HomeResourcesLeadership3 Ways Technology Helps Overcome Multisite Challenges

3 Ways Technology Helps Overcome Multisite Challenges

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There’s no denying the impact technology has made in the way we do ministry, especially over the past two decades. And no one knows that more than multisite churches. Without technology, we would have never been able to live stream a service across multiple venues or communicate effectively between campuses.

However, this has created a whole new set of questions the Church has been forced to answer…

  • How do we ensure that that there’s continuity among all of our campuses?
  • What can we do to make sure everyone who’s part of our church has the same opportunity for growth?
  • What can we do to ensure the next campus we feel God calling us to plant launches with predictable success?

Steve ant Tim multisite convo 2014_edit

Fortunately, there are ways for churches to use technology again to help answer these questions. The same advances in technology that allowed for multisite campuses in the first place can be a tool for solving these issues and helping your campus continue to grow deeper and wider.

Whether you’re currently serving at a multisite campus or your church has considered the possibility of becoming a multisite church, here are three ways to leverage technology to overcome some of the common challenges:

1) Manage and measure ministry strategy at a campus-wide and ministry-wide level.

Your church management software gives you the chance to quickly scan and analyze data on each of your campuses and dig deeper into some of the meaningful information about your individual church members.

2. Maximize opportunities for impact at each campus

One of the primary factors for multi-site success lies in your ability to navigate what should be unique for your campus and what needs to be consistent with other campuses. With the right technology, each campus can run location-specific reports or roll them up for easy church-wide executive reporting. This helps you identify the ministry opportunities your specific multisite location should consider compared to other campuses.

3. Leverage data before launching your next campus

Most multisite churches have a vision of planting multiple campuses. Your church management software can play a significant role in not only helping you determine if you’re ready to launch a new campus, but where you should plant next.

By taking a step back and looking at the key triggers for multisite success, your church can make an informed decision on whether to launch a new campus. You can also create custom reports on the people associated with each campus, plotting the results on a map. This will help you identify the possible locations for your next campus.

Want some additional insights in how to leverage technology to overcome the challenges of multisite?

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to sit down with Jim Tomberlin to discuss different ways multisite pastors can leverage technology for ministry. Here’s a brief excerpt from our conversation:

Jim Tomberlin with Steve Caton pt. 2 from Church Community Builder on Vimeo.

Technology not only created the multisite boom, it also helps protect the overall health and growth of multisite church ministry for years to come. Multisite ministries require unique systems and processes to be effective. The only way you’ll be able to create and monitor those processes is through technology.

Multisite Pastors: How are you leveraging technology to overcome some of the common challenges you face?

Steve Caton
Steve Caton
Steve Caton has been building teams and nurturing innovative growing organizations for over 30 years, successfully expanding a variety of companies such as The Giving Crowd, Newdea and Christianity.com. Steve is most recognized for his work at Church Community Builder where he assisted in catalyzing an eight-year period of double-digit growth and service to over 4,800 churches. Steve is passionate about Kingdom causes and has authored hundreds of articles and ebooks about effective leadership and organizational health. Currently, Steve is the Chief Growth Officer at Generis where he works alongside a team of over 45 generosity and leadership experts to increase their reach and impact.  

2 COMMENTS

  1. Interesting thoughts Stephen. I agree that it would be useful to see how web traffic differentiates in a multi-site context. My question is, what would you do differently as a result of that data? Do you have some practical experience that you can share where those changes improved effectiveness? What tools do you recommend to track this information?

  2. I would be interested in seeing some “click and conversion recipes” and what the results are. What do different click paths mean and why? Click path patterns such as “pogo sticking” between various pages on the site and browsing that diverts to search that results, have different implications when laid over various areas of a multi-site church. Sometimes it means the user could not find something in the main section that was buried on a locaion-specific area. Other times it may mean that they found a ministry of function, but it was not at their location. Still other times it means they found something they wanted, but went on to dig deeper… possibly to join or to switch locations they attend.

    A few scenarios and their explanations might be a good follow-on article that show how all of the data you mentioned can be not only harvested, but more deeply analyzed and explained to the leadership team(s).

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