The Sticky Church Advantage
the back door effectively do so by serving their congregations so well that

the people don’t want to leave. And happy sheep are incurable word-of-
mouth marketers.
Whether it’s the fabulous food at our favorite restaurant, the excite-
ment of a great movie, or the life-changing impact of a church ministry,
most of us can’t help but tell others when we’ve been well served — and
no one needs to tell us to do so.
First Visits
As we saw earlier, there is a fundamental difference between someone
whose first visit to a church is the result of a powerful marketing cam-
paign or a special outreach program and someone whose first trip is the
result of a friend’s invitation to a regular serv ice.
People who come because of special marketing or programming walk
in expecting (or hoping) to be wowed. And if they are, they come back
expecting more of the same.
But of course that’s not what they get, because special programs
are — well, special. They might attract a lot of people; they might deeply
touch everyone who comes. But in the end they fly in the face of one of
the most basic laws of retention: Whatever you do to reach people you have
to continue to do to keep them.
Let’s think through the experience of an unchurched neighbor who
decides to come to a special outreach event. Suppose he likes it well enough
to come back the next week. When he does, the exceptional music, the props,
the great speaker, or whatever else it was that duly impressed him will almost
surely be gone. If it’s the weekend after Christmas or Easter, it’s likely that the
senior pastor and all the folks who put it together will be gone also. After all,
they’ll need a break. It’s not easy to put on such an extravaganza.
Now compare that with the neighbor whose first visit is the result of
a word-of-mouth invitation to a typical weekend serv ice. While he might
not be as impressed or wowed by the initial show, he certainly won’t be as
disappointed when he shows up a second time. There’s no bait and switch
to overcome. If he liked the first visit well enough to come back a second
time, he’s likely to come back a third and forth time as well.
But that’s not all. A word-of-mouth church also has some significant
advantages when it comes to evangelism, follow-up, and assimilation.
30
Why Stickier Churches Are Healthier Churches
Natural Evangelism
Perhaps the most common form of natural evangelism is what I like to
call come-and-see evangelism. It takes place whenever someone shares a
spiritual need or interest and we respond by inviting him or her to come
to a Bible study, to attend a church serv ice, or just to hang out with some
of our Christian friends.
It gives that person an opportunity to see Christ ianity and Chris
tians up close and personal. It’s low-threat. There’s seldom any pressure.
It lets spiritual window-shoppers move toward Jesus at a Spirit-led pace.
It’s completely natural, not forced.
Let’s face it: Most Christians are pretty lame when it comes to closing
the deal evangelistically. Whether it’s aggressive confrontational witness-
ing or low-key friendship evangelism, lots of us don’t know what to say or
do when the questions get tough.
Even when someone is obviously ready to step over the line and follow
Jesus, many of us still stutter and stammer or shift into automatic pilot as
we spout off a poorly memorized and highly canned response.
I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I am saying that’s
the way it is. Even those of us who are extroverts with lots of training in
evangelism can get tongue-tied and sweaty palms.
But a sticky church offers the perfect environment for come-and-see
evangelism, because while every serv ice is designed to help Christ ians
become better Christians, it is always done in such a way that non-Chris
tians can understand everything that’s said and takes place.
That makes it much easier for even the most introverted and reserved
among us to say with confidence when a friend or coworker expresses a
spiritual interest or need, “Why don’t you just come and see?”
Contrast that with the way many of our front-door churches approach
evangelism. Though we might think that our special programs make it
easier for members to reach out to their not-yet-Christ ian friends, our
special outreach programs can actually put some obstacles in their way.
The first is timing. High-powered front-door programs can have the
unintended consequence of sending a message that some weekends and
programs are for bringing guests — and the rest aren’t.
Years ago my parents had some friends whom they hoped to reach
for Christ. After numerous dinner conversations and plenty of time to
watch how my folks lived and dealt with life’s thorny issues, the husband,
31
seemingly out of the blue, said that he and his wife would love to come
to church sometime.
Needless to say, my dad and mom were delighted. The Sunday ser
vice started out with a great worship set. Then the smiley guy got up to
give some commercials and take the offering right before the sermon,
which, judging by its title on the bulletin, looked like a great one. So far,
so good.
Then it happened. Smiley guy began to wax eloquent about an
upcoming outreach event that would be the perfect opportunity to
bring an “unsaved” friend. Special flyers and brochures were available
in the back to pick up and hand out. He then encouraged everyone to
be sure they were praying for their lost friends. As he went on and on,
my dad and mom slowly died. So did their “unsaved” friends, who had
made the mistake of wanting to come to church a couple of weeks too
soon.
They never did come back.
My parents learned an important lesson: Never bring friends who
don’t know Jesus to the wrong serv ice.
Though my folks no longer go to that church, I observed it long
enough to see that lots of others got the same message. Special programs
always brought in a large crowd. But no one seemed to notice how few
returned or how well the entire congregation had been trained to hold
back their invitations until the next big event.
Now, here’s the irony. All this happened at a self-proclaimed “seeker
church.”
There is a second unintended obstacle that highly programmed front-
door churches can put in the way of natural evangelism. If most of the
people who come to Christ come as the result of a complex and high-
powered event, it sends a subtle message that it takes lots of time, plan-
ning, and money to lead someone to Christ. And that tells the average Joe
to hold off until we’ve scheduled the next great fishing party.
That’s not to say that special-event evangelism doesn’t work or that
those who come to Christ as a result never stick. But it seems to me that
spiritual birth is a lot like physical birth. It’s much easier when it’s natu-
ral. Artificial insemination and other medical marvels can produce real
children who grow up to have great lives, but it’s a rather inefficient way
to replenish the next generation.
32
Natural Follow-Up
Another area where a sticky church has an advantage is in following up
on those who visit.
After a big event, it’s hard to follow up if you don’t know who came.
Most people who come as a result of an advertising campaign won’t read-
ily give out their name and contact information. We’ve come to value
privacy too much to do so.
Even at weekend serv ices, a front-door church can have a harder time
with follow-up. That’s because in any church with two or more serv ices,
it’s hard to tell who is a guest and who just changed serv ices for the week-
end. Since longtime members who switch serv ices don’t like to be asked
if they’re visiting (try it; you’ll enjoy the dirty looks), most of us learn to
treat anyone we don’t recognize as a regular we haven’t met or someone
whose face we can’t remember.
It’s different in a sticky church. Since it doesn’t place much emphasis
on big front-door events, most guests are brought on the arm of a friend.
Few come with only a postcard or brochure in hand.
That makes follow-up natural and more likely to occur. Friends don’t
need a follow-up program to remind them to ask, “How’d you like it?
Any questions I can answer? Do you want to come again?” That’s what
friends do.
At North Coast we didn’t have (or need) an organized follow-up pro-
cedure until we were well past three thousand in weekend attendance.
And we only needed it then because the small percentage of folks who
came alone at that point added up to a large enough number that some
were falling through the cracks.
Natural Assimilation
Sticky churches have still another advantage. Since they fill the front door
primarily with people who’ve come through word-of-mouth referrals,
assimilation takes place naturally. Friends don’t have to be reminded to
assimilate friends. They do so naturally — and enthusiastically.
It’s also easier to assimilate when there’s no need to build a bridge
between the bells and whistles of a big event and the more pedestrian pro-
gramming of a weekend serv ice. Even if there is an occasional measure
33
of bait and switch, those who come by the word-of-mouth invitation of a

friend will know what to expect. There’ll be no surprises.
Instead of complex assimilation programs, a sticky church simply
needs to provide plenty of ministry on-ramps to which members can eas-
ily connect the friends they’ve invited.
+
+ -
+ -
+
As long as the front door is bigger than the

back door - a church will think it is growing.
34
+ -
As long as the front door is bigger than the
back door - a church will think it is growing.
+ -
+ -
+ -
+ -
When the front door and the back door can’t be

opened any wider - a church stops growing.
T
HURCHES START OUT FAST AND THEN SUDDENLY FALL OUT)
USCRIPT SUBMISSION
35
“Dave is asking the right questions while living out the right the
monkey
answers. I couldn’t put this book down until I had finished it all.
He writes about our global and cultural context, which most
Western Christians are oblivious to ... but not for long.”
the
monkey
— Bob Roberts, pastor, NorthWood Church,
author, The Multiplying Church
a mandate for change and and

and the
a manifesto for how
the
Looking at the global shifts rocking all of us, Dave Gibbons offers
a third-culture way to being the church. Gibbons offers creative
fish
fish
applications that can help any church of any kind anywhere make
a difference in the world. The Monkey and the Fish will help you live
out your mission in a bold, revolutionary way.
g ib b ons L I Q U I D L E A D E R S H I P
Dave Gibbons is the founding pastor of Newsong, a multisite, international
F O R A
third-culture church. He is an in-demand speaker, innovative strategist, and cultural
specialist with global experience in the arts, business, church, and community T H I R D - C U L T U R E C H U R C H
development. Dave is on the board of World Vision US. He’s
also founder and chief visionary officer of Xealot, a strategic
innovations group, creatively connecting resources
religion / Christian Church / Leadership
to leaders around the world.
Cover design: Rob Monacelli

USD $16.99/CAD $17.99
ISBN 978-0-310-27602-9
d a ve g i bbons
Leadership Network®
Innovation Series. foreword by j.j. brazil, P u l i t z e r P r i z e Wi n n e r
Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1: Liquid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2: Wardrobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3: Neighbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4: Liquid Bruce Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5: Three Questions That Become the Answers 109
6: cWoWs: Everyone Plays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
7: Ripples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Becoming Third Culture: Practical Next Steps . . . . . . . . 189
Appendix: On the Verge: An Interview with David
Gibbons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
0310276020_monkfish_3rdPgs.indd 9 10/29/08 10:07:34 AM

current 1
The desire for safety stands against every

noble human endeavor.
— Tacitus, Roman philosopher
I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for

justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m
a human being, first and foremost, and as
such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits
humanity as a whole.
— Malcolm X
T he rebellious, disrespectful, disillusioned, and demand-

ing Prodigal Son is the focus of one of the most glori-
ous moments in the Gospels. Yet the real highlight of that
passage in Luke 15 is the radically gracious, generous, and
forgiving father.
I love that story because it’s Eastern in its cultural tone.
Normally, an Eastern father would never run toward his son.
The typical Eastern son, with head bowed, would be quick
to demonstrate obeisance to his father. However, this father
is different. This father runs and, in what is considered by
many to be the most intimate portrait of love in the Bible,
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The Monkey and the Fish
kisses his son over and over again. Most versions of the Bible
don’t translate these repeated kisses. The kisses of the father.
Kisses that entwine forgiveness, celebration, and blessing.
The world longs for such kisses from the Father.
No one should be in a better position to fulfill this long-
ing than the church. Who can give a better kiss than the
church? A kiss without strings attached. A supernatural kiss
that can set captives free. A kiss that inspires prodigals to
remember real love and to come back home.
I sometimes think how sweet it would be if that were the
reaction of every person, every family, every neighbor, every
community, even every country, whenever they come into
contact with those of us who follow Jesus, who make up the
church.
I think it could happen.
I believe that today God is calling us in the church to
become a different kind of movement, known for our kisses
of compassion rather than our condemnations.
I’m not sure there’s ever been a better opportunity for
those of us in the church to do so. A historic coming together
of many unusual forces are shaping today’s global village. Our
world is marked by unprecedented degrees of multicultural-
ism, social advocacy, international collaboration and inter-
dependence, and technology-driven outbreaks of freedom,
unity, and community. They provide an intersection, a kairos
moment, in which the church can shine.
From its first moments, the church has held the promise
of being an expression of God’s presence on this earth. No
other entity has greater potential to bring about real and
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sustainable change for good, whether we’re talking about

individual lives or the world at large.
But something’s wrong. In North America, there has
been a steady decline in church attendance, church giving,
and church participation, a pattern we’ve already seen unfold
in Europe, once the seat of Christianity’s global expansion.
These are signs of a much larger problem: the erosion of
the significance of the church in the public square and in
people’s personal lives. In the spring of 2006, a national poll
in America indicated that only 17 percent of Americans said
going to church is essential for a life of faith.
Altered States
Around the world, things are changing fast these days, and
in ways that seemed unthinkable only a few years ago. Just
ask any of the people who attended a recent World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This annual gathering draws
some of the most influential people in the world, including
people from all fields — religion, politics, media, business,
you name it. There was plenty of talk about novel business
strategies and potential political partnerships. But people
who are students of culture couldn’t help but notice that new
topics and questions are looming large in the most important
conversations taking place today. There are conversations
about how China is upending the world economy and cul-
ture, and about how China is eclipsing the United States in
so many ways. There are conversations about how grassroots
social change around the globe — which is being fueled by
the internet’s vast potential for helping people leap barriers
33

