CHURCHES GO FORTH, MULTIPLY

On Sundays, the members of Keystone Fellowship church attend services together and apart, in one building and in several, hearing the same message, but differently.

Keystone is a multisite congregation: one church with a centralized leadership but a congregation that meets in more than one location. It hosts services in three Montgomery County towns - Montgomeryville, Fort Washington, and Skippack - with a fourth in the works.

"Instead of being one megasite of 2,000, we'd rather be four churches with 500 - and be active in those communities," Pastor John Cope said.

More than 5,000 multisite congregations have opened their doors in the United States since the 1980s, when fewer than 100 existed, according to the Leadership Network, a Dallas-based church-growth think tank. One of the nation's largest multisite churches - LifeChurch in Oklahoma - boasts 24 sites in seven states.

Most of the growth occurred in the last decade.

Multisite brethren might meet in schools or movie theaters, and listen to sermons from big screens through live-stream or from in-person pastors working from an outline followed by all church clergy. They may worship to the same music played that day in other branches, but performed by a site-based band.

"The multisite church is totally transforming how we do and think of church," said the Rev. Jim Tomberlin, who helped pioneer the church-growth strategy as a pastor in Colorado and who now works as a church consultant.

It's not"a fix-it strategy" for a struggling congregation, Tomberlin said, but, rather, a vehicle to accommodate a growing church.

Typically, multisite churches have more than 1,000 members who pack the pews (and the aisles) each Sunday. Many also offer charismatic leaders, contemporary worship, small-group weekday meetings, and a service-oriented church culture that appeals to millennials, studies show.

Keystone's 1,000-capacity sanctuary in Montgomeryville hosts two services and a third is being considered.Its Fort Washington members have been meeting at an Ambler school, but will soon move to the Hilton Garden Inn in Fort Washington.The church has purchased land to build a new site on Orvilla Road in Hatfield and also is looking to start a site in Washington Township, Gloucester County.

Others in the region include Liberti Church,which has six sites, including a senior citizen center in Collingswood; Penn Valley Church in Telford (four); Grace City Church (two); Grace Church of Philly (two); and Calvary Church in Souderton, which is in the process of searching for its first additional site.

Epic Church, another multisite congregation, has Sunday services at Roxborough High School, the Suzanne Roberts Theater in Center City,and a Manayunk movie theater.

"If you say, 'Come with me to church and it's in a movie theater,' it takes away the intimidation factor" of a grand church building, said Pastor Kent Jacobs, of the 1,500-member church. "And, it smells like popcorn."

Traditional church planning and the multisite strategy lead to the same outcome: a new congregation in a new community.

But with the multisite method, a new pastor isn't sent to some faraway territory to knock on doors and start from scratch.

Instead, the money, leadership, and members come from a host church to start a new congregation within a 30-minute drive in a neighborhood where a substantial number of church members already live.

The move takes extensive planning to find clergy to be the site pastor, new members, and money.

Churches typically invest about $250,000 in a new site, Tomberlin said. A location is the biggest cost, and nontraditional sites are often selected.

Members who live in the target area are encouraged to leave the familiar to be pioneers at the new site for the sake of a greater good: finding additional souls for the kingdom.

Ramon Gadea and his family agreed to leave the Montgomeryville site of Keystone Fellowship for Fort Washington in part because a small group was more conducive to worship for Gadea's 15-year-old autistic son. But Gadea, of Cheltenham, also wanted to be a witness for his faith.

"We wanted to pitch our tent where we could be a blessing to others," said Gadea, an infectious-disease physician.

In some cases, an existing church will decide to become part of a larger network.

That's what happened with the former BranchCreek Community Church in Lower Salford, which is now LCBC BranchCreek, part of the seven-campus network of Manheim-based LCBC Churches across eastern Pennsylvania.

The congregation's membership had plateaued at 800 and its longtime pastor was considering retiring, said Pastor Jason Mitchell, who now leads the church.

The congregation decided to join LCBC and in the process changed from sermons delivered by the pastor in church to homilies delivered by live stream from the main branch.

The church promptly lost 400 members, but has gradually regained the numbers with new congregants, Mitchell said.

"We want someone to have the same experience no matter what campus they are on that day," Mitchell said.

But at Grace Church of Philly, with congregations in University City and Feltonville, it's in-person all the way. A site pastor preaches every Sunday.

"We just don't see a guy who is far away and a face on a screen as a pastoral model of ministry," said Pastor John Davis, whose leadership team includes his brother Steve.

About 10 percent of the sites don't survive - the cause usually is poor site leadership, Tomberlin said. And, church officials must make sure they have something worth replicating to begin with.

"Get the core right first," Mitchell said. "Create a church that people can't wait to get to. Once you have done that, then get ready to replicate it."

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         Avg. Sunday

Church    Location   Area Sites   Attendance    Denomination

Epic Church   Philadelphia   3   1,500   Non-Denominational

Grace Church of Philly   Philadelphia   2   80   Evangelical Free Church of America

Grace City Church   Philadelphia   2   400   Sovereign Grace Churches

Keystone Fellowship   Montgomeryville   3   1,700   Southern Baptist

Penn Valley Church   Telford   4   800   Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches

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