Operations 102 Communications, Class 6

Operations 102—Communications 1.Strategy: The Culture of Your Church. 2.Strategy: Parsing the Preaching Pastor 3.Web 4.Hardware & IT 5.Productivity Tools 6.Multisite & Cutting Edge Issues 7.Advertising 8.Policy & Practice 9.Policy & Practice 10.Communications Team

Today’s Topic, Part 1 The first part will deal with the unique communications challenges in multisite churches. Multisite churches need to determine centralized services versus campus-provided services. How will sermon streaming be done—by sneaker-net, internet or DVD? Will there be video announcements or live? Shared bulletins or unique to each campus … or will you “go green” and have none at all?

Topic, Part 2 The second part will examine cutting edge trends in church communications, which has a direct bearing on many multisite churches. What are the latest and greatest trends in communications? This class has two parts to it, both linked and yet also independent of each other.

Rick Clapp Rick Clapp is the Executive Pastor for Mountain Springs Community Church in Colorado Springs. Previously, he served as Executive Pastor for nine years developing the staff and leaders of Vanguard Church in Colorado Springs.

Houston Clark Houston Clark is a Co-Founder & Principal of Clark. Drawing from their experience working with North Point Community Church, 20 years ago, George and Houston Clark developed a vision to create relevant and impactful environments that could reach culture. From that they developed a unique approach to creating AVL systems that helped shape contemporary worship in many churches throughout the country, enabling them to be highly relevant communication platforms.

Multisite Issues & Cutting Edge Issues

Our journey as a multi-site church is forcing us to come face to face with who we really are. Multisite, in general, forces you become very aware of who you are and are not. This is seen in values, systems, and owning what really matters. All these things will be replicated at other campuses and therefore essential to discover and embrace. The following pages highlight the four biggest areas where we as a church are attempting to grow, understand, and move forward to live out our unique calling.

Multisite Issues

Issue #1: Selecting Leadership The difference between a campus pastor and a church planter: The terms sound very similar yet they are so different. We are beginning to believe there is a general profile of a campus pastor and a different one for a church planter. Of course there are always exceptions …

Campus Pastor (community to core)  Gifted in leadership, shepherd/pastor heart  highly relational  good speaker & can communicate well  influence is through relational connectedness  understands how to connect others in small groups  not speaking regularly isn't an issue for this leader  shepherd/administratively gifted  needs guidance, desires to create community.

Church Planter (crowd to community)  Entrepreneur, pioneer  highly catalytic and creates movement  excellent teacher, influence through preaching/teaching  understands how to connect others to a movement/vision  wants to speak often, visionary gifted  needs space to create, desires to create uniqueness.

Issue #2: Campus DNA How much like the original site is wanted, needed, or expected? Is it exact or only a little? What will you use to measure success?

Franchise vs. Do your own thing  All of our branding will look the same (same painted hallways in children's ministry, colors, logos, etc.)  Check us out luncheons, membership classes are all similar in materials and information  Communicating church history, connection, and membership is the same

Service Uniqueness Communion is available each week at one campus and not at the other. The service environment is different at West with the cross, arts, prayer stations, etc. not the same at the Woodmen campus.

Core Ministries The core ministries will be the same at each campus (children's, students, worship, small groups, hospitality, & teaching).

Live vs. Video teaching Currently we do both. Live teaching the first weekend of the month and on special weekends (Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc.) Video teaching all the other weekends. We believe we would be doing less live teaching if our campus pastor wasn’t so gifted in speaking

Issue #3: Central vs. Campus Specific Centralized shared services-vs-campus provided. When is there a need for central support? Is there a certain number of campuses before implementing central support? How to make sure each site is getting quality? Is there a `hybrid' model?

Research  Churches recommend developing a central support when you launch your 3rd site.  However, with two, now is the time to begin building the structure and what you think you will need. Implement when you have 3 or more.  In the meantime, lead your staff and communication according to services. For instance, if you have 3 services at one site and 2 at another, your church has 5 services it needs to cover for it's ministries, greeting, announcements, etc.