of time, distance, and culture — is far outstripping institu-

tional approaches to crises and problem-solving, whether the
institution is political or religious or otherwise.
There are conversations about how the world demands
that business not only be good for profits but also be good for
the planet and good for people. In business, it used to be that
one bottom line — profit — separated the good from the bad.
Now there are at least two bottom lines to attend to: profit
and cause. This new reality, this new way of doing things,
has huge ramifications for the thinking, methods, and game
plans of for-profit organizations and business entities of all
kinds. Many in the corporate and nonprofit domains are
pretty sleep-deprived these days trying to figure out this
new world we live in and what it means to be cause-oriented
and socially conscious with their gains. This is in large part
because they recognize the profitability of cause marketing.
What does all of this have to do with those of us in the
church? Well, just as the spheres of commerce and govern-
ment are being fundamentally reshaped by globalism, so is the
domain of the church. Again, it’s not new but a wake-up call to
return to our roots, our calling as lovers of the marginalized.
Globalism applies to the many colossal shifts occurring
in the world today because of an intense interdependence
that countries, cultures, and people are experiencing with
one another. The world is shrinking. By the day, it seems.
Distances that once took months to cover now take hours.
People and cultures unknown to us, let alone ever person-
ally encountered by us, are an integral part of the fabric of
our lives. For example, experts have said that if you take out
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the undocumented worker in places like California, that will

wreak havoc on our economy. People in politics and busi-
ness, in education and the arts, people throughout all of our
institutions, are finding it difficult to keep up with the way
the world is changing, to understand what’s happening and
why, and to adapt.
I love the church. But the church historically has proven
slow to embrace necessary change and to adapt to ethnic,
sociological, and cultural shifts. It’s like we know we’re
unhealthy but we don’t want to go to the doctor to take care
of the problem. And I don’t think it has been any differ-
ent with globalism. I’m concerned that with globalism, the
nature and scope of the changes taking place in the world
are so sweeping and the pace of change so unrelenting that
we’re becoming increasingly out of touch with the reality of
our sickness.
At the risk of oversimplifying things, globalism truly is
what historians call a disruptive force, because it’s making for
a very different, new world: culturally, economically, socially,
technologically, commercially, and politically.
There are difficult, troubling aspects to this reshaping,
but also wonderful possibilities. For instance, the collective
threats posed worldwide by terrorism, pandemics, rogue mili-
tary leaders, political and social corruption, environmental
complexities, and racism are frightening and daunting. But I
also see an unprecedented potential for creative international
and cross-cultural collaboration because we are living in a
cause-driven culture. It’s now hip to be advocates of justice
and compassion. In fact, people everywhere are hungering
35

for authentic spiritual conversations and opportunities to

change the world. I look at the spiritual movements taking
place in China, India, and Southeast Asia and they leave me
breathless. Around the planet, there is an openness not only
to doing good but to experiencing Jesus and his teachings,
and it’s growing exponentially.
The church has an amazing opportunity to become what
God is hoping we will become. It’ll take the resculpting of
our organizations and corporate culture, the incubation of
new art forms, new languages and expressions, new symbols,
flexible ways of being organized and led, and even a fuller
explanation of what we know as the gospel. (See how one
MIT graduate is reimagining the gospel. Search on these
words: James Choung Story at http://youtube.com. The type
of work James is doing is exactly the work that each genera-
tion must do.) We need creative forms, methods, and prac-
tices for sharing the truth we love and believe in that will
work in the new world and with a new generation. We need
fresh counterintuitive ways of leading — in practice and in
philosophy.
As I travel around the world and talk to people, I hear
many of us in the church expressing similar concerns and
longings. We’re looking for something that fits what we
know to be intrinsically true. We’re hungry for it. We sense
the urgency of it.
Not one of us in the church has the answer, but I am
fortunate enough to be surrounded by a group of young, mul-
tigenerational, multiethnic leaders and servants who have
stumbled onto something that seems to have a lot of promise
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in the new world we all find ourselves in. It’s something we

call third culture. And these leaders that I’m discovering in
cities all over the world, including America, are what we
call third-culture leaders. It’s something we in the group of
churches we’ve launched feel pretty strongly about. We’ve
seen an application of third-culture concepts ignite some
beautiful things as we’ve put them into practice around the
world.
A third-culture church and a third-culture leader look
at our global milieu and the church’s role in that milieu in a
revolutionary way.
The Third-Culture Mandate

When we understand the powerful force of globalism — pos-
sibly the single most significant macro influence impact-
ing the world today — we’ll understand how third-culture
churches and third-culture leaders can help sustain and
revitalize the church.
When I use the term third-culture church, I’m referring to
a beautiful yet sobering reality: whether we’re in Manhat-
tan or Beijing or Sao Paulo, our credibility and the verac-
ity of our initiatives will be measured by our third-culture
lifestyles — hence the need to understand the third-culture
mandate in light of the purposes of the church prioritized by
Jesus himself when he was queried about the greatest com-
mandment.
Third culture illuminates the dramatic changes in the
world today as well as the insular and exclusive nature of the
church. Yet by pursuing what a third-culture church and its
37

leaders might look like in principle and practice, we’ll be able

to fulfill what Christ envisioned his church to be about.
In what some people have called the First Great Com-
mission, God told Abraham that he and his offspring would
be a “blessing to all the nations.” That, I believe, is our char-
ter, our call, for our churches to be a true blessing to all the
nations. And the nations have never been more ready and
eager for the church to offer the supernatural kiss of blessing
it can offer.
I hope to be able to show you why and how the world is
craving a third-culture spirit from the church and third-cul-
ture leaders within the church. We’ll also discover together
that third-culture thinking and practices can help the church
not only have an impact globally but also reexamine how we
do church and develop leaders to connect with our twenty-
first-century global village — a place that has gone through
a hundred years of change in just the past decade.
Defining Third Culture

A working definition of third culture emerges from Genesis
12 and from the second greatest commandment: Third cul-
ture is the mindset and will to love, learn, and serve in any cul-
ture, even in the midst of pain and discomfort. From Genesis to
Revelation you can track God’s relentless pursuit of blessing
humanity in the midst of man’s rebellion. As you examine
Genesis 1 – 12 again, you’ll discover that the first mention
of the Great Commission isn’t in the book of Matthew but
right here in Genesis 12, where God says that we are “blessed
to be a blessing to the nations.” This blessing is revealed in
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the conclusion of the Bible in Revelation 5:9 – 14, where all

the nations are gathered singing a new song.
The hard work of this definition is the last phrase — “even
in the midst of pain and discomfort.” It is contrary to our
nature and culture to embrace pain, but it is the catalyst
for helping people to see God. As this book unfolds, you’ll
discover that third culture is not just a trend or a new thing
but the heart of God. In fact, God is third culture.
Third culture is not only about geography or skin color
or language. For third-culture people, home is wherever Jesus
is. Third culture is the bearing of pain to love those who
are not like you. Third culture affirms one’s ethnic identity.
One’s ethnicity is not ignored but celebrated! Third culture
doesn’t dull the color of one’s culture. Third culture actually
enhances a culture’s uniqueness while at the same time cel-
ebrating the synergy of its fusion with other cultures. Third
culture artfully flows in and out of multiple cultures like
water.
Here’s another way of looking at it. First culture is the
dominant homogeneous culture you live in. First culture
tends to be more preservation-oriented, but that doesn’t
mean people don’t take great risks. (For example, Asian
immigrants often give up their status and wealth in their
mother countries for the promise of better opportunities for
their children in another country.) Second culture is the
culture of those who aren’t quite comfortable with the first
culture and often react to the first culture’s ways, maybe even
rejecting their parents’ home culture. Third culture is being
able to live in both first and second culture and even adopt
39

an entirely different culture. Third culture is about adap-

tation, the both/and, not the either/or, mindset. It doesn’t
eradicate color or lines but embraces and affirms who we
are, regardless of differences in ethnicity, culture, or mindset.
Third culture is the gift of being more cognizant of and more
comfortable with the painful fusion and friction inherent in
cultural intersections.
Others have also done some profound thinking about
diversity, multiculturalism, multiethnicity, multigeneration-
alism, and other important topics that need attention. The
challenge, I think, is that the solutions offered are often at
best cosmetic, such as admonitions to hire more people of
color, do pulpit exchanges, or include more music styles on
Sunday mornings. Such common cultural initiatives often
fall short of true racial reconciliation and lack depth.
Scars: Generating Breakthroughs

Stephen “Cue” Jean-Marie is a rapper with a penchant for
quoting Malcolm X. He grew up in the slums of the West
Indies. Not long ago, he ended up at Newsong Church’s cam-
pus in Irvine, California, a place where some would never
expect a person like Cue to show up, let alone take a leader-
ship role. But he did show up. And not long after, he took
on an extraordinary challenge. Members of the congregation
and leaders at Newsong in Irvine wanted him to find the
most marginalized community in Los Angeles, the kind of
place that some people at Newsong would be uncomfortable
to be in. We asked him to find a way for Newsong to make a
difference in such a place.
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This was no easy task — on so many levels.

First, there’s Cue himself. His stature is intimidating. He’s
a bodybuilder! He’s not a seminary-trained church leader. He
was weaned on the streets, really. He has scars on his mus-
cular forearms from being branded with hot spoons in his
childhood, somebody’s sad idea of discipline. He’s an unlikely
pastor.
Then there’s the people. To put it mildly, people in urban
Los Angeles and suburban Orange County can be somewhat
uncomfortable with one another. Los Angeles is a sprawl-
ing ethnically diverse county of ten million people, some of
whom live in some of the most impoverished, crime-ridden
places in America. Orange County is akin to what you see
on suburban prime-time reality shows (well, sort of), a place
overflowing with wealth, excessive tastes, corporate execu-
tives, racial homogeneity, and a pretty manic pursuit of a
lifestyle filled with ease and good fortune. When someone
leaves one of these counties and crosses the border of the
other, they can be met with an unspoken “good riddance.”
And then there’s the challenge. How would Cue find a
place in Los Angeles that would trust the intentions and
methods of an Orange County megachurch? And would
the Crenshaw community accept a legit urbanite and a man
of the streets who had joined forces with a suburban mega-
church? Even if Cue found such a place, what could a con-
gregation in suburban Orange County possibly do that would
be meaningful and valuable in a city radically different from
Irvine? How could Cue persuade people in Orange County
to embrace whatever cause and constituency he discovered?
41

These barriers were just the beginning. But it’s the num-
ber and nature of the barriers, and the degree of unlikelihood
involved in this mission, that make Cue’s effort so remark-
able. Looking back at it now, it’s something that God himself
had to be part of for it to work.
Cue met the challenge by forming a partnership with
what is arguably the most troubled school in Los Angeles,
a community where the majority of the children come from
single-parent homes, where in one recent week seven stu-
dents were shot to death in suspected gang activity, where
the high school recently lost its accreditation.
Besides being committed to helping the high school
regain its accreditation, the initiative Cue leads today
employs sports, health education, the arts, wellness disci-
plines, mentoring, and whatever else might help to lift some
of the burdens of the young people he deals with, and maybe
even alter the trajectory of their lives.
Every day, Cue peers into the eyes of kids who are suffer-
ing in the same way he once did. And they see him as some-
one who doesn’t need an explanation, who understands, who
knows. The neighborhoods he spends his days in are busting
at the seams with fatherless boys ill-equipped to do more
than plant the seeds of another fatherless generation and
with emotionally crippled girls settling for the crumbs of
what passes for affection. Others drive through and around
this area, but against some tall odds, Cue and his brothers
and sisters in the Newsong community are living out what
Mother Teresa gently instructed all of us to do: “If you can-
not feed a hundred children, well then, feed one.”
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Cue and some of his crew of former gang members are

sought-after partners by the schools in Crenshaw. Young
people are clamoring to be part of their club. Lives are
being changed. Now Cue has launched another ministry in
Los Angeles called the Row, working with one of the most
neglected people groups in Los Angeles: the homeless. Despite
the noise of helicopters flying overhead and police cars whiz-
zing by with their sirens going, they do church every Friday
night on an open street corner with drug addicts and alcohol-
ics and, believe it or not, suburbanites from Orange County.
How did Cue pull this off? Was it simply the result of his
innate leadership skills? Certainly that’s part of the explana-
tion. But more intriguing is how Cue even ended up in the
Newsong community. What attracted him to a community
of ethnicities and cultures that are different from his? And
how is it that he, not exactly prototypical leadership material
for an American megachurch, came to be loved and empow-
ered by Newsong to take on such a dangerous and meaning-
ful mission?
The answer to all these questions finds its home in Cue’s
pain. Cue epitomizes a new breed of leader, a leader who
leads from what I call the pain principle. This is one of sev-
eral attributes that mark a third-culture leader and a third-
culture church. The pain principle grows out of two axioms:
(1) For leaders, pain in life has a way of deconstructing us to
our most genuine, humble, authentic selves. It’s part of the
leader’s job description. (2) For most people, regardless of
culture, it’s easier to connect with a leader’s pain and short-
comings and mistakes than her successes and triumphs.
43

One of the things I’m learning as I encounter people

around the world today is that leaders who understand the
pain principle are the kind of leaders the world is thirsting
for. What’s intriguing to me is that this is the kind of leader
the church was full of in its earliest days. Paul, Rahab, Ruth,
Moses, Joseph, and Jesus himself were all such leaders. The
apostle Paul, one of the greatest followers of Jesus, had a story
similar to Cue’s. He said, “From now on, don’t let anyone
trouble me with these things. For I bear on my body the
scars that show I belong to Jesus” (Gal. 6:17 NLT). Paul is
basically saying, “I have the right to speak to you because of
these scars, evidence of Christ in me.”
Fuel the Fringe, Honor the Past

