A congregation is defined as the assembly of people for a given purpose, a corporate body whose members gather for worship, or the members of such a body.
A multi-congregational church is a church with several related, but distinct congregations. Groups within the church assemble at different times and in different places for corporate worship.
These days you may hear the term "multi-site church" or "regional church." In my opinion, these terms describe a subset of multi-congregational churches.
I believe every growing local church will become multi-congregational. Either it will...
- Help to start another church, or
- Strategically launch ministry in multiple campuses, or
- Support a different language group, or
- Develop different worship venues in a single location, or
- Engage a combination of the above strategies.
In the multi-congregational church (aka Multi-site or Regional Church) the congregations share leadership, vision, teaching, resources and administration. In some cases this is a permanent reality. In others, it is a temporary reality.
I accept that there are exceptions, but I will deliberately ignore them in my effort to support and organize ministry. I am willing to bet the vast majority of exceptions aren't growing if their short term plans do not include at least one of the above.
I believe church management software systems must have a multi-congregational data model. In fact, I designed one.
My next few posts will explore the multi-congregational data model.
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