Lessons from Reproducing

Here are some notes from three church planters/reproducing church leaders that shared their experience from launching new sites recently. Very helpful stuff from the NewThing Network Gathering.

Dave Dummitt:
1. The Big Brother Syndrome: No matter how much we communicated the blessing of reproduction and prayed that people would have the graciousness of the prodigal father, there were still people, leaders, that were the older brother. They were skeptical and questioning of our decision. That was tough.
2. Launch team around 150 with the goal of breaking the 200 barrier before launch.
3. Start with a campus pastor if at all possible
4. Spiritual warfare is real

Greg Lee:
1. The Big Brother Syndrome--The new campus was getting everything they asked for, but there was a strategic decision to run lean at the original campus so that the new launch could be successful. This created a little bit of a jealous big brother situation.
2. Surprised both positively and negatively about how for some people the reproducing conversation kicked in, but for others it was totally foreign even after two years of talking about it.
3. Excellence. What is it that we are trying to reproduce. Is it the excellence that we have at our originating location or is it self-defined at the new location?
4. Expectations. What do we expect at launch? What are the numbers and the level of impact that we're going to have? It was hard not to communicate the expectations differently to different groups of people (congregation, staff, management team)
5. Campus Freedom. The idea of being one church

We sent 120 from our original campus and that filled back in immediately.


Brian Moll:
1. Motive check: larger church? Newer fad? Fitting in with NewThing? or helping people find their way back to God?
2. Remain confident in the plan. We had a lot of connection events that nobody showed up to. Just because one connection event doesn't succeed doesn't mean the church isn't going to succeed.
3. Buy-in: My wife, the staff, the leaders, the congregation. This is going to mean a lot of effort, energy and time.
4. Location pastor is necessary if they are sold out to making the location successful.
5. Very easy to make the church about Sunday (worship, program, etc.). We found that we need to be thinking about the years ahead and the development of a real church happening.
6. 2nd campus launch team was great because everyone on board was sold out on the vision of reproducing.
7. It tested the depth of our bench.
8. It raised the value of reproducing.
9. It provided an opportunity for new volunteers.
10. Bar was raised for both locations (language, signage, series choices)
11. Echo: Spiritual warfare is real

Check out www.jointheanthem.com for more info on a future reproducing church.