The church is called to be a third-culture community. Third
culture is about the two purposes of life for every Christ-
follower: loving God and loving your neighbor.
Without question, there are a lot of effective strategies
and fruitful ideas being used in the church and in ministry
today. Third culture is not simply a strategy but the way we
are to live. One may not be naturally third culture, but we
are called to move toward this vision. It seems that more
than ever the world is open to such leadership. I say this sim-
ply because we have experienced it in communities where we
seriously pursued a third-culture lifestyle in diverse cultural
contexts spanning several continents and saw how people
gravitate toward this adaptive, liquid-type leader. Even the
next US president is third culture. As of this writing, we
don’t know whether the next president will be Obama or
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McCain, but both have third-culture characteristics from

their past and present.
Any Church, Any Size, Anywhere

When my brother and I were teenagers, we were bottomless
pits. We could consume massive quantities of food. My poor
mom. She found really only one place she could take us that
would satisfy us: the Royal Fork, an all-you-can-eat buffet
where we ate for three to four hours at a sitting.
I can still picture the luscious spread. For my brother and
me, nothing was more glorious than checking out every nook
and cranny of that steamy buffet table and then consuming
everything in sight. Buffets were our little heaven on earth.
Nothing brings people together like good food!
That whole scene reminds me of a story in Luke 14 about
another banquet that is jam-packed with prophetic power for
us in the new millennium.
Jesus tells the story of a great feast being prepared in the
kingdom of God. The host of the banquet has worked fever-
ishly and is enthusiastic about this feast. So he dispatches
a servant to visit all of the people who were invited to the
banquet to make sure they are coming. One by one, how-
ever, they all tell the servant they aren’t going to be able to
attend. They’re busy attending to transactions and urgent
matters. They appreciate the invitation but have to take a
rain check.
In response, the deeply disappointed host deploys his ser-
vant to go throughout the city to invite everyone he sees
to the banquet — the homeless, the crippled, the lame, the
45

poor, anyone he encounters. The servant lobs invitations to

all comers, and before long, it’s clear the banquet tables are
going to be filled after all with all manner of grateful, joy-
ful people, people who are not too busy. Jesus quietly closes
with the haunting admonition that not one of the people
who were originally invited will taste the greatest buffet of
all time.
Like all of Jesus’ parables, there’s plenty of mystery in this
story for us to burrow into. What did he mean by this sad,
jarring story? Well, to me, there’s a message for us in the
church today.
As I travel to different nations, I see God’s beautiful
sculpting hand creatively at work, as unmistakable as it is
unobtrusive. Spectacular spiritual shifts are occurring. But I
wonder if the church is sometimes too busy, too distracted,
too inwardly focused to sense all that’s happening, all that
could be, all that will be — with us or without us. Is it possible
that we are so consumed with managing churches and min-
istries and organizations that we’re missing out on an inter-
national spiritual banquet like we’ve never seen before? Is it
possible that the reality of the new world we’re living in gives
the church an opportunity we’ve never had before, a chance
for the church to be what we’ve always dreamed it could be?
I believe the church is the embodiment of Jesus on this
earth. Think about that. That means that there is no orga-
nization with greater potential to have an impact or to be
a more potent force for good than a third-culture church
that is unleashed. What other organization has that kind of
reason for being?
46

Liquid
This all might sound pie-in-the-sky. That’s fine. But the

God we serve and love has the widest idealistic streak of any
of us. A baton is being passed today — in the world and in
the church — and any church of any size in any place can
accept that baton and run with it. God is raising up in our
churches — and outside our churches, frankly — a new gener-
ation of prophets with voices and liquid leadership skills tailor-
made for our times. And I hope that none of us misses it.
In writing this book, my hope is that we will sacrificially
foster and prioritize next-generation thinking, next-generation
methods, and next-generation leaders in the church so that
the global movement Jesus began will be known first and fore-
most for sharing love without strings, healing, extravagant
radical compassion, and radical reconciliation with the world
so lovingly breathed into existence by our creator.
Shaping What Could Be

In addition to prayer and reflection on the state of the
world these days, I’ve drawn from intentional experiential
forays into nonprofit and for-profit work to better under-
stand third-culture language and concepts, including my
twenty years as a lead pastor developing churches both big
and small, homogeneous and multicultural; from learning
from some of the incredible leaders of churches and Chris-
tian movements and organizations in North America, the
Far East, the United Kingdom, and India; from adventures
as a board member with World Vision and as founder of
Xealot, a nonprofit organization that seeks to help people
living in marginalized communities; from involvement with
47

two global cause-oriented for-profit ventures, one a financial

trading house in California and the other a music label in
Los Angeles; and from serving as a consultant and counselor
for young artists, business leaders, and musicians on several
continents.
In my journeys, what’s becoming clear to me is that the
more adaptive we are to the Holy Spirit and to diverse people
groups and settings, the more we reflect who Jesus is and
impact this new flat world.
Author Thomas Friedman has become a bit of a prophetic
voice in this regard in the area of culture, politics, and busi-
ness. In his seminal book, The World Is Flat, he describes some
of the forces at work that are creating the groundwork and
necessity for a third-culture movement in the church: “Two
aspects of culture have struck me as particularly relevant in
the flat world. One is how outward your culture is: To what
degree is it open to foreign influences and ideas? How well
does it ‘glocalize’ (a term that combines the necessity of both
local and global initiatives — it’s not a choice)? The other,
more intangible, is how inward your culture is.”1 In other
words, organizations with cultures that intentionally or unin-
tentionally maintain an inward focus — a culture of exclusivity
and a leeriness of and even suspicion toward differences and
change — are in real trouble in this twenty-first-century global
village of ours. Conversely, the more an organization’s culture
naturally glocalizes — the more easily our local cultures can
absorb and embrace foreign ideas and best practices and meld
those with the best of our traditions and values — the greater
the boon we will enjoy in the new world.
48

Liquid
This new reality is the sweet spot of third culture.

Now, for all of the challenges before us, there’s great
news for those of us who are privileged enough to be agents
of the good news of God’s love. The urgent changes glo-
balism is prompting the church to make, I believe, are
what God himself would prescribe for us. I say this simply
because of what I see in Scripture that reveals God’s impas-
sioned, undeniable desire for the church’s role in the world.
What begins in Genesis with a call for God’s people to be
a blessing to all nations ends climactically in Revelation 7,
where “all nations and tribes, all races and languages” are
gathered together worshiping God. No matter how many
times I read that passage, I never cease to feel lifted and
emboldened to do whatever I can to help make that scene
come to pass.
I don’t think we can imagine the degree of the exquisite
beauty that that moment described in Revelation will bring.
But we get to see a sliver of it when, on rare moments in
world events, we witness people laying aside their differences
and coming together for good. There’s something about that
kind of unity and reconciliation that moves us beyond words.
Likewise, that portrait in Revelation — a depiction of the cli-
mactic reconciliation of God and the chief object of his love,
humankind — lies at the core of the message, methodology,
and motivation of third culture.
If Friedman’s bestselling The World Is Flat is an inspir-
ing call to a different mindset about the world for business,
culture, and government, then I think there’s an urgent call
for the church to do likewise.
49

We have much to learn from the world. A recent example

is the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
It left many people in the world speechless. The scale and
pageantry of the event were unprecedented. But beyond the
amazing artistry of the event, one could feel that this was
a coming out party for China and for Asia. Once known
primarily for its illegal copying of products, Asia is increas-
ingly known for its creativity. David Brooks, New York Times
op-ed columnist, had an insightful take on this ceremony.
He writes, “The world can be divided many ways — rich and
poor, democratic and authoritarian — but one of the most
striking is the divide between the societies with an individu-
alistic mentality and the ones with a collectivist mentality.”2
Brooks then refers to a study by professor of psychology Rich-
ard Nesbitt in which Americans and Asians were shown
individual pictures of a chicken, a cow, and hay. When they
were asked which of the pictures go together, Americans
typically picked the two animals. Asians typically picked
the cow and the hay, since cows eat hay. Americans tend to
see categories, whereas Asians are more likely to see relation-
ships. That’s why doing business in Asia is about more than
signing a contract; it’s about relationships of trust.
Often the Western world focuses on privacy and indi-
vidual rights, whereas the Asian world focuses more on col-
lective harmony, collective society. Brooks writes, “People
in [individualistic] societies tend to overvalue their own
skills and overestimate their own importance to any group
effort. People in collective societies tend to value harmony
and duty. They tend to underestimate their own skills and
50

Liquid
are more self-effacing when describing their contributions

to group efforts.” In a world in which the healthiest people
tend to be in community and those prone to depression and
suicide tend to be disconnected, we have much to learn from
our “neighbors.” The real value of our growing relationship
with nations such as China will probably be more relational
and community oriented than economic. We’ll learn to
look beyond categories and see relationships. That’s third
culture.
51

deliberate simplicit y
Less is mo r e . An d m o r e i s b et t er .
T his is the new equation for church development—a new equation

with eternal results.
Rather than the corporate, complex megachurch model of the past,

church innovator Dave Browning embraced Deliberate Simplicity. The
result was an expanding multisite church empowered for maximum
impact.
As part of the Leadership Network Innovation Series, Deliberate

Simplicity is a guide for church leaders seeking new strategies for more
effective ministry.
“Einstein noted once that any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more
complex, but that it takes a touch of genius ... to move in the opposite direction.
deliberate simplicit y
Drawing deeply from the living witness of Christ the King Community Church,
Dave ... gives us not only a highly informative text on a critical subject, but also
an inspiring one.”
— Alan Hirsch, author of The Forgotten Ways
browning
DAVE BROWNING is the founding pastor of Christ the King Community Church,
International (CTK), a nondenominational multisite church with locations in twelve
How the Church Does More
states and seven countries. It is named among
Outreach magazine’s America’s Most Innovative Churches.
by Doing Less
Dave lives in Burlington, Washington, with his wife
RELIGION / Christian Church / Leadership
and three children.
USD $16.99/CAD $17.99
ISBN 978-0-310-28567-0
dave browning
Cover design: Rob Monacelli

Leadership Network®
Innovation Series.
CONTENTS
Preface .....................................9
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Introduction to a New Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.Minimality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
2.Intentionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.Reality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91
4.Multility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123
5.Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149
6.Scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173
Conclusion: It’s an Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Appendix 1: Seven Ways Less Can Be More . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Appendix 2: Twenty-five Reasons to Be Multisite . . . . . . . . . 207
Appendix 3: Organic Site Development Process . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Appendix 4: Short and Sweet: The One-Hour Service . . . . . . 229
Appendix 5: Differences: What Makes CTK Different . . . . . . 245
Author Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
0310285674_simplicity_1stPgs.indd 7 9/22/08 9:18:50 AM

INTRODUCTION TO
A NEW EQUATION
<=–×+∞
A NEW EQUATION
Imagine with me for a minute . . . a church . . . but not your typ-
ical church. A church where the main thing is the main thing. A
church where people convene primarily in homes and secondarily
in public spaces for worship services. A church where the minis-
try is carried out by ordinary people, and it is the pastor’s job to
identify, deploy, train, and support these ministers. A church that
is warm and accepting of both the churched and the unchurched.
A church that sees hundreds of converts baptized each year. A
church that numbers tens of thousands but convenes in thousands
of small groups and scores of small worship centers. A church that
has no geographical limits but spreads from house to house, neigh-
borhood to neighborhood, town to town, county to county, state
to state, and country to country. A church that is not just multilo-
cation but also multiethnic and multinational.
What if this church were intentionally structured to reach an
unlimited number of people in an unlimited number of places?
What if this church were more like a movement than a ministry?
Do you have this picture in your mind? For me it’s not too
difficult to imagine. I’ve been living inside this picture for the last
few years.
15

DEL IBER AT E SIMP L ICI T Y
Christ the King Community Church held its first worship

ser vice on Sunday evening, April 4, 1999, in Mount Vernon,
Washington. In May of that year, CTK began to hold morning
ser vices, going to two ser vices in September and three ser vices
the following February. During its first year, Christ the King of
Skagit Valley grew at a rate of 12 percent a month to an average of
over 500 people per week, with a high attendance of 763. By the
end of CTK’s first year, thirty-eight small groups were convening
weekly in Jesus’ name for friendship, growth, encouragement, and
outreach.
From 2000 to 2004, CTK established hundreds of small groups
throughout the region, with worship centers located in ten cities,
in four counties. In 2004, Outreach Magazine recognized CTK as
one of the fastest-growing churches in America.
In 2005, CTK began to expand across the country and around
the world. We are now poised to go as far as relationships will take
us (a current list of locations can be found online at www.ctkon-
line.com). CTK has experienced extraordinary results by keeping
it simple.
Church growth in the seventies, eighties, and nineties was
defined by the megachurch. As researcher George Barna says,
“We live in an era of hyperbole. Everything is supersized, global,
mega-this, and biggest-ever-that. Even the religious community
has succumbed to the world’s infatuation with size. The pinnacle
of church success is to become a megachurch.” Megachurches have
proven they are able to reach thousands of people with burgeon-
ing budgets, sprawling campuses, huge payroll, and extensive pro-
gramming. Large churches have demonstrated for the past three
decades that more can be more. Deliberate Simplicity is a new
equation for church development. It says less can also be more.
This represents a paradigm shift.
When the paradigm shifts, the rules change. In baseball, for
example, the foul lines are part of the paradigm. If the ball lands
on one side of the line, it’s a fair ball. If it lands on the other side of
16

IN T RODUC T ION T O A N E W E Q U AT I O N
the line, it’s a foul ball. If the ball is hit over the fence, it’s a home
run. If it lands short of the fence, it’s playable. What accounts for
these differences? The paradigm. A paradigm is a set of rules that
tell you how to play the game in order to be successful.
When I say that Deliberate Simplicity is a new paradigm for
the church, I’m saying the lines have been moved from where you
might expect to find them in a traditional church. “Traditional
church” may sound pejorative. Here we mean simply a church
defined by its locale, programs, facility, or denomination. If you
hear someone say,
• “I attend the (color or architecture) church at the corner of
Maple and Division”
• “My family has been members of the (Denomination)
Church for generations”
• “I really like the productions they do over at the (First
Something) Church”
• “Have you seen the new education wing the (big church in
town) built?”
they are probably talking about a traditional church.

