Sustainable and Reproducible Discipleship

Recently, there has been a lot of talk around the blogosphere about multi-site ministry and its effectiveness or lack thereof. Neil Cole, author of Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens, among others, has a running series on the issue. I've already commented on one of Cole's posts over at his site. Today, I'm going to add my own thoughts to Cole's 4^th installment in his series, The Multi-Site Church Model.

Cole, as well as most others I'm reading, is not fond of the multi-site model. In his 4^th installment, Cole tackles the issues of whether a church is self-perpetuating and self-propagating. In short, is the church able to support its own ministry and is it able to reproduce groups that will plant, grow, and do the same. Cole, based on these criteria, links the success or failure of the church site to how independent the church is of external resources for its survival. The more dependent it is, the less likely it is to ever be self-perpetuating and self-propagating. Check out Cole's site for the full read as well as his other insights on multi-site churches.

As the pastor of a church plant that began as a multi-site, I feel as though I can bring a rather unique perspective to this discussion. Rather than self-perpetuating and self-propagating, within Threshold Church, we talk about these issues in terms of being sustainable and reproducible. Our categories are similar to Cole's, but there are important differences. First, being sustainable and reproducible is an attribute of discipleship rather than the viability or health of the church. Of course, the two are closely connected, inseparable. But, by making it an issue of discipleship, we are bringing the battle to the least common denominator within the church, i.e. the disciple.

Consequently, sustainability, as opposed to self-perpetuation, is concerned with the health of the disciple rather than the health of the church. Again, the two are inextricably connected, but the starting point is important. The Church is the fellowship of Jesus Christ. It is the community of disciples. To be sure, I am not recommending a focus on the individual. Rather, it is a focus on the person in the midst of community and how, together, we foster a model of faith that is sustainable. That faith is sustained by living in connection with the Vine, by living in Christ.

A branch that abides in the Vine, quite naturally produces fruit. So, will the disciple be reproducible. Every disciple should be following someone a little further along the journey then they while leading some that are behind him, this while we all are following Jesus Christ. When such a culture is built within a church it will quite naturally become self-perpetuating and self-propagating.

I don't believe Cole would disagree with any of this. In fact, he may see these as two separate conversations- the health of the multi-site church movement vs. the health of discipleship within a church. However, having been involved in both, I see it related in this way. When I was operating within a multi-site model, I could see over time that our ministry was neither self-perpetuating nor self-propagating, to use Cole's terms. However, I truly feel as though it had less to do with dependence on resources as it did to a lack of missional identity unique to our community. Our community failed to take ownership of our mission as a church. With that came laissez-faire and a lack of responsibility for the mission of the Church. It was not so much that we were dependent on resources, but that we were dependent on the "main campus" for our vision and values. Yes, resources and programs were handed down to the site, but more importantly the site's identity was dictated to it by the main campus. This was not a heavy-handed thing in any way. Rather, it's the nature of multi-site, i.e. one church, multiple locations. It sounds good and biblical. In principle it is. However, the practice often leads to impotent children of an otherwise potent mother church.

The decision by a majority within that site, with the blessing of the mother church, to re-locate and plant itself as a church with its unique calling within the context of the larger Church, breathed life into the ministry. More than no longer relying on others for our resources (largely, in fact, we still do), we could no longer rely on the mother church to tell us who we are or what we are to do. We needed to take ownership and responsibility for our vision and values. The biggest result of that has been a commitment to building a sustainable and reproducible culture of discipleship. Such a commitment will lead to health among the parts as well as the whole, providing fertile ground for the growth and multiplication of the Church and the proclamation of the Kingdom of God.

Do you have any experiences of multi-site ministry? What do you think its merits are? What about its shortcomings? What do you think of Neil Cole's and my critique? Agree or disagree.