mgpcpastor's blog

Since I’m currently overseeing three neighboring churches the question “Can Mulit-Site Work In A Rural Context” is on my mind a fair bit.
Realistically, the be only option for outside ministry to come and work with those three locations would involve one person, maybe in two of them.
Jon Sanders, who is bi-vocational, also works in multi-site rural contexts.

He offers some counsel, including:

You need a commitment to excellence.
I realize the term excellence is kind of a buzzword that came out of the church growth movement and some people are beginning to grow weary of it. But I still believe we serve an excellent God who is worthy of our very best. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing to the best of our ability. I believe excellence is simply giving God our very best with what he has given us to work with.
Therefore, excellence doesn’t have to be synonymous with expensive. It’s holding a high standard to take what resources we do have to create the best product we possibly can. The way a rural church will do multi-site (especially when it comes to staffing and technology) will look very different from how a mega-church does it. But that doesn’t mean a rural church has to come off looking sloppy and unprepared. It’s totally possible for a small church with limited resources to produce an excellent worship experience in multiple locations.

Read the rest of the post here.