Multisite churches are growing faster than leadership pipelines can keep up with, research shows

Nearly 10% of Protestant churchgoers in the United States attend a multisite church, many of which are growing at faster rates than leadership pipelines can keep up with, according to a new research report that sheds light on the challenges of church expansion. 

The Ascent Leader founder and Multisite Project architect Sean Morgan, church researcher Warren Bird and multisite specialist and author Jim Tomberlin released "The Multisite Revealed National Report" Wednesday. The report documents more than 1,800 multisite churches at more than 6,000 sites.

"For many multisite churches, the growth is outpacing the infrastructure to support it and is often why the most common 'stuck' point is an insufficient number of people in the leadership pipeline," researchers wrote. 

"The key to multisite growth is having an intentional leadership-development culture, simple and clear organizational systems, and healthy relationships between 'central' and campus leadership.”

During a webinar for the report's rollout, Bird defined a multisite church as “one church in two or more geographic locations under one board and one budget.” Nearly one in 185 Protestant churches is multisite, and 5 million people attend a multisite church every weekend. That’s nearly one in 10 Protestant churchgoers. Multisite churches operate in every U.S. state except Wyoming.

“The typical multisite campus is growing at an amazing 8% annually and it has an attendance of almost 400, which makes it many times bigger than the typical Protestant church today," Bird said.

“Do you have to be a megachurch to go multisite?” Bird asked. “The resounding answer is no. In our survey, 36%, just over a third, became multisite when they were under a thousand in attendance.”

Megachurches are often defined as churches with over 2,000 attendees. 

The survey also found that new campuses rarely close. Only 8% of multisite churches surveyed have closed one or more campuses.

Bird said the research showed that “an early criticism of the multisite movement” was unwarranted: the fear that video preaching “will reduce the number of preachers to just a handful of incredibly gifted preachers that are seen by video all over the country.”

When asked whether they had “a teaching team defined as the lead pastor sharing the pulpit at least 10 times a year,” 92% of multisite pastors said yes.

On costs, the report found that 57% of new campuses became financially sustainable within three years: 15% within one year or less, 18% within two years and 24% within three years. Another 22% took four or more years. The remaining 21% are not financially sustainable or are not expected to become so.

Bird said first-year costs for building or acquiring new facilities vary widely.

“The first year costs are all over the map from one church that said nothing to another church in our survey that said their first year costs were $35 million, and I presume that was for quite a sizable, lovely new facility,” he explained.

Bird noted that the median first-year cost is $1,250 per person.

The most common ways multisite churches acquire new properties are new builds (27%) and mergers with existing churches (27%).

“If there’s a myth out there that mergers don’t work, our survey findings underscore the reality that mergers are a prominent vehicle of multisite churches for campus expansion and for church revitalization,” Bird said.

Other common approaches are using commercial facilities (21%) and “using the portable approach of weekly set up and tear down” (15%).

Tomberlin said “the biggest challenge in going multisite” over the past 25 years has been “finding a suitable facility.” But he pointed to a newer challenge: a leadership shortage.

“The multisite movement and churches individually are growing … at a faster rate than their leadership pipeline can keep up with,” Tomberlin said.