Part One
I was excited to see a new article released in Christianity Today titled “Can Multisite be Missional?” by Jeff Christopherson. There were several parts of the article that really resonated with me.
My personal experience with a multisite scenario was very much like the unhealthy model that Christopherson describes. I was sent to a church that was on the edge of closure. It had been declining for several decades. My superior informed me there were three possible outcomes, any of which she would celebrate—God would: 1. Close this church 2. Revitalize this church 3. Orchestrate a multisite merger with a thriving mega-church nearby.
It soon appeared revitalization would literally require a tremendous miracle, so we began to explore the merger conversation. We brought teams from both churches together to discuss the potential merger. In our first meeting, it became very apparent that the focus was not about creating an incubator for the multiplication of the gospel. This was a hostile takeover, a corporate business merger, and we were the ones being bought out! It was clear in this meeting, we were inferior, brought only valuable property to the table, and our best fate would be to give our remaining assets over to the superior church for a greater “kingdom” purpose. Our staff would be let go, and soon after the transition process was finished, I would be replaced by one of the megachurch pastors on their team.
It was not going to be a symbiotic relationship, but a parasitic one. Think of an alien embryo, who needs to inhabit its host only long enough to destroy it once hatched. Literally, in the words of Christopherson, it was “Dim the lights, drop the video screen, cue the fog, and voila—you’ve multisited.” We would be an extension of the superior brand of this thriving megachurch, an odd clone, bearing no resemblance to the context of the actual community.
Needless to say, after a brief period of prayer, our team decided this was not God’s will for our church. While we were small and very broken, we felt the Spirit was stirring something fresh in our imaginations. We held off that hostile takeover and began a process of revitalization through carefully listening to our community. This congregation continues to do exciting things in ministry to this day.
What does it mean to be “Missional”?
While I appreciate the possibility of multisites of this variety being “missional,” I struggle with some of the fundamental assumptions. There is no way to shortcut the long slow work of building relationships from scratch. Time is the fertilizer of authentic relationships. Further, the idea of planting something that seeps out into the community is actually the opposite of being “missional.” The missional church movement operates from the fundamental assumption that God goes ahead of us. God is already at work in the community, we need to join what God is up to. The Spirit is flowing just beneath the surface of the community in a subterranean kind of way, we look for the life-giving fountains springing up from the ground.
In the Fresh Expressions movement, we speak of churches having four essential characteristics…
Read the rest here (and stay tuned for Part Two!)
