We are three months away from launching our 9th campus. It will be in Plainfield, IL and will very possibly be our largest launch to date. By far, one of the greatest advantages of multi-site is that when we launch a new campus, most people (and artists) that live in the vicinity of that new site will then become the launch team for that new campus. In the case of Plainfield, we have our largest launch team yet.
Chris Heller, the new Arts Director at Plainfield, held a meeting last night for just the artists planning on joining the Plainfield team. At three months out, they already have 25 artists committed, coming from 5 different campuses. By the time that campus launches, I would expect that artist base to be near 45. This could possibly be the first campus launch where the new campus requires almost no assistance from any other site. At launch , I would expect Plainfield to add another 20-25 artists in the first month from the 600+ new attenders.
I planted a new church in Chicago's far northern suburbs in 1995. Multi-site revolutionizes church planting. Chris Heller comes into a situation where he is able to apprentice under a current Arts Director for 6 months at an existing campus, build an Arts launch team of 45 artists and then launch a new campus with a full roster of artists and the full assistance and support of 8 other Arts Directors and 425 artists from other campuses. I would have killed for that when I was starting my new church.
I am still the world's biggest fan of starting new churches. Many times you need to launch a church in a place where church planting is the only option. Then you can use that church as a hub to launch more churches and campuses off of it. But I fully believe multi-site is one of the absolutely necessary and most effective ways of reaching the urban / suburban populations in the U.S. Go Chris Heller! Go Plainfield!
Here is a copy of the Arts Matrix for Plainfield, as of December 20th.
you are so welcome!!!
Posted by: Mystery Person | December 23, 2007 at 06:10 PM