4. What are the challenges of multisiting through mergers?
Unfortunately, the reason churches are declining and dying is because the leadership and congregation have lost sight of their original church mission. All too often they have protected their own self-interests rather than that of the gospel. Getting them to see reality and helping them to make long-term, strategic decisions is difficult.
Years ago, there was a cigarette commercial aimed at increasing brand loyalty. The by-line was, “I’d rather fight than switch.” To apply it to the 80 percent of churches declining or dying, it would be: “We’d rather die than switch.”
5. Rush Creek does not use video to deliver the sermons. How does the live in-person teaching model work?
Twice a year, the teaching pastors get away and work on the preaching calendar for half the year. Once the series name/idea is set, we determine the number of sermons in the series. That is handed over to a creative team who begins to brainstorm creative elements for the series. About 10 weeks before the series, the teaching pastors get away for a day or two and write one- to two-page summaries of each message.
The final preparation for the creative elements are added in after that. Then the week or two before we preach the message, each of us gets by himself and writes his own sermon. Each pastor can keep all or part of the summaries previously done, or not. But we do stay on text and topic so that if you were at any of our campuses, you would hear essentially the same message, though, as Phillips Brooks defined preaching, the sermon would be “truth through the prism of personality.”
6. What are the most important things to know about a church merger?
It’ll never happen unless God prepares the way. Self-interests on all sides can scuttle mergers before they get to the starting line. Once the merger is complete, then the REAL work begins of infusing DNA into the new congregation and leadership. Humility and understanding are indispensable—and patience. It takes time.
