When Seacoast Church in Charleston, South Carolina, began talking about opening a second campus there were very few models to emulate. We had heard about a couple of churches around the country that were experimenting with the concept of being one church in many locations, but the jury was out on whether it was a viable strategy to expand the kingdom. Almost seven years, 13 campuses, and 7,000 new attenders later, we can attest to the fact that multi-site is a viable strategy for us – and I have connected with hundreds of church leaders across the country who would agree that launching new campuses is an incredible way to reach more people with the Good News.
Seacoast’s pastor, Greg Surratt, also has a vision for planting new churches. The same year we launched our first off-site campus, we co-founded the Association of Related Churches (ARC), a church planting organization that has planted over 75 congregations over the past seven years.
Although launching campuses and planting churches simultaneously seems somewhat schizophrenic, it’s actually more common than you might suspect. Dave Ferguson, senior pastor of Community Christian Church based in Naperville, Illinois, has overseen the launch of nine campuses while also planting 30 churches through the New Thing Network.
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