In the Deliberately Simple church, the rules are: “Less is
more, and more is better.” Success within these lines boils down
to six factors, presented here in the form of an equation: < = – ×
+ {dec56}.
Factor Symbol Objective Question
Keep it
Minimality < What
simple.
Intentional- Keep it mis-

= Why
ity sional.
Reality – Keep it real. How
17

Keep it
Multility × Where
cellular.
Keep it
Velocity + When
moving.
Keep it
Scalability ∞ How Far
expanding.
The main ideas of Deliberate Simplicity are outlined in six sec-

tions. The first three (minimality, intentionality, reality) explain
how less is more. The last three (multility, velocity, scalability)
expand on how more is better. The modular approach I have
taken to writing about Deliberate Simplicity mirrors the modular
approach we have taken in ministry. Each of the six chapters can
stand on its own but is also part of a greater whole.
The differences between a Deliberately Simple church and a
traditional church need to be discussed, because when you are
in the middle of a paradigm, it is sometimes hard to imagine any
other paradigm. Upside Down Map Co. of Derby, England, recently
teamed up with Map Link Inc. of Santa Barbara, California, to
print a road map of California with north and south reversed to
make map reading easier for drivers heading south. Why didn’t I
think of that? Probably because I was stuck in a paradigm that says
a map always has to be laid out with N pointing up. When you get
out of the box, you can see new possibilities.
Fifty years ago a church “map” invariably involved a church
with a steeple, a seminary-trained minister in a three-piece suit or
robe, a pew-filled sanctuary, hymnals, an organist, and a sermon
delivered from behind a wooden pulpit. Today, if you participate
in a Deliberately Simple church, you will most likely meet in a
rented auditorium, sit on a stackable chair, sing along with pro-
jected lyrics and a rock band, and hear conversational teaching by
a bivocational pastor in blue jeans sitting on a stool.
18

Church growth expert Peter Wagner speculates that the num-

ber of churches that are out of the box now exceeds the amount
of churches in the largest Protestant denomination, which has
around forty thousand churches nationwide. Donald Miller, pro-
fessor at the University of California at Berkeley, outlines twelve
characteristics of the “New Paradigm Church”:
1. They were started after the mid-1960s.
2. The majority of the congregation members were born after
1945.
3. Seminary training of clergy is optional.
4. Worship is contemporary.
5. Lay leadership is highly valued.
6. They have extensive small group ministries.
7. Clergy and congregants usually dress informally.
8. Tolerance of different personal styles is prized.
9. Pastors tend to be understated, humble, and self-revealing.
10. Bodily, rather than mere cognitive, participation in wor-
ship is the norm.
11. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are affirmed.
12. Bible-centered teaching predominates over topical ser-
monizing.1
Of the twelve chara cteris tics, which three

do you believ e have specia l impor tance ?
The church has always undergone change, reformation, and

revolution. But today the major reforms taking place in the church
are in the area of methodology rather than message, in practice
more than theology. According to church growth expert Peter
19

Wagner, “The radical change in the sixteenth century was largely

theological. The current reformation is not so much a reformation
of faith (the essential theological principles of the Reformation are
intact), but a reformation of practice.” Yet for the church — which
often institutionalizes its practices — reforms in methodology can
prove every bit as epic as reforms in theology. Fortunately, the sig-
nificant changes that used to take decades, if not centuries, for the
church to embrace are now happening in months and years.
One of the chief practical advantages of the Deliberately
Simple paradigm is the speed at which gains can be achieved. If
the goal is to build Christ’s kingdom and see spiritual transforma-
tion happen on a massive scale, then the traditional church is
not going to get it done. We are winning some battles but losing
the war. In the United States, for instance, while megachurches
are getting bigger and bigger, the culture is becoming more and
more secular. In the Two-Thirds World, to which the “bigger is
better” paradigm has been exported, the monetary requirements
of building buildings and supporting pastors has been stifling and
stalling the church. Only middle- to upper-class communities (or
ministries supported from the outside) can pay the bill for the
properties and staff they “need.” Instead of focusing on outreach,
the church spends excessive energy focusing on the money it feels
it requires to do outreach.
Deliberately Simple churches are finding that the way to effect
dramatic change is to change the rules. When you change the
rules, you automatically change the roles and results.
Deliberately
Traditional
Simple
Goal Improvement Redefinition
Behaviors and Attitudes and

Focus
Rules Roles
20

Risk Low High
Result Minor Gains Major Gains
Speed Slow Fast
Sometimes the paradigm you’re working with does more harm

than good. For instance, the prevailing medical theory used to be
bloodletting. Now it’s germ theory. What if hospitals had done
TQM (total quality management) on bloodletting? They would
have been doing the wrong thing even better. If the paradigm
doesn’t work, executing the paradigm better actually makes things
worse. You climb the ladder only to find that it’s leaning against
the wrong wall.
While I agree with the axiom that says, “No model is perfect;
some are useful,” there is a growing sense that the megachurch
ladder may be leaning against the wrong wall. In fact, the situa-
tion may be more dire than that. In his book Revolution, researcher
George Barna speaks to a growing angst regarding the institu-
tional church. His research indicates that there may be as many
as twenty million spiritual revolutionaries who no longer view the
church as the locus for their spiritual experience. Church consul-
tant Reggie McNeal states that “a growing number of people are
leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not
leaving because they have lost faith. They are leaving the church
to preserve their faith.”
When decidedly different, more useful answers to questions
start to appear, you are seeing the beginnings of a new paradigm.
With momentum, these new rules become a paradigm shift. The
Deliberately Simple church appears to be in the same place in its
development as the United States of America prior to the Consti-
tutional Convention in Philadelphia. We have a dream. We have
a new land in which to live out that dream. We have principles
that are guiding us. We are experiencing newfound freedom living
21

by these principles. To facilitate further expansion, we have to

do what the Founding Fathers did. We have to put our hearts on
parchment. As Martin Luther nailed ninety-five theological tenets
to the church door in Wittenberg, today we are posting this practi-
cal thesis in big, bold letters: DELIBERATE SIMPLICITY.
The word Deliberate says that we want to be intentional about
what we try to do and how we try to do it.
de•lib•er•ate adj: carefully thought out and done
intentionally
By definition, deliberate speaks to design (“thought out”) as

well as drive (“done intentionally”). A deliberate church thinks
through the outcomes it wants to achieve, lets form follow func-
tion, and takes responsibility for results.
Simplicity describes the manner in which the Deliberately Sim-
ple church intends to carry out its mission: simply.
By simple we mean:
sim•ple adj sim•pler, sim•plest 1: easy to understand,
deal with, use, etc.: a simple matter; simple tools 2: plain;
not elaborate or artificial: a simple style 3: unadorned; not
ornate or luxurious: a simple gown 4: unaffected; unassum-
ing; modest: a simple manner 5: not complicated: a simple
design 6: single; not complex or compound 7: occurring or
considered alone; mere; bare: the simple truth; a simple fac.
8: free from deceit or guile; sincere; unconditional: a frank,
simple answer 9: common or ordinary: a simple soldier 10:
unpretentious; fundamental: a simple way of life 11: humble
or lowly: simple folk
syn 1: Clear, intelligible, understandable, unmistak-
able, lucid 2: Plain, natural, unembellished, neat 3: Unpre-
tentious
In the book of Acts, we find the first-century church meet-
ing in homes and gathering in public spaces for assembly. The
early church was not about religion but about relationships . . . lov-
22

Looki ng at the above defin itions , how do you

feel about the words simple and churc h go-
ing toget her?
ing God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving
your neighbor as yourself. It was that simple. Deliberate Simplicity
inquires, “Can’t we go back to that?”
THE BANE OF COMPLEXITY

Complexity has been a prevailing trend in modernity, but
people are not wired for it naturally. One of the reasons your phone
number has seven digits is that Alexander Graham Bell conducted
studies that indicated that retention fell off dramatically beyond
seven numbers. Psychologist George Miller wrote a famous paper
in the 1950s entitled “The Magic Number Seven Plus or Minus
Two.” Miller’s studies showed that people can handle only about
seven pieces of information at any one time in their short-term
memory.
Studies are showing that we get bogged down when we have
too many “open circuits.” Educators are finding that when it comes
to the brain, less is more. Parents who overstimulate their young
children are missing the point. Author John Bauer, in The Myth
of the First Three Years, says it is not about having more synaptic
connections. It’s about capitalizing on the strongest connections.
In fact, many billions of connections will be shut down naturally
so you are freed up to exploit the ones that remain. Biologically,
losing connections is the point, not gaining them.
When I was a kid in Alaska, we had only three or four televi-
sion channels (yes, and I really do have stories about walking to
school in the snow too). With so few channels, I pretty much had
23

the programming memorized for the entire week. Those days are
long gone. Today there are so many channels, so many programs,
so many publications, so many websites, that we will all feel hope-
lessly behind unless we are deliberate about our simplicity. Absorb-
ing all the data is impossible. The sooner we filter the channels,
the better.
People are growing to not just desire simplicity but demand it.
An anonymous email comes to Google (a leading search engine
on the internet) on an ongoing basis. Every time, the email con-
tains only a two-digit number. It took the folks at Google a while
to figure out what the author was communicating. He was giving
them feedback on the number of words on Google’s homepage.
When the number started to go up, say to fifty, he would get agi-
tated and send them an email. Now Google finds his emails help-
ful, because his feedback has disciplined them to not introduce
too much complexity on their homepage. The email is like a scale
for words.
In contrast, rival web portal Yahoo! has over five hundred
words on its homepage. Its model of “ministry” is more akin to the
modern megachurch — providing a multitude of links and options
for its users.
Yahoo! is about everything, so it is forgivable to think that

it may stand for nothing. . . . Google is a classic example of
succeeding through focus and execution. Yahoo!’s model,
by comparison, is anything but classic. The company’s
offerings are so broad that it isn’t considered the go-to site
for any particular service or feature.
— Michael Malone
Both Yahoo! and Google are successful in attracting visitors

to their sites (119 million per month and 72 million per month,
respectively) and have strong revenue ($3.2 billion and $2.7 bil-
lion). But while Yahoo! is proving that more can be more, Google
is proving that less can be more. Google’s style in advertising is
24

minimalist. Yet the little text-only ads on Google outperform the

flashy, full-page banners on Yahoo!
While the “less is more” approach hasn’t received much play
in the church, it has been catching on for a while in business. For
instance, In-N-Out Burger, a California-based chain of 175 burger
joints, has a business model similar to Google’s. It is Deliberate
Simplicity applied to food ser vice. The company draws lunch-
time crowds with its few offerings. It sells burgers — single or dou-
ble — fries, sodas, and shakes. That’s it. Cheese is one of the few
options. By contrast, McDonald’s has added thirty-seven items to
its core menu since 1955.
Warehouse retailer Costco takes a deliberately simple approach.
They offer fewer choices in larger packaging. That means some cus-
tomers may pass up purchases because the gallon jar of mayonnaise
is too big or the brand isn’t their favorite. But the benefits far exceed
the lost sales. Stocking fewer items streamlines distribution and
hastens inventory turns — and nine out of ten customers are per-
fectly happy with the mayonnaise. Costco’s warehouses are spartan
(concrete floors, fluorescent lighting, etc.). Their pricing displays
are understated (paper in a plastic sleeve). They stock less than 10
percent of the items of a typical Wal-Mart. They are very selective
in what they choose to offer. Yet Costco is doing just fine, and Wal-
Mart is trying to emulate their success with their Sam’s Clubs.
In office supplies, Deliberate Simplicity is the difference
between Staples and Office Depot. Staples wants to make it easy.
They feature “the easy button” in their promotions. Their goal is
to make it easy for you to get in and get out quickly. Office Depot
wants you to stay around and shop.
Trader Joe’s is a specialty grocery retailer that has become a
cultural phenomenon by keeping it simple. Len Lewis, in his book
The Trader Joe’s Adventure, says,
Because Trader Joe’s has mastered operational disciplines

that elude even the most sophisticated retailers, many retail
industry experts say the chain defies any neat description
25

or standard categorization. By all rights, the very things

that make it successful should be a recipe for disaster. Its
average store is only about half the size of even the small-
est neighborhood supermarket these days. Each location
only carries about 2,500 items, compared to an average of
25,000 at conventional supermarkets. And instead of large,
easy-to-access locations, most are housed in relatively small,
older strip shopping centers with limited parking. . . . [Yet by]
being different, Trader Joe’s has built itself into a business
with annual sales of $2.6 million, or $1300 per square foot,
which is about twice the supermarket industry average. . . .
From the beginning, the company’s guiding principle was to
offer a limited number of items at extremely low prices in
barebones stores.2
C you add one more delibe rately simple

