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January 19, 2005
Franchising Church
(Filed under: Church Business)Borrowing from McDonald's, churches are beginning to franchise--or offer multisite locations, as it's commonly described. The solution allows larger churches to expand beyond the limits of their facilities and location, often reusing elements of the church service for these satellite locations.
It's not a bad ideas, as long as community is emphasized. Unlike McDonald's, people are important to the church and there needs to be a communal connection between a group of believers. Satellite churches can't turn into fast food locations where you visit the corner franchise for the sake of speed and convenience.
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at January 19, 2005 8:18 AM
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Comments
It seems to me that denominations were really the original church franchise--not necessarily sharing the actual elements of a service (sermon, songs, skits, etc.), but certainly sharing a lot of the behind the scenes elements (statement of faith, business/legal/financial help, organizational structure, staffing--especially in transitions, and potentially even marketing).
It seems like it might be helpful for some denominations to begin following this satellite model, especially as the pool of available clergy is stretched thin.
Posted by: kevin at January 19, 2005 8:30 AM
We do this at the church I work at. We have our Main Campus services (Sat @ 5, Sun @ 8, 9:30, 11:10, 5 & 6:30 - all identical) and we have 2 at our "Westside Venue" which is an off site location. It's a video venue - we tape our 8am message and broadcast it at the venue services, but we have a live band. We have some pictures and stuff up at our website, www.westsidefamilychurh.com. We needed more seats at prime-time, and this allowed us to get an addtional 500 people to hear the most important message of their life!
Posted by: AnneJackson at February 2, 2005 5:05 PM
Sorry, that's www.westsidefamilychurch.com
Posted by: AnneJackson at February 2, 2005 5:06 PM
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