Churches with multiple locations, “multi-site” churches, are becoming more and more popular across the U.S. Over six million people attend a multisite church on a regular basis with the average multi-site location welcoming 1,300 weekly attendees. (ChurchLawandTax.com) There are currently over 5,000 multi-site locations alone in the U.S. It’s no question multisite churches are here and here to stay, but how exactly are they changing the landscape of Christianity across America?
For starters, there is a noticeable gentrification of smaller, local churches due to both internal and external factors, such as aging congregations, decline of interest in faith, lack of funding, poor spiritual leadership, and ineffective outreach. A thriving multi-site church may experience phenomenal growth at a new campus location that happens to be just down the street from a decades-established single-site church. Whatever the case may be, a struggling church, whether single or multisite, is struggling for reasons other than a new multi-site location opening up down the street.
While many single-site churches may assume the new multi-site campus is “competition,” some struggling churches are recognizing a unique situation and choosing to merge with multi-site churches as a new campus to continue ministry together. In a recent Leadership Network study of over 530 multisite churches, one-third of the multi-site locations were started by merging with existing local churches. (Leadership Network/Generis Multisite Church Scorecard) This is encouraging news to hear as the Church across America partners together to continue spreading the Gospel.
Whether you’re a single site church or multi-site, you have hopes and plans of seeing God grow your local church to better build His kingdom. Development Advisors works with local churches to create strategic facility expansion plans, including multi-site facility expansion. We are a full-service commercial real estate development organization committed to serving churches. This vision aligns with our principals’ personal values as followers of Jesus Christ.
Development Advisors provides a variety of services, including strategic planning, financial feasibility, site or building selection, capital campaign direction , financing (as owner’s representative), project team selection, project and construction management (also as owner’s representative), FF&E and AVL procurement specialists, and relocation coordination, as needed.
Our Development Advisors team is here to serve you and answer any questions you may have when it comes to both single-site and multisite church facility expansion.