Can
co ny to the ones menti oned?
compa
USA Today recently ran a front-page cover story heralding “our

national craving for all things simple.” We’ve got cell phones, pagers,
Palm Pilots, and iPods. But a recent poll found that nearly one in
five Americans are seriously seeking alternatives to their hectic daily
lives. The desire for simplicity is an age-old yearning that is being
exacerbated by “technological progress.” If you don’t believe this,
try counting the money the Chicken Soup for the Soul books have
made, or looking into the resurgence of National Public Radio.
We live in a world much akin to the first century. The
acids of modernity have eaten away our sophistication, and
we are stripped down to the nakedness of simplicity.
— Jess Moody
26

Simplicity works better than complication partly because it

mitigates the impact of Murphy’s Law. U.S. Air Force Captain
Edward Murphy said in 1949, “Anything that can go wrong, will
go wrong.” Mathematicians have now come up with factors that
increase the likelihood of Murphy’s Law coming into play, like
urgency, complexity, importance, and skill. From running different
scenarios, they found that to increase the odds of disaster, all you
need to do is combine two of the above elements. For instance, try
to avoid doing anything complex when you’re in a rush. Or, as we
have espoused in Deliberate Simplicity, when you have something
important to do, keep the process simple. The more complexity
in the system, the more likely that implementation will fail. Some
churches are living examples of this. Why are things always going
wrong? Murphy’s Law, amplified by complexity. The law of com-
plexity says that the level of complexity is equal to the square of
the number of different steps in a task.
We were 1-2 and we were running forty-seven plays on

offense. I cut that to thirteen and we won four in a row.
— Lou Holtz, Football Coach
One of the things that made Wendy’s better was putting a

limit on the number of ideas we would implement.
— Dave Thomas, Founder of Wendy’s
Eric Bende spent eighteen months off the power grid with the
Minimites — a group who decided to go without telephones, run-
ning water, refrigeration, or electricity. He wrote about his experi-
ences in Better Off: Pulling the Plug on Technology. His conclusion
was not that technology is a problem but that letting technology
dominate our lives is. Bende advises, “When in doubt, use less
technology.”
One of the questions that takes the church back to basics is,
how would we do church if we didn’t have electricity? Your answer
will undoubtedly push you back to the essence of the church and
27

away from the artificiality of modernity. I like Matthew 10:9 – 10

in The Message: “Don’t think you have to put on a fund-raising
campaign before you start. You don’t need a lot of equipment. You
are the equipment.” Like Henry David Thoreau, I believe that
“technology has become an improved means to an unimproved
end.” One of our CTK pastors encourages the people in his wor-
ship center to occasionally fast from technology (no phones, TV,
lights, etc.) for personal health.
Most of our CTK worship centers utilize an overhead projec-
tor to show song lyrics, instead of computer-driven PowerPoint.
Why? It’s relatively inexpensive to get set up with a projector. It’s
relatively simple to prepare and execute. Anyone can operate the
equipment. It is a low-tech, simple solution. We’re not trying to
dazzle people with pixels. We’re not trying to impress them into
the kingdom of God. We’re attempting to love them in. For the
most part, the service order you’ll find at a CTK worship center
consists of two parts: uninterrupted worship and very clear, lucid
teaching, with no bells or whistles.
Technology doesn’t always work for us like we think it does.
Sometimes technology is a waste of time. A study of boardroom
decision-making determined that the same decision would have
been made whether or not there was a fancy PowerPoint presenta-
tion. While computers can be very helpful (particularly to speed
up and automate laborious processes), they also give us the capa-
bility to play solitaire, send instant messages, fiddle with fonts or
monkey around with layout, all of which is dissipated waste.
Sometimes technology works against you by making things
more difficult instead of less. Jim Collins, in Good to Great, uses
the conflict in Vietnam as a case in point.
Technology cannot turn a good enterprise into a great
one, nor by itself prevent disaster. History teaches this
lesson repeatedly. Consider the United State’s debacle in
Vietnam. The United States had the most technologically
advanced fighting force the world has ever known. Super
28

jet fighters. Helicopter gunships. Advanced weapons. Com-

puters. Sophisticated communications. Miles of high-tech
border sensors. Indeed, the reliance on technology created
a false sense of invulnerability. The Americans lacked, not
technology, but a simple and coherent concept for the war
on which to attach that technology. It lurched back and
forth across a variety of ineffective strategies, never getting
the upper hand.
Meanwhile, the technologically inferior North Viet-
namese forces adhered to a simple, coherent concept: a
guerrilla war of attrition, aimed at methodically wearing
down public support for the war at home. What little
technology the North Vietnamese did employ, such as the
AK-47 rifle (much more reliable and easier to maintain
in the field than the complicated M-16), linked directly
to that simple concept. And in the end, as you know, the
United States — despite all its technological sophistica-
tion — did not succeed in Vietnam.3
The current war on terrorism is taking us back to a “less is

more” approach.
On September 11, 2001, a tiny band of Internet-savvy

fundamentalists humbled the world’s only superpower.
It turned out that the FBI, the CIA, a kiloton of tanks,
and an ocean of aircraft carriers and nuclear subs were no
match for passionate focus, coordinated communication,
and a few $3.19 box cutters. The terrorist conceived the
ultimate “virtual organization” — fast, wily, flexible, deter-
mined. And then, despite numerous slip-ups, said terror-
ists trumped the bureaucratic behemoths lined up against
them.
— Tom Peters, Re-imagine
Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Defense Secretary

Donald Rumsfeld, discussing the search for Osama Bin Ladin,
29

asked rhetorically, “Is it likely that an aircraft carrier or a cruise

missile is going to find a person?” Obviously, to find individuals
hiding in caves, the strategy will have to be much more pedes-
trian.
Deliberate Simplicity is a “boots on the ground” approach to
the church’s mission. We believe that if we can get God’s people to
simply love God and love people, the church cannot be stopped.
THE COMPLICATED CHURCH

In the absence of Deliberate Simplicity, churches can eas-
ily become complicated, either in message (theologically) or in
method (organizationally). I’ve experienced both the complication
that comes from too many doctrines and the complication that
comes from too many programs.
I was raised in a traditional church — a church that was decid-
edly denominational and conservative. The particular denomina-
tion in which I grew up had emerged from the theological conflicts
of the early twentieth century, when liberalism began to challenge
the inerrancy of Scripture. As believers were separating from this
heresy and apostasy, a particular group of churches decided to
practice second-degree separation — to extricate themselves not
only from heretics but also from anyone who did not separate
from heretics. This quest for extreme purity, while well-meaning,
spawned a culture of guilt-by-association, suspicion, judgmental-
ism, and legalism. Over the decades, more issues surfaced, more
lines were drawn, and more doctrines were articulated. By the time
I arrived on the scene, seemingly everything was worth fighting
for. Even the smallest biblical point was magnified to rival the
virgin birth of Christ in seriousness. Looking back now, it was sig-
nificantly harder to get into that church than into heaven. I spent
my spiritually formative years wondering if I measured up.
As I came into adulthood, and into my first ministry, I expe-
rienced another form of complication, the “program model” of
ministry. My first pastorate was in a hyperactive church. This
30

church, though in a rural setting, had weekly ser vices Sunday

mornings, Sunday nights, and Wednesday nights, an age-graded
Sunday school from the cradle to the grave, weekly youth meet-
ings, a midweek children’s club program, several choirs and music
groups, three banquets each year, an annual missions conference,
an annual revival, weekly men’s and women’s meetings, monthly
deacons’ meetings, quarterly and annual congregational meetings,
and two annual retreats.
How did the church do all this? The answer was another layer
of complication. The church had been in existence for forty years
and had collected quite an assortment of committees. There was
the kitchen committee, the benevolence committee, the missions
committee, the men’s ministry committee — over thirty commit-
tees in all! Just managing these committees was a full-time job.
Needless to say, most of everyone’s energy went into supporting
and maintaining the organizational infrastructure. Complication
is the bane of a large organization. Many churches today are over-
featured and unnecessarily complex. The complexity is strangling
their ability to grow.
What examp les of compl icatio n have you

obser ved in the churc h?
Each epoch of church history has introduced its own lay-

ers of complexity. The medieval church introduced hierarchical
control, the reformed church introduced theological correct-
ness, the corporate church introduced programmatic complex-
ity. It doesn’t really matter how we got here. We got here. To the
extent that today’s church has become political, institutional,
31

or programmatic, we are making it more complicated than it

needs to be.
SIMPLE DELIBERATELY
Complexity causes people to yearn for simple, profound ideas
that can be readily related to diverse situations. Deliberate Sim-
plicity delivers these ideas to the church.
We are not espousing simplicity because we haven’t yet figured
out how to be complicated. We are simple by design. We believe
that simplicity is a preferable way to go about things. That’s not to
say that simplicity is necessarily an easier way to go about things.
Simplicity requires a lot of prayer, thought, hard work, and disci-
pline. The paradox of simplicity has been called Meyer’s Law: It is
a simple task to make things complex, but a complex task to make
them simple.
Think about the things in your life that you enjoy because
of their simplicity. I think of my Honda Civic, for instance. Why
isn’t everything designed to be this simple? The answer is, because
it’s easier to be complicated than it is to be simple. Simple takes
much more time and attention. Anybody can be complicated, but
simplicity is a gift.
’Tis a gift to be simple.
’Tis a gift to be free.
’Tis a gift to come down where we ought
to be.
— Shaker Hymn
Bob Buford has achieved success in business and ministry.
When he mentors young leaders, he often asks, “What is it that
you intentionally do not do that fuels your success?” The con-
cept is pretty simple but by no means obvious. As Jim Collins
points out in his book Good to Great, “Most of us lead busy but
undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding ‘to do’ lists, trying to
build momentum by doing, doing, doing — and doing more. And it
32

rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, how-

ever, made as much use of ‘stop doing’ lists as ‘to do’ lists. They
displayed a remarkable discipline to unplug all sorts of extraneous
junk.” That’s the clarion call of Deliberate Simplicity: to unplug
the extraneous.
As Al Ries discusses in his book Focal Point, there are only
four different things you can do to improve the quality of your life
and work:
1. You can do more of certain things. You can do more of the
things that are of greater value to you and bring you greater
rewards and satisfaction.
2. You can do less of certain things. You can deliberately
decide to reduce activities or behaviors that are not as
helpful as other activities.
3. You can start to do things you are not doing at all today.
You can make new choices, learn new skills, begin new
projects or activities, or change the entire focus of your
work or personal life.
4. You can stop doing certain things altogether. You can stand
back and evaluate your life with new eyes. You can then
decide to discontinue activities and behaviors that are no
longer consistent with what you want and where you want
to go.
Which of these four choice s is most

diffi cult? Which is least diffi cult?
While the traditional church tends to choose doors

1 and 3, the Deliberately Simple church looks at what is behind
doors 2 and 4. By doing less of certain things, and stopping other
33

things altogether, energy and resources can be reinvested in the

few things really worth doing. By not being so broad, we can go
deeper.
The mascot for Deliberate Simplicity is the paper clip. The
paper clip provides maximum functionality from minimal means.
The first bent-wire paper clip was patented by Samuel B. Fay in
1867. It was originally intended primarily for attaching tickets to
fabric, although the patent recognized that it could be used to
attach paper items together.
Now every year 10,000 tons of steel go into making paper clips.
A few years back, during a slowdown in the economy, Lloyd’s Bank
of London decided to find out what happens to all these paper
clips. Lloyd’s tracked a batch of 100,000 paper clips within its
bank. Here is what they found: 25,000 were simply lost in the
shuffle, swept up or vacuumed into oblivion; 19,413 served as card
game chips; 14,163 were twisted and made useless during phone
conversations; 7,200 were used as hooks for belts, suspenders, or
bras; 5,434 were used to pick teeth or scratch ears; 5,308 were used
as nail cleaners; 3,196 were used as pipe cleaners. The remaining
20,286, or about 20 percent, were used for their intended purpose
of clipping papers together.
Just because something is designed to be simple doesn’t mean
it will fulfill its intended purpose. This is why we have to be delib-
erate.
34

CONTENTS
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Introduction:
We Can’t Let This One Get Away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1. The Beginning of a Servolution:

Forty-Five Tons of Tea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2. Strategic Servolution:
Rat Bait and Cheetah-Print Nightgowns . . . . . . . . . 28
3. The Culture of Serving:

An Unexpected Opportunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4. Servolution Is All about Jesus:

Four Walls and a Slave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5. Hurricane Katrina:
The Day the Levees Broke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
6. Servolution Top Ten:

A Lesson from Ben and Jerry’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
7. The Fabric of a Servolution:

A Towel and a Basin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
8. Unlocking the Nee d:

There’s a Great Treasure Inside . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
0310287634_servolution.indd 9 2/5/09 8:56:46 AM

9. Staying on Course:
A Speech, a Spotlight, and a Season . . . . . . . . . . . 102
10. The Cost of a Servolution:

More Than Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
11. No Excuses:
165,000 Easter Eggs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
12. Servolution Street:

