Stevens Creek Goes Multi-site

It's official ... Stevens Creek Church is a multi-site church! Now I am sure that some of you are scratching your head and saying, "What is a mult-site church?" Well, a multi-site church is one church that meets at multiple locations. Churches began to use the multi-site church model in the mid 1980. In fact, Dr. Paul Walker, the long term pastor of Mount Paran Church of God brought this idea to our state way back then. Times have changed since Dr. Walker helped pioneer this phenomenon, but the heart is still the same and that is, to create life-giving worship experiences in as many areas as possible so that lost people can be found.

Churches do multi-site in different ways. Some churches transmit the message by satellite to multiple locations, some churches have a rotating teaching team and others use video technology to communicate the message at a later time. The multi-site movement is sweeping America. Here's an example, in 1990, there were 10 multi-site churches.By 1998, that number had expanded to about 100. By 2008, there are an estimated over 2,000 multi-site churches across the US.

I have been watching this movement develop over the last several years. God has placed us in an association of churches called the ARC and they specialize in raising up life-giving churches. Many of these congregations are multi-site churches and one, in particular, is leading the charge in the movement and that one is Seacoast. Their pastor, Greg Surratt preached at the Creek several months back. He, along with Billy Hornsby, have helped coach our church through this process.

Last year, we made the decision to move Stevens Creek to a multi-site model. Kevin Lloyd, along with our Grovetown campus pastor, Steve Sturgell, went to work preparing a launch team for Grovetown. Along the way, some people have said, "Why Grovetown? Why would you need to open up a campus there?" The answer to that question is simple: there are people in Grovetown who are headed toward a Christ-less eternity. These people matter to God and they should matter to the church.

On September 13, 2009, we launched. After months and months of planning and praying, Stevens Creek Church opened up a new campus in the Grovetown High School Auditorium in Grovetown, GA. The opening service had 355 people in attendance.

It was a great day. I am so appreciative of all of the people that set up and tore down, the people that invited their friends, and the people that donated money to make this dream a reality. A lot of work has gone into this launch, but the real work now begins. It's time to invite your friends to The Creek and let's pray together that your friends will hear and receive the life-giving message of Jesus Christ. I look forward to seeing this campus expand to two services ... now, wouldn't that be cool.