Morale  Central support helps you get to a place where you are more multi campus verse a church with another venue or one campus.  Helps with mentality and morale. With 2 campuses there can start to develop the `us' and `them’ language. The second campus feels left out and not priority.  Helping staff make the mental shift from one campus to a church with many campuses helps get beyond the two campus mentality.

B2/M2  Building and Brand is Central; Missions & Ministry is campus specific (uniqueness in the community)  Size of campus may come with different dynamics, example, 250 in attendance verse 2500 at another campus.  Helps reinforce the reality that the 2nd site is a campus verses a new church plant. Some staff may have a tendency to place expectations on the smaller site that it should function just like the larger one.

Flexibility & Control  Control is correlated to consistency, flexibility is correlated to variation.  Defining what matters most, and why, gets more and more challenging.  What is non-negotiable? Where can there be flexibility?  Some staff may feel the church becoming too `corporate' and less like a `family.’

Finances  Knowing where the money is being spent.  Is it for all campuses or just for one specific campus  How do you budget for two campuses?  Do all campuses feel valued?

Time  How much of the staff's time is spent on central responsibilities and how much of their time is spent on campus responsibilities?  Is the staff clear on where they should spend their time?  When first getting started most staff will wear two hats and both will suffer to a degree.  This tension helps reveal the need for some type of `central support.'

Facilities  How will we keep up with building usage such as weddings, policies and procedures, cleaning?  The volume of work begins to feel overwhelming. The ramifications of losing a person or changing the cleaning crew are felt differently.  You feel as if you are in `discovery mode' realizing the ramifications of decisions after the fact because decision-making is not communicated organizationally or in some type of `central' conduit.

Advocate  Each campus needs an advocate who is communicating the needs of the campus.  Often times this is the campus pastor or admin. Then campus needs should be communicated in a consistent venue for care and consistency.

Value  Communicating value to all campuses. Verses the 1st campus trumping when it needs something. Worship pastor at Campus 1 goes on break and pulls the 2nd campus to come fill in for Campus 1.  Staff meetings. How often is everyone together and included?

Issue #4: Communication Sermon streaming, bulletins & announcements. What is campus only vs. organizationally wide? How do you determine?

Bulletin  Our ‘West’ campus is a week delayed in the message, we us ‘G’ drive for campus specific announcements, sermon notes on the correct weekend, etc.  Mistakes: Announcements for Woodmen in West bulletin that doesn't apply. It felt like two different campuses doing their own thing. Baptism was announced at one campus and not at West but baptism being on the same day.

Announcements  Called `Family News' at MSC.  Typically is done live by the one teaching that day.  If a video message, the campus pastor will give the news. All announcements are listed in the bulletin.

Streaming  Woodmen campus is the recording campus currently. Only that campus is online streaming live.  Podcast of service goes up a week delayed.

Collaboration  Systems/Software: We need everything to run through one location/system.  Purchasing: We get a better price because of volume when purchasing. Helping others stay on the same page and a central support mindset.  Coordination: Someone, centrally, is always thinking of all the variables for everyone at all campuses

Multisite Issues & Cutting Edge Issues

Technology It’s not about the technology ….it’s about the story

Technology  Audio  Video  Theatrical Lighting

Next Generation  Millennial Generation … prepare for impact

Culture  Who are we reaching  Who are we not reaching

Culture … what is the “AVL” for this generation

Q & A Send Questions via Chat to Tami

Chapter 6, “The Catalyst of Chaos” Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code by Sam Chand 1.A healthy culture celebrates success...what are we all doing to celebrate successes throughout our ministries? 2.To create a new culture, you have to destroy the old one. And, you must have a consistently high sense of urgency. Creating (and maintaining) healthy culture is hard work! John Boyle

Chapter 6, “The Catalyst of Chaos” Cracking Your Church’s Culture Code by Sam Chand