The Neighborhood Where Jesus Lives . . . . . . . . . . 131
13. Keep Your Serve Alive:

Avoiding Compassion Fatigue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
14. Never Serve Alone:

Where’s My High Five? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Conclusion:
Picking Up the Towel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Appendix 1: Servolution Toolkit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Appendix 2: Servolution Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

CHAPTER 2
STRATEGIC
SERVOLUTION
Rat Bait an d Cheetah-
Print Nightgowns
We were experiencing the amazing privilege of being a part of

changing people’s lives simply by meeting their needs. We were
like a kid who’d been allowed to have just one taste of the world’s
best ice cream1 and was overwhelmingly determined to go back for
more. A passion for serving others was burning in all of our hearts.
We had been doing what we could find to do, whatever opportuni-
ties God gave us no matter how small they seemed. Don’t forget
the principle of God’s kingdom: those who are faithful with the
little things will be given much. We didn’t know it, but our servo-
lution was getting ready to explode.
It started with a chain reaction that ignited when our sound
system fried. We needed a new system, but still being a very young
church, we didn’t have the budget to just go out and buy one. So we
decided to hold a big garage sale to raise the funds. We asked people
to donate items for the sale, and soon our parking lot was filled
with our congregation’s gently used, throwaway valuables. There
were toasters, couches, pogo sticks, 8-track players, ceramic roosters,
Ginsu knife sets, and other as-seen-on-TV treasures. I’m pretty sure
there was even one of those Flowbee haircutting things.2
Just hours before the sale, I received a call from a man who
wanted to give an offering to pay for the new sound system. How
cool! The need for a new sound system was met and we hadn’t
even sold one item yet!
28

STRATEGIC SERVOLUTION
But now we had all this stuff sitting in the parking lot. Since
it was all ready anyway, we decided to go ahead with the sale,
thinking maybe we would be able to buy some new microphones
and instruments as well.
Now, let me remind you my intent here is not to offer a for-
mula for starting a servolution. So much of the servolution journey
for us has been going with the flow, and taking advantage of the
unexpected turns that we didn’t see coming but God had been
preparing us for. What happened on the day of the garage sale was
unplanned and accidental. But looking back, it is easy to see that
it was clearly God’s plan for us all along.
We started the sale early in the morning, complete with food,
drinks, and other concessions. I was looking forward to meeting all
the new people who would drive onto our small campus that day. I
was also looking forward to helping them fill their trunks with great
garage-sale treasures. What I didn’t expect was all the haggling that
was about to begin. It wasn’t long before I was no longer happy to
see any of these new people. After about the fifteenth lady who tried
to haggle me down to a quarter for a mauve and country-blue wind
chime marked at fifty cents, I had finally had it. I walked over to
one of the volunteers and said, “I can’t take this haggling anymore!
So I have an idea. Let’s just give everything away — food, drinks,
everything. What do you think? Can we pull it off?” I knew it could
create a crazy out-of-control scene to do it without a decent plan, so
I sent her off to devise a riot-free strategy.
I walked over to one of the volunteers and said, “I can’t

take this haggling anymore! So I have an idea. Let’s
just give everything away — food, drinks, everything.”
Ten minutes later, her team had thought of the perfect plan.
When people came up, we told them they had a certain limit they
could take for free: up to five items or up to a particular sum. Not
only did we give everything away, but we made a great impression
on the community. Plus, we did it all without my winding up on the
29

S E R V O LUT I O N
front page of the local newspaper for yelling at a little old lady who
was simply trying to get a better deal on a goofy wind chime.
Here’s what happened as a result of that day: everyone was
excited about coming to a garage sale expecting to pay but leaving
with a bag of free merchandise. Word of mouth spread quickly that
there was a church giving stuff away, and one guy even called the
radio station to tell them about “this crazy church doing a garage
sale giving everything away!” In addition, our people were having
a blast hosting this first-ever free garage sale. It was a revolutionary
concept, and it was refreshing to our community. The volunteers
loved seeing the expressions of excitement and intrigue on people’s
faces as they got to bless them and could not wait to do it again.
The chain reaction of our servolution continued as people from our
community began to see church in a whole new light and started
showing up to services because they wanted to be a part of it.
Jesus kicked off chain reactions all the time when he healed
the sick and spoke into people’s lives. For example, in Mark 1, the
Bible says that one man who Jesus healed “went out and began to
talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer
enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the
people still came to him from everywhere.” One act of kindness
tipped the first domino that tipped another, and in the end, people
came from everywhere to meet Jesus.
GIVE IT AWAY
Our chain reaction continued after the radio station tagged us as
“the church that gives stuff away” and we received a call from a
local businessman whose company deals in pest-control supplies.
He had a couple of extra pallets of rat bait in his warehouse and
wanted to know if we wanted to give it away. Give away rat bait?
I thought. But before I knew it, I heard myself saying, “Sure, why
not? Thanks!” still a little unclear of what I was getting us into.
We had one faithful volunteer named Mark Stermer3 who
always showed up to church on his days off, driving his full-sized
30

pickup truck. As soon as he arrived, we set out for the warehouse

and filled the bed of his truck with the two pallets of rat bait. Now,
you may not know this, but rat bait isn’t exactly featherweight, and
Mark’s truck nearly dragged the ground under the load. We started
by taking some to the church because to be honest, we needed rat
bait at the church just as much as anyone else did. We had lots of
church mice then, and we still do now.
Then we began an outreach that would have put the Pied
Piper out of business. We visited neighborhoods, trailer parks,
businesses, a few bayous, going from door to door offering free rat
bait. We’d say, “Hey, we’re from Healing Place Church. Someone
gave us this rat bait for free, and we just wanted to bless you with
some if you need it.” It took a long, long time to give away all that
bait, but we did it. Those who needed it were excited to take some.
Those who didn’t need it were still given a good impression about
the heart of this local church.
Every single one of the volunteers was fired up! We found that
the more we gave stuff away, the more stuff we found ourselves
being given to give away. How cool is that? Who would have
thought that distributing those two palettes of rat bait was just
the beginning of a whole lot more free commodity distribution?
We found that the more we gave stuff away, the more

stuff we found ourselves being given to give away.
We have a friend4 who at the time was working for a ministry

that served as a huge pantry for inner cities all over the country.
He had connections providing him with truckloads of a wide vari-
ety of goods: pretty much anything you could typically pick up at
Wal-Mart. He heard about all the giveaways we were doing, so he
called and asked if we would want to distribute truckloads of these
items as they came available.
I thought, Well, if we can give away rat bait, certainly we can give
away food and everyday household items. He took us at our word and
shortly sent us a semitruck of bananas. Have you ever considered
31

S E R V O LUT I O N
how many bunches of bananas can fit inside a semi? I’ve counted.
A semitruck can hold, exactly, a whole bunch.
We filled our cars with bananas and took them to people who
needed food, but even after hours of this, there were still more
bananas to give away. We called all our friends and asked them to
come and fill their cars so they could distribute some. There were
still more bananas to give away. I started to think maybe this wasn’t
a good idea after all, since the idea of a semitruck sitting for a couple
of days in Louisiana heat would not be a pretty sight (or smell).
So we did something that for its time was innovative. At the
spur of the moment, we called as many other churches and orga-
nizations as we knew and asked them to take some of the bananas
in order to get them into the hands of people who needed a bless-
ing. Finally, we unloaded a jungle’s worth of bananas, and a lot of
people in our community got their recommended daily allowance
of potassium that day.
As successful as this outreach was, we decided if we were going
to continue with these giveaway projects and grow to be able to
handle even larger amounts of goods, we needed to have a plan:
1. We organized. We needed the giveaways to be focused and

orderly, not random and sloppy. We weren’t going to ran-
domly throw free things at people as they happened to go
by and have the stuff end up in the garbage. We wanted
to target the areas and groups of people who would benefit
the most from these goods.
2. We included others. We knew the value of having healthy
relationships with other churches and organizations, and
we learned very quickly that including them in our plans
for these giveaways was a great way to start relationships
with many of them. So we developed a list of contact
people from various places whom we could call when we
needed help with the distribution.
3. We gave with no strings attached. The goal of our servolu-
tion has always been to demonstrate the love of Jesus, not
32

to make people feel like they now owed it to us to come

to a service. Don’t get me wrong, we tried our best to be
sure to tell them where we were from so they would know
that ultimately it was God who was blessing them. But
regardless of whether they ever walked into our church,
we wanted them to understand that both God and our
church loved and believed in them.
The goal of our servolution has always been to

demonstrate the love of Jesus, not to make people
feel like they now owed it to us to come to a service.
So the trucks kept coming. We started to get two or three

trucks delivered every week. The more we did it, the more strategic
we became. The first time we received a call about a truckload
of Snapple beverages being delivered to us, we knew just what
to do. By the time the semi pulled up to the church, our parking
lot was filled with the cars of not only our volunteers but also
the leadership of many other churches and groups — all of them
ready and waiting to load-and-go. Cars, pickups, minivans, and
even passenger vans were lined up, making the church look like a
drive-through Snapple warehouse.
That summer, we gave away two hundred and fifty thousand
bottles of Snapple and over forty tons of bananas. And the best
part about it all was that no one worried about who got the credit.
We didn’t insist that anyone who took stuff from us come to church
the next weekend. We didn’t require any of the other organizations
who helped distribute stuff mention our church as they gave it
away. It was all just about helping others. It was the body of Christ
in Baton Rouge working together to bless people.
Another important goal we had was for our entire congrega-
tion to be connected with what was going on. So when the trucks
came in, we often unloaded the boxes of merchandise and stored
them inside our auditorium. This way, people couldn’t miss them
33

S E R V O LUT I O N
whenever they walked into the church. There were stacks of boxes
ten feet high lining the walls of the sanctuary. I thought the people
needed to see everything that was going on. At the end of a ser-
vice I told the people, “You see all those boxes? We’re going to be
giving all of that away this week and we need your help with the
outreach. But if you have a need today, pick up whatever you need
in the back; we’ve got some people ready to serve you. And while
you’re getting what you need, be sure to sign up for the outreach
this weekend. Come back and help us give to others who are also
in need.” It was a cool kind of crazy thing to get to do.
The trucks contained just about everything you could imagine.
We would open up the back and sometimes there were forty pallets
of forty different items: Guess jeans, cookies, Right Guard deodor-
ant, Listerine mouthwash, screwdrivers, chocolate Easter bunnies,
toys, purses, shoes, socks — seriously, everything you could imagine.
With a list like that, we knew we needed to be creative to determine
the most strategic locations to target so nothing would go wasted.
“Screwdrivers? Let’s go to a vocational school. Jeans? Let’s go to some
high schools. Toys? Let’s go to the children’s ward at a hospital.”
There was only one time that we opened a box and the con-
tents left us all speechless. We were emptying a truck, and when we
got to the final box, I saw it was huge and barely holding together.
After quite a struggle, we finally maneuvered it into the sanctu-
ary. I was standing with about seven or eight of our ladies when I
pulled on the top flap and one side of the box fell open.
Animal-print satin spilled everywhere. Everyone burst out
laughing. This was a box of cheetah-print nightwear! My mind
started racing. Whoa! What are we going to do with this? We’ve got to
get rid of this before Sunday; God’s gonna kill us with this in the house!
One lady said, “We can’t give that out.” Another said, “Why not?
It’s free. I’m sure somebody needs it.”
So several of our ladies sorted through the collection of animal-
print pajamas in all sizes. Then we took a team downtown, set
up eight-foot tables, knocked on doors in nearby neighborhoods,
34

and handed out fliers. Ladies began to emerge, and the area soon
looked like Wal-Mart on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving.
In a matter of moments, every stitch of the nightwear was gone.
Let’s just say there were a lot of smiles from the precious ladies we
got to bless that special day! For years afterward, DeLynn and I
would run into some of these ladies and their eyes would light up
and they’d say, “You’re that crazy pastor who gave me that cheetah-
print nightgown!” And if her husband was with her, invariably I’d
get the “Ooh yeah” smile and head nod from him.
We were all having so much fun as a church. Working together
to unload semitrucks, handing out bottles of Snapple, and going
door to door delivering free food to the poor — all in the standard
Louisiana 150 percent humidity. But the heat mattered little to us
because of the thrill of meeting the needs of people who were so
grateful to be remembered. Everyone was involved because of their
passion to serve others, and that generated an energy that was
contagious. When people discover the blessing of serving together,
you’ve got the makings of a servolution.
The more we as a church bonded in this common mission, the
more others wanted to come and be part of the excitement. The
church was growing so rapidly that in less than two years, we had
outgrown our facility. We had been faithful with a little, and now
God was entrusting us with much. Our services were going great,
every Sunday we had visitors, and new people actually came back
for a second service, and a third, and a fourth. Most important, the
culture of our church was becoming deeply rooted in the hearts
of all our members. We knew God had blessed us with a mandate
to be a healing place for a hurting world, and our servolution was
causing us to grow at a pace none of us could have predicted.
Thank you, Jesus!
35

