Sometimes we didn’t clearly articulate what we were looking for because we didn’t know what we needed. Sometimes, the campus pastors convinced themselves about fitting into the scheme of things even as they realized deep down that they really wanted to do something else. The eclectic mix of expectations, ambitions, vision and communication seems to conspire against us to make it really difficult.
Churches often find themselves with the location, the people and the financial resources to make new campuses work, but they can’t find the right leader to lead it!
Eighty-seven percent of campus pastors come from within the church. [ref]
I wish I had let this fact sink in deeply years ago. All the time, effort, energy and money that we spent on attempting to attract campus pastors from outside should have been spent on identifying, training and releasing people from within our church to lead campuses. Your next campus pastor is already attending your church. The question is: What is the system you’re employing to identify them and raise them up to do justice to that role?
I’ve seen it firsthand; campus pastors who are from “within” have a better “stick” rate than those from elsewhere. It makes sense because they have already bought into the vision of the church. Their notions of what it means to lead within the church have been shaped by the church.
Older Location’s Ability to Reach People Slows Over Time
Nothing reaches new people like new campuses. The other side of that coin is that older campuses aren’t as effective at reaching people as newer ones. This isn’t just my personal opinion; it was backed up by Warren Bird in his study on the dynamics at play within new multisite campuses. [ref]
We often like to celebrate the fact that new campuses reach more people, but until you’ve lived within the dynamics of an “old” campus and understand its subtle contours incisively, the conversation takes on a slightly different tenor. (Studies show that “old” campuses are anything over five years.)
Some of the impacts of this on a church culture can be:
- “Shiny New Car” Syndrome – Where the church leadership gets fixated on launching new locations, much to the detriment of the older locations.
- Deflated Leaders – People leading in “older” campuses can easily get down on themselves because they aren’t seeing the same results over time.
- It’s a Push – Older campuses have to push more to reach people. Stop using the same “yardstick” to measure the effectiveness of all campuses.
Leaders who are effective during the early days of the launch of a campus are different than those who are effective after a few years.
Churches need to find a way to build growth strategies that take into account the needs of an older campus.
Leaders in older campuses shouldn’t shy away from reaching new people. Instead, they should see the natural “slow down” as a challenge to meet and overcome.
The most effective days of new campuses are when they first launch, so your strategy needs to push hard in those early days, months and years to reach as many people as possible. The growth trajectory of the campus is set early on!
