Multisite FAQs

December 8th, 2020

For the sermon "What is a Multisite Church and Why are we One?" (Acts 1:6-11; 2:41; 4:4) that (became the content for some of this article and) gives biblical precedent for a form of multisite found in the early church, click here.

What is a multisite church?
At its simplest, a multisite church is “one church in multiple locations.” That means we share the same teaching, mission, vision, elders, budget, leadership structure, programs, and processes, but all these things happen in multiple locations!

Why become a multisite church?

Because we’ve been growing and we don’t intend to stop. 100 yrs ago, First Christian Church of Johnson City planted us, in hopes that a life-giving church would function as an outpost for the gospel of Jesus Christ in Greene County. So, we stand on shoulders of a long tradition of Helping people find and follow Jesus, and we’ve experienced a steady influx of healthy growth for the last 10 years straight. We are a church filled with amazing people who are ready to sacrifice to achieve an amazing mission!
Because 94% of churches in America are losing ground compared with population growth. By this definition, approximately 15 churches in all of Greene County are "growing", in numerical terms. When coupled with the fact that, on average, newer church plants are growing and established churches of 40+ years are in decline, such basic statistical norms apply to our area. We believe this is a major problem that requires our best resources and efforts to solve, even in an area with a large number of existing churches.
Because multisite leverages our existing people and resources. We believe that multisite, as a form of church planting, is a better strategy than traditional church planting “parachuting” models, because multisite utilizes established relationships and resources to reach our community. Also, we have been running out of room and the way we’re doing multisite, as a portable solution, is conservatively 10-20x cheaper than modifying an existing building or building a new building offsite.
Because people still need relationship with Jesus. According to demographic study of East Tennessee by The Barna Group (barna.org), 61% of Greene Countians report no meaningful connection to a local church. Our vision of Helping people find and follow Jesus is a response to the 43,000 who need a good church family to call home. So, we are going from one hundred year old location with a capacity of 500 in 2 services to 2 locations in 4 services with a capacity of, well, a lot more! While that’s a fairly big change, we think it’s something Christians are called to do—to risk wisely, based on the growth and resources with which God has blessed us, to achieve our mission of Helping people find and follow Jesus!

How does it work?
Here’s a brief run-down of our “Campus Constants” that happen at each site. These are the more "decentralized" non-negotiables of FCC DNA and programming that we reproduce at each location.

Mission & Strategy: Helping Greene County find and follow Jesus by shaping our people and processes according to our 7 Habits, and our Teams according to our Team Code and Leadership Pipeline, to become a campus-launching strategy.
"Worship & Serve" – This is part of our “Serve on the team.” strategy that is distinctive enough to warrant mention. We’ve turned Sunday mornings from a consumer experience, where we sit in worship and Sunday School to soak in information, to a producer experience where we train people for ministry throughout the week: ”learning by serving.” Because we do not do Sunday School, and our small groups meet throughout the week, this frees up our people to serve on Sundays. So, when we ask our people to “Worship and Serve” on Sunday mornings, it becomes an important part of the process of producing fruit-bearing disciples, or as we like to say, "producing producers."
Sunday mornings:
- Identical worship services at the same times at each site
- Same production/tech capacity at each site
- All aspects of every worship service happen with live people, on-site, except for preaching. The basic rhythm is this: Our Lead Pastor preaches for 4 weeks in a row, rotating between campuses to preach in-person at one while livestreamed to the others, and our Campus Pastors preach in-person on week 5 at their respective campuses. Don't knock it till you've tried it. It may work much better than you think! ;o)
- Kids Min (nursery, toddlers, preschool, K/1st, 2nd/3rd, 4th/5th, large group worship)
- Care Room – Quiet room for prayer and talking
- Next Steps Room – Learn about how FCC works and start getting connected to the 7 Habits.
- Hub in Lobby – This is where you get coffee, ask questions, sign-up for things, buy books/swag, etc. (And yes, this includes our portable locations!)
- Volunteer HQ – This is where volunteers gather to grab their lanyards and nametags, receive instructions and announcements during "Huddles," pray together before serving together, and enjoy coffee and snacks.
Basic look and feel (literature, aesthetics, branding, etc.) is the same at each location.
Serve Teams and Life Groups are campus-specific, not across campuses. This is important for caring for one another well and building healthy community among friends.
School/Community Outreach – Each campus ‘adopts’ a local school as part of our mission to the community.
Under the direction of the Elders/Lead Pastor, each campus has at least a Full-Time Campus Pastor who is called to shepherd that flock and oversee the execution of our 7 Habits and campus-launching strategies. Each campus also has other part/full-time paid staff and lay leaders who are centrally important parts of the leadership team.

In addition to the above, there are "centralized” programs that happen at our Greeneville location throughout the week. In other words, FCCers from all campuses participate in these together, whereas everything listed above is campus-specific.

180 – Middle and High School Student Youth Group on Wednesday nights, 6-8p
Young Adults – College, Young Adults, and 20-Somethings on Tuesday nights, 7-8:30p
re:generation – Discipleship through 12-step recovery
Marriage Ministry: Merge, Foundations, Re|engage
We also do all-church events like the Team Bash, Serve Team Trainings, Easter and Christmas Worship Services, Camp in the City, etc.

How can I help?
If you’re part of FCC, if you are practicing the 7 Habits, you are already helping! But, if you're not already meaningfully connected to a local church, then…