S E R V O LUT I O N
SERVOLUTION STRATEGY
As our servolution grew, so did the importance of being stra-
tegic in our outreach. But the reverse was also true — the more
strategic we became, the more our servolution grew. Planning,
being prepared to handle growth, and learning where to focus your
energy and resources are crucial to being a good steward of the
blessing God sends your way.
1. The motive for service. When we give with no strings attached,

it shows that our love is authentic, motivated not by our needs
but by meeting the needs of others. What is the motivation for
your service?
2. Unused resources. If HPC can give away rat bait, it proves that
you can give away almost anything. What resources does your
church or someone in your church have that they may be will-
ing to offer? What are the resources you have in your church
that are not being used? What talents, gifts, and resources can
you begin giving away?
3. Church partnerships. Working with other churches is an essen-
tial part of strategic servolution. What are some of the churches
and ministries that you might partner with in service?
36

MULt -SITE CHURCH R
Hop on for a Guided Tour of the
Multi-Site Church MovemenT
F
rom multiple locations to Geoff Surratt is on the staff of Seacoast
internet campuses, the multi- Church, a successful and high-visibility
site church movement is multi-site church. Geoff has twenty-seven
changing the shape of the church. years of ministry experience in churches.
Along with his wife and two children, he
What is this rapidly expanding
lives in Charleston, SC. He is coauthor
phenomenon all about? Experience
of The Multi-Site Church Revolution and
the revolution for yourself and see author of Ten Stupid Things That Keep
why it has become the “new normal” Churches from Growing.
for growing churches. A Multi-Site
Church Roadtrip takes you on a tour Greg Ligon serves as Vice President and
of multi-site churches across America Director of Multi-Site Church Leadership
to see how they’re handling the Communities for Leadership Network,
opportunities and challenges raised which involves location visits to over 50
by this dynamic organizational model. multi-site churches. A capable writer, he
also coauthored The Multi-Site Church
Travel with tour guides Geoff Surratt, Revolution and is also Leadership
Network’s Publisher. He and his wife have
Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird, authors
two children and live in Dallas, TX.
of The Multi-Site Church Revolution,
AD TRIP
on their engaging and humorous tour Warren Bird (PhD, Fordham University)
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the inside stories and learn about seminary teaching experience. He has
the latest developments. Find out collaboratively written twenty books, all
firsthand how the churches in this on subjects of church health or church
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evangelism, service, and outreach—
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BIRD
religion / Christian Church / General
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Cover design: Tobias’ Outerwear for Books

Leadership Network
Innovation Series.
Contents
Introducing the Roadtrip. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
1. The Multi-Site Variety Pack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000

No longer primarily for megachurches, multi-site campuses range
from a few dozen people meeting in a neighborhood clubhouse to
thousands of attenders in a brand-new church building.
2. The Church Planting versus Campus
Launch Dilemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
More people are approaching the issue as “both-and” rather than
“either-or.” One of the big surprises is how many church planters
have embraced multi-site.
3. Getting Multi-Site into Your Genes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
A multi-site church is either a church with multiple sites or a
church of multiple sites. Making the all-important shift from
with to of brings a significant change to the culture of the church.
This subtle shift transforms the core identity of the church and
will affect everything you do.
4. You Want to Launch a Campus Where?. . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Choosing the right location for the next campus is one of the
most difficult decisions for a multi-site church. Each church’s
vision, values, and context help it shape the strategy that will have
the greatest kingdom impact.
5. Changing Your Community One Campus at a Time . . 000
Multi-site churches are transforming their communities by con-
textualizing their service and outreach to the unique needs of
each location.
0310293944_multisite_firstpgs.indd 5 5/12/09 10:42:52 AM

6. Internet Campuses — Virtual or Real Reality?. . . . . 000
While some debate whether an online campus is really a church,
others see the internet as just another neighborhood, filled with
people to be reached — and where you aren’t limited by the size
of a building.
7. Fun with Technology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
The infrastructure of a church that meets in multiple locations is
often more about bandwidth and uplinks than about bricks and
mortar. Balancing budget constraints and technological demands
of several campuses is one of the more difficult challenges for a
multi-site church.
8. Structure Morphing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
When a church goes from one campus to many campuses, its
organizational chart is stretched to the breaking point. The abil-
ity to reorganize quickly is an important skill in the multi-site
church toolbox.
9. Going Global. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
The technology and mentality now exists for a church to have a
campus in another country thousands of miles away, and many
churches are developing a stronger level of missionary partnership
in the process.
10. Shared Communicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
For a growing number of churches, the primary teaching pastor is
hundreds or thousands of miles away. This shift has big implica-
tions for the campus pastor and other local staff, in terms of the
vision and local leadership roles.
11. Merger Campuses — No Longer a Bad Idea . . . . . . . . . 000
After experiencing their first merger, some churches embrace
the idea of pursuing additional, more intentional mergers, often
called restarts.
12. Two — or More — at Once. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Launching two or more campuses at once can help a church tran-
sition more quickly to a multi-site mind-set, as it engages the
entire church in the process, creating even greater momentum.
But the benefits should be weighed against the costs, since it can
put a strain on both financial and human resources.

13. Multiplied, Multiple Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Good leadership is always the key to healthy, growing churches.
That need multiplies and increases in multi-site churches.
Effective multi-site churches have an established culture and
well-developed strategies for reproducing and growing biblical
leaders.
14. Are You Sure This Isn’t a Sin? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
While some say going multi-site is simply a new opportunity to
obey Jesus’ great commission, others raise cautions. Are there
biblical values that might be lost or weakened by the multi-site
growth model?
15. Grandchildren Already?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Many churches are moving from addition to multiplication as
secondary campuses begin launching campuses of their own.
This new wave of “grandchildren” increases the challenges of
DNA transfer.
Epilogue: Predictions of What’s Next. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
The multi-site revolution is still mushrooming, a new normal is
emerging, and the implications are rich for how the next genera-
tion will see and do church.
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Appendix 1: Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Appendix 2: Job Descriptions of Campus Pastors . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Appendix 3: Multi-Site Roadkill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Appendix 4: Discussion Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Subject Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Index of Churches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000

1 The Multi-Site
Variety Pack
S eacoast C hurch
Mount Pleasant,
South Carolina
20

Seacoast Church
Fa s t Fa c t s
Church vision  To help people become

devoted followers of Christ.
Year founded  1988
Original location  Mount Pleasant, South
Carolina
Lead pastor  Greg Surratt
Teaching model for off-sites  Primarily video/DVD
Denomination  Nondenominational
Year went multi-site  2002
Number of campuses  13
Number of weekly services  33
Worship attendance
(all physical sites)  10,000
Largest room’s seating capacity  1,300
Internet campus?  Yes
International campus?  No
Internet address  www.seacoast.org
Note: All data for the Fast Facts tables at the start of each chapter is from mid-2009.
21

No longer primarily for megachurches, multi-site campuses range
from a few dozen people meeting in a neighborhood clubhouse to
thousands of attenders in a brand-new church building.
I n order for us to experience the full range of multi-site diversity, the

first stop on our roadtrip will be Seacoast Church, originally located
among the old live oaks and Civil War – era plantations of Charleston,
South Carolina. We’ll begin our visit a few miles outside of Charles-
ton, in the small town of Manning, population 3,947.
It’s easy to miss Manning when you are driving up I-95 through
the rural surroundings of South Carolina. On my first visit to Man-
ning, I (Geoff) would have easily passed the expressway exit if I hadn’t
seen the prominent Shoney’s billboard on the highway. A local pastor
had invited me to meet him at that restaurant to discuss the possibil-
ity of his church being adopted by Seacoast. Though I was excited
about the discussion, I was also secretly hoping they would be having
an all-you-can-eat seafood day.
After I met with the pastor and we enjoyed some excellent hot
cross buns, the two of us agreed that Manning would be a great place
for Seacoast’s next multi-site experiment, opening a campus in a small
town. At the time, Seacoast was drawing almost ten thousand people
every weekend. The campuses were spread across twelve locations
throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
But what would happen if we opened a campus in a town like
Manning, where the entire municipal population was only half the
attendance of Seacoast? Six weeks later we found out, when Seacoast
Manning was born. Soon about eighty people were gathering from
across Clarendon County each weekend to worship in a rented com-
munity college auditorium. From the beginning, exciting things were
happening. One woman started bringing her brother to the church.
22

The Multi-Site Variety Pack ■ 23
“He’s now actively exploring areas of faith, church, and a relationship

with Christ, none of which were really open for discussion before the
Manning campus opened,” she said. My Shoney’s acquaintance, who
became the campus pastor, still shares stories about friends and fam-
ily who are attending. “The opening of the Manning campus was an
answer to so many prayers,” he says.
An hour south of Manning is Summerville, a suburb of Charles-
ton. Affordable housing and proximity to Charleston has led to a great
deal of growth in Summerville, but it has still managed to maintain
a small-town-America feel. The biggest event each year is the Azalea
Festival, during which people come from all over the county to see
flowers and eat fried things on a stick. Seacoast started a Summerville
campus on Easter Sunday 2004 in a senior citizen community center,
and every Sunday since that opening, campus pastor Phil Strange
and his wife, Sherri, have stood at the door after services and hugged
people leaving the building.
The campus then relocated to its own facility, and they saw week-
end attendance jump from six hundred to over twelve hundred. Pas-
tor Phil has maintained the small-town feel, but he is no longer able
to hug everyone who walks out the door. Though it’s not for lack of
trying!
Fifteen minutes east of Summerville on I-26 is North Charleston,
recently named the seventh most dangerous city in America. In the
heart of North Charleston, on one of the most crime-ridden streets in
the city, you’ll find the Seacoast Dream Center. Every Sunday morn-
ing, six hundred people from the community gather in a little tra-
ditional church building for worship that sounds a little like David
Crowder, a little like Al Green, and a little like tobyMac. The crowd
is an eclectic mix of African Americans, first-generation Hispanic
immigrants, and blue-collar whites. Campus Pastor Sam Lesky has
created a family atmosphere for people who have never known what
it is to be cared for and loved unconditionally. In the midst of all the
crime and urban decay, God is changing people’s lives daily.
Jumping back on the highway, we travel to Mount Pleasant, the
home of Seacoast’s original campus — fifteen minutes by car but a

24 ■ The Multi-Site Church Road Trip
world away economically. Every weekend approximately 5,000 mid-

dle-class suburbanites gather in three on-campus venues featuring
simultaneous worship experiences. One venue is an auditorium that
seats 1,300 and features contemporary worship. Another venue is a
traditional 300-seat chapel featuring acoustic music sprinkled with a
mix of hymns and modern worship songs. The third venue is a rug-
ged 450-seat warehouse with fog, moving lights, and guitar-driven
worship.
All these venues are joined by a large lobby that resembles a shop-
ping mall and features a full-service coffee bar and a large bookstore.
Because of the variety of venues and the size of the crowd, attenders
can come and go anonymously, or if they wish, they can join one of
the dozens of ministries or hundreds of small groups that are part of
Seacoast Church.
One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Being one church with multiple locations has allowed Seacoast to
grow larger and smaller at the same time. In the past seven years,
Seacoast has seen its overall weekend attendance grow from three
thousand to over ten thousand. At the same time, people are attend-
ing Seacoast campuses of eighty, one
hundred, three hundred, eight hun-
dred, one thousand, and five thou- Being one church with
sand p eople. multiple locations has
Some people appreciate the ano- allowed Seacoast to grow
nymity of the large congregation. larger and smaller at
They like the safety of being able to the same time.
blend into the crowd without fear of
being pointed out. They want to be
able to move at their own pace toward a relationship with Jesus, and
the huge congregation gives them that opportunity. A smaller crowd
would be intimidating.
A larger congregation can also offer a larger palette of ministries.
For example, Seacoast’s largest campus offers at every service a “One

by One” ministry for special-needs children. While smaller campuses

may see the need for such a ministry, they often don’t have the room
or the volunteers to make it happen. For some people bigger really is
better.
Other p eople crave the intimacy available in a small-church atmo-
sphere. They want to go where everybody knows their name (to bor-
row from the theme song for Cheers). They want people to notice
when they are missing, to know their children’s names, to ask them
about their job. People in Seacoast’s smaller congregations like the
fact that they know their campus pastor and that the campus pastor
knows them. While a smaller campus doesn’t have state-of-the-art
facilities or a large selection of specialized ministries, it can often offer
closer connections and more intimate relationships.
Why the Variety Pack Works for Seacoast

Having multiple campuses of multiple sizes in multiple cities and
states certainly isn’t for everyone. Many multi-site churches, such
as Willow Creek in the Chicago area, try to replicate the ministries
of the original site as closely as possible each time they open a new
campus, although their downtown Chicago site did also take on an
urban flair. When Prestonwood
Church in Greater Dallas decided
to expand to more than one loca- Having multiple campuses
tion, they first purchased 127 of multiple sizes in multiple
acres in Prosper (an exurb about cities and states certainly
seventeen miles north of Plano) isn’t for everyone.
and built a new building that
somewhat rivaled their original
site. Central Christian Church in the Phoenix area and Southeast
Christian Church in Greater Louisville have had a lot of success with
similar large-campus satellite strategies.
Seacoast, however, has purposely decided to grow larger and
smaller at the same time. As a staff, we are constantly asking how we
can reach more people with the gospel in a variety of contexts and

help them grow in their faith, and for us the answer includes many
different sizes and formats. We have found several advantages in the
variety pack approach to multi-site campuses:
1. A Variety of Opportunities to Volunteer

The complexity of having several campuses offers a new set of oppor-
tunities for volunteer leaders. We have several CEOs, CFOs, and small
business owners who volunteer to help us figure out the corporate side
of organizing a diverse set of church campuses. While these individu-
als might not be fulfilled serving the church by handing out bulletins
or changing diapers, they eagerly dive into helping us figure out how
to leverage the resources God has given for the maximum kingdom
impact. The challenge of managing a large organization spread across
three states allows these men and women to use their God-given gifts
in ways that go beyond the marketplace. When the economy began
to tank in recent years, we were especially thankful to have high-
capacity volunteers such as these to help us steer the ship.
We also have opportunities for engineers who like to figure out
traffic patterns. The parking lot at our Summerville campus has only
one entrance and one exit. On some weekends the parking lot has to
be turned over with only fifteen minutes between services. Engineers
love this kind of stuff. Summerville has cones and ropes and people
wearing orange vests and waving batons in every direction, and they
do an amazing job.
We also have a wide variety of service opportunities for anyone
who likes to work with children. We have nurseries with as few as two
babies at a time, and rooms with as many as one hundred children.
We utilize teachers and small group leaders and baby rockers and
door monitors. Whatever a person’s gifting, experience, or availability,
there is always a place for him or her to experience the joy of serving
at a Seacoast campus.

