Among U.S. Protestant megachurches, 37% reported having two or more locations under the same leadership in 2008, according to a study by the Leadership Network and Hartford Institute for Religion Research in Hartford, Conn.
It's a growth strategy that works for churches of any size because it doesn't require new buildings or fighting for zoning or parking space, says Scott Thumma, professor of sociology of religion at Hartford Seminary, where the institute is based.
"They just rent a couple of extra theaters and high schools and put together a church in a box. Most pastors wouldn't give this as the primary reason, but clearly it's a distinct advantage," says Thumma, co-author of a 2008 study examining eight years of growth and change in megachurches.
Of the USA's 100 largest churches, 67% now have two or more sites and 60% of the 100 fastest-growing churches also have multiple sites, according to the annual listings of the USA's largest churches in Outreach magazine's October issue.
Still, the multisite model can prompt culture shock.
"I do miss having a pastor at the door shaking hands in the 'check-out line,' " says Lauren Green, drawn to join Redeemer by Keller's preaching. "But I realize that model of a personal relationship with a particular pastor is probably gone."
Green grew up in an American Methodist Episcopal church in Minneapolis, where her mother still worships and the pastor she has known all her life led her brother's funeral last month.
That congregational model is suffering, however.
Young adults change churches often as they move from job to job, marry and relocate. Older churches are costly for older members to maintain. And new pastors like the flexibility and evangelical energy of multisites.
Here's a question I have a lot of thinking and praying to do over: what does youth ministry look like in multi-site churches?
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