2. Artist Development at Various Levels of Skill

Having multiple campuses of multiple sizes allows Seacoast to develop
artists of every skill level. Each week, Seacoast uses as many as twenty
different bands across all the campuses. We have beginning drum-
mers who are just learning how to hold
the sticks playing for their junior
high classmates, as well as profes- When we have tryouts
sional guitar players home from a for new musicians, the
recent tour playing for thousands of answer is always “Yes,
people. When we have tryouts for we can use you.”
new musicians, the answer is always
“Yes, we can use you.” We find that
some people are ready to play for a big
venue, some are ready to learn in a smaller environment, and some
need to play in a youth band without an amplifier while they learn
their instrument. The exciting part of having so many bands is that
there is always an opening for new musicians.
3. Leadership Development at a Wide Range of Levels

Seacoast’s multiple-size, multiple-location structure is also great for
developing new leaders. There is always a place for leaders to grow,
and there is no ceiling on our capacity for growing them. Small group
leaders can become coaches. Coaches can become directors. Directors
can become pastors. Pastors can become campus pastors. Campus
pastors can become senior pastors. (And to give them an alternative
to sponsoring a takeover coup in order to do that, we will help them
plant their own church through the Association of Related Churches
[www.relatedchurches.com].)
Another advantage for leadership development is the variety of
opportunities to lead. Without ever leaving Seacoast, a leader can
experience working in a megachurch environment, being on staff of a
medium-size congregation, and leading a small church.

A church does not have to be our current size to provide the

opportunity for leadership development, of course. From our open-
ing moments as a much smaller church, we’ve tried to be a place that
empowers God’s people for ministry as they use their spiritual gifts
and grow by serving.
4. Diversification into Multiple Cultures

For the first fourteen years of its existence, Seacoast was a predomi-
nately white, upper-middle-class congregation. We were a reflection
of the community around us, even though some of our people drove
in from other communities. All of our ministries, our music, and our
messages were aimed at people who looked, talked, and lived just like
“us.”
When we went multi-site, our racial and socioeconomic makeup
changed. One of the healthiest side effects of having multiple locations
has been the expansion of our vision
beyond the community around us.
When we went multi-site, But this benefit hasn’t come
our racial and socioeconomic without challenges. Recently our
makeup changed. senior pastor included in his mes-
sage a major point about paying as
much attention to the Bible as you
do to your BlackBerry. As you might
expect, this struck a chord with our overly connected, stressed-out
soccer moms and small business owners. But the urban poor in our
congregation were just confused — or irritated at an implied lifestyle.
The only blackberry many of them had experience with was the pie
they ate for dessert last week.
Not Just Seacoast

This variety pack approach for multi-site — big and small, with
diverse volunteer needs, broad leadership development opportunities,
and culturally diverse membership — seems to be the normal path

for many churches that become one church in many locations. When
the multi-site revolution first started, many of the conversations were
about embracing a franchise model like that of Starbucks: do all cam-
puses and venues need the same look, down to the napkins, in order
to keep the DNA of the church they’re part of?
Today most multi-site churches are trading the Starbucks model
for a tour through Legoland. Like Legoland, they are able to showcase
a tremendous variety of sizes and designs, but it’s still evident that
everything is built from the same blocks.
As an example of this new model, let’s consider New Direction
Christian Church. They have two campuses: one in an urban sec-
tion of Memphis, Tennessee, and the other in the growing suburb of
Collierville, twenty minutes east of
the city. The original urban campus
Most multi-site churches seats 3,000 in a boxlike converted
are trading the Starbucks anchor store of a shopping outlet.
model for a tour through The suburban campus, converted
Legoland. from a former grocery store, is rect-
angular, with the 525 seats only
eight rows deep at any point. While
both campuses are over 90 percent African American, the city (or
Memphis) campus has more of an urban, younger flair, while the sub-
urban campus, in keeping with its neighborhood, draws more fami-
lies and a higher economic class. The city campus, which occupies
twenty-two acres, has signs and banners all over the property. The
suburban campus, due to zoning restrictions, puts signage only on its
building, and quite limited signage at that.
Yet the Lego-feel culture is unmistakable between the two cam-
puses. Dr. Stacy Spencer, senior pastor, preaches live at both campuses
on Sundays and during midweek services. The Collierville campus
pastor is also regularly visible at the Memphis campus. The program-
ming of the campuses is similar, as is the heartbeat and overall sense
of mission. New Direction may be reaching two different groups of
people in two very different communities, but they’ve figured out
how to truly be one church in two locations.

Staying on the Same Page

Indeed, a church with campuses of different sizes and locations often
struggles with a basic question of unity: “What makes us one church?”
From a structural standpoint, all the campuses might share one leader-
ship configuration, one budget, and one mission, but on a practical basis,
what do they have in common? Does every campus need to sing the same
songs each weekend? Should each campus use the same color coffee cups?
Can each children’s ministry director choose a different curriculum?
After struggling for many years with these challenges, Seacoast
finally drafted something called an IPOD (a concept we first heard
from Jim Kuykendahl at Cross Timbers Community Church, a multi-
site congregation in Argyle, Texas). This has helped us keep all of our
campuses on the same page while giving each the freedom to create a
unique flavor of Seacoast for their community. For our church, IPOD
is an acronym (not a portable music player). It stands for Initial, Prior-
ity, Optional, and Discouraged. The IPOD standards were drafted
by a team of staff members and volunteers from each ministry and
approved by Seacoast’s directional leadership team.
 Initial. These are the nonnegotiable standards that every Sea-
coast campus must have in place from the first day it opens.
We try to keep these standards to the bare minimum, to ease
the burden on a brand-new campus. To be in the Initial list,
a standard must be equally applicable to a campus of fifty
or a campus of five thousand. Initial standards for children’s
ministry, for instance, include what classes will be provided
and what curriculum will be used in each class.
 Priority. These are standards that a campus needs to imple-
ment within its first year of existence. Many of these are

difficult to put into practice on your first weekend, but a
campus can grow into them. Priority items for small groups,
for example, include quarterly community outreach events
and bimonthly huddles for small group coaches.
 Optional. These are ideas that might be great at one campus
but might not work well at another. One of the challenges of

various-size campuses is that the smaller ones think they have

to do everything the larger or more established campuses do.
This is impractical and can actually keep a smaller campus
from growing.
 Discouraged. These are practices that are strongly discouraged
(okay, not allowed) at Seacoast campuses. Like the Initial cat-

egory, this is a category we keep to a minimum. The IPOD
standards are intended to be guides that allow freedom, not
rules that discourage creativity. For example, our children’s
ministries are discouraged from having volunteers serve alone
in a room and from combining different age groups into one
class.
IPODs have allowed Seacoast Seacoast has been able to
to remain one church of many grow larger and smaller at
campuses, while encouraging each
the same time without losing
of the individual campuses of many
its distinct identity.
sizes to contextualize the Seacoast
model so it matches the unique
makeup of their community. Seacoast has been able to grow larger
and smaller at the same time without losing its distinct identity.
What about You?

Established larger churches like Southeast Christian and Prestonwood
feel it is important to reproduce the original campus as closely as pos-
sible, while churches like Seacoast see an advantage in “right-sizing”
campuses to fit a community or culture. But what size campus best
fits the vision of your church? Take time to consider your unique
identity as a church. Do you need to replicate all the ministries and
advantages of a large original site, or do you see niche opportunities
to impact a unique community or culture? How can you best leverage
the resources God has given you?
Your questions may be more about strategy than about size or
location: How does launching a new campus differ from planting a

new church? Could starting an off-site campus be a way to jump-start

planting an independent church? To find the answers to these ques-
tions, we head to New Hope Church in Honolulu, Hawaii. Grab your
flip-flops and some sunscreen. Surf’s up!

New in the Leadership
Network Innovation Series
Ethnic Blends: Mixing

Diversity into Your Local
Church
by Mark DeYmaz and Harry Li
"The local church today stands

poised to experience what
could be the 21st century's
new Reformation: the rise of
multi-ethnic churches.
Increasingly, church leaders
are now recognizing the
intrinsic power and beauty of
the multi-ethnic church. Yet more than a good idea, it's a biblical,
1st century standard with far-reaching evangelistic potential.
But in a Christian culture where distinctions so often and

otherwise divide, how can you and your congregation overcome
the obstacles in order to become a healthy, fruitful multi-ethnic
church of faith? And why should you even try?
In Ethnic Blends, multi-ethnic church pioneer Mark DeYmaz

provides an up-close and personal look at seven common
challenges to mixing diversity into your local church. Through real-
life stories and practical illustrations, DeYmaz shows how to
overcome the obstacles in order to build a healthy multi-ethnic
church. He also includes the insights of other effective, multi-
ethnic local church pastors from around the country.
978-0-310-32123-1

Leadership Network Innovation Series Sampler

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erie s

Full chapters from each book

Driscoll’s Confessions is a necessary read for those who desire to take

Endorsements for The Multi-site Church Revolution:

If you want to understand the rationale, benefits, and challenges of

Endorsements for The Big Idea:

The Big Idea is an approach to preaching that is as ancient as the

If Christian leaders will prayerfully absorb Leadership From the Inside

Endorsements for The Monkey and the Fish:

Deliberate Simplicity is a valuable contribution to the move toward

Endorsements for Servolution:

“Louisiana is a beautiful state with tremendous resources. But our

800-765-5323 • www.leadnet.org • client.care@leadnet.org

Confessions of a Reformission Rev, by Mark Driscoll

The Multi-site Church Revolution, by Geoff Surratt,

Leadership from the Inside Out, by Kevin Harney

Sticky Church, by Larry Osborne

The Monkey and the Fish, by Dave Gibbons

Deliberate Simplicity, by Dave Browning

Servolution, by Dino Rizzo

A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip, by Geoff Surratt,

RELIGION / Christian Church / Growth

US $16.99/UK £9.99/CAN $21.99

This book is part of the

0. Ten Curious Questions 13

2. Jesus, If Anyone Else Calls My House,

3. Jesus, Satan Showed Up and I Can’t Find My Cup 73

4. Jesus, Could You Please Rapture the Charismaniac Lady

5. Jesus, Why Am I Getting Fatter and Meaner? 115

6. Jesus, Today We Voted to Take a Jackhammer to Your Big Church 139

Appendix 1 — The Junk Drawer: Answers to Common Questions 188

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 5 02/03/06 11:44:08 AM

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 13 02/03/06 11:44:15 AM

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 14 02/03/06 11:44:18 AM

them in a relevant way. But reformission also seeks to determine

First, some people become so frustrated with the church that

Second, some churches are so concerned with being cultur-

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 15 02/03/06 11:44:18 AM

widely in more independent-minded, Bible-believing churches.

Reformission combines the best aspects of each of these types

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 16 02/03/06 11:44:18 AM

was a mean-spirited hypocrisy among “Christians” who wrongly

• Missions is solely funding Americans to evangelize in foreign

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 17 02/03/06 11:44:18 AM

As the era of Christendom began to wind down, it became appar-

• Missions is a church department that sends people and

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 18 02/03/06 11:44:18 AM

With Christendom essentially winding down now in the United

• Missions is every Christian being a missionary to their local

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 19 02/03/06 11:44:19 AM

• Pastors need not be ordained or formally educated in

Because the declining, dominant, and emerging church types

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 20 02/03/06 11:44:19 AM

as long as there are varying cultures of people, there will be mul-

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 21 02/03/06 11:44:19 AM

During dinner one evening with a friend, Dan Kimball, who

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 22 02/03/06 11:44:19 AM

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 23 02/03/06 11:44:19 AM

being pushed to make an immediate decision to reject sin and accept

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 24 02/03/06 11:44:20 AM

it does not call me to use my spiritual gift(s) to build up the church

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 25 02/03/06 11:44:20 AM

Conversely, emerging and missional churches see the church’s

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 26 02/03/06 11:44:20 AM

■ Those who call themselves Christians are no more likely to

■ Those who call themselves Christians are no more likely than