CEP 02: PAUL BENGER ON THE FUTURE OF MULTISITE CHURCH

Apr 5

By Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger

In this episode, we talk about the multisite church model, exploring the challenges and benefits. We ask some tough questions around this topic, and even if there is a Biblical pattern with our featured guest, Lead Pastor Paul Benger from IKON Church.

Welcome to Episode: 02 of the Church Explained Podcast. A conversation to help grow your leadership, develop your team and build your church. Your hosts will be Dave Mckeown and Nathan Benger. We will talk about all things leadership with key team players from IKON Church and other guests during each show.

Listen and access the full show notes below or search for The Church Explained Podcast on Apple Podcast or where you get your podcasts and listen for free.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

David Mckeown 0:00

Welcome to the church explained podcast. We really appreciate you joining us. The church explained podcast is a conversation to develop your leadership and grow your church. Our goal on this podcast is to share inspirational insights and ideas, resource leaders, churches, and teams, through conversations with key team players at IKON church and other invited guests. In this episode, we're going to talk about generosity. Does it really matter? Hi, I'm Dave Mckeown. And I'm Nathan Benger, we're the hosts of the church explained podcast. Today we're joined with our lead pastor Paul Benger. And in this episode, we're going to talk about the future of multi site church.

Paul Benger 0:45

It's great to be here. It's good to hear, you're back again. Back again. two episodes on the trot now.

David Mckeown 0:54

Great to have you here. Paul, were so excited to talk about this. For people who don't know you maybe missed the last episode. Let's just give them a little bit of a recap of you and the church as well is that possible?

Paul Benger 1:06

Yeah, sure. So obviously, the lead pastor with my wife, Jeannie of IKON church, we planted the church 34 years ago. So it's been going we're now a multi, we call it a multi campus church, we're talking multi site, which is the same thing, but we've just renamed it to multi campus church with six campuses, including an online campus so five physical campuses, and just online as well. been married for 37 years. I hope that's right. Jeannie is listening. And we've got three three children, three boys, Nathan, who's here, and Joshua and Sam, who's also here, but behind cameras, and and then three grandchildren as well. So we love life. And we love building the church.

David Mckeown 1:54

Yeah, such a such a great church IKON church. we're privileged to be part of it, aren't we? Yeah, definitely. So one of the questions we have here, just thinking about multi site or our multi campus is what why why have you chose that model? Yeah,

Paul Benger 2:09

I mean, it's a great question, actually, why choose choose that model? I think there's a couple of things, I would say. First of all, I think, obviously, we planted IKON church, and I think it was always in our heart to plant other churches. And I guess when we planted IKON church as a new church plant, 34 years ago, we just thought that we'd send some people maybe send, you know, 30 people, 50 people, however, start a new new church and let them go. But we began began to see the benefits really, of staying connected. And in not just a more than just friendship, and the benefits of being one church in running two sites. And I think also what helped us is, initially when we started, we had one service, but then we went to double services, then we went to triple services. And we thought, Well, if you can do three services, you could do two sites. Yeah, you know, and four services, or you could do the three sites and five services. And one other thing I would think about leadership development, you know, we've been thanked, you know, I'm thankful to, to God that we've developed a great batch of leaders, and who are sons and daughters of the house. Well, you know, we could just send them off and and they could just go and follow the call of God on their life and, and privilege that they've got the call of God. But actually, you know, that that sense of staying in relationships staying in as sons and daughters staying as partners and co workers out of that phrase when Paul uses the word, co workers together? Yeah, the model just, for me, just fit our heart to continue as family and as co workers, for the kingdom of God.

Nathan Benger 4:01

To jump off the back of that. Yeah, I think that's a key thing, actually, just to recognise because there may be churches listening and you like, so a lot of our leaders were raised through our youth ministry, he called them sons and daughters of the house, they came through our youth ministry, and very much our past would have been at 18. They go off to university, and it's very rare if they come back. Whereas when we were able to do like a multisite, obviously, we were in places of universities, but it helped them attach themselves to a vision. Yeah, which I think was a key for us.

Paul Benger 4:42

So many of them chose to do the university close. Yeah. So to either do Sheffield, which is you know, you can commute easily to Chesterfield where we started we now have a campus in Sheffield, some others chose Derby again, which is fairly close. And so they chose to do that. So they could stay connected. But also this, I mean, Dave, I mean, we, you were leading in a church with two campuses. And you decided, you know, let's join together in and with IKON church and we become together and we've become co workers together. So it's not just the sons and daughters of the house, it's other people who have the same heart, the same culture the same fit. And, like for us, it's a model not without challenges. There's massive challenges, but it's actually a model where just just this great team of people can work together to see the kingdom of God go forward.

David Mckeown 5:37

And well maybe pick that up on another episode as we talk about the possibility of mergers and what it looks like from people because it can be a frightening thing for churches to think, should we merge, you know, what's the benefits? That's another episode. Let me just pick up on what you were saying there, Nathan, about people going to university. So was it strategic in the sense of planting in those areas or starting other sites in those areas where there was universities did that come into your thinking?

Paul Benger 6:06

Now, I don't think initially we were we were thinking of that we were looking at our region, and praying and

David Mckeown 6:13

You didn't just say, okay, there's University there. Let's start a campus.

Paul Benger 6:16

No, not at all. And we perhaps should have done. I mean, initially, we had a few people from Derby towards Derby travelling to Chesterfield, and just this heart to plant again, to start something new, and to send some of our guys out that we we trained, and interest in, and we we train them through, you know, one of these multi services, yeah, giving them a service, you will look after that service. So that's how we trained a team of people. So

David Mckeown 6:50

that's great. Let's just pull that out a little bit. Because I think if people grab that that was the training ground, wasn't it? Yeah. So people think, well, I want to start a church, but like, maybe the thing is to start another service. Yes, train some people, and then release them as you're saying.

Paul Benger 7:07

Yeah. And that's exactly how we did it. We Nathan, and we gave our 6:30 service as It was then we now move that 6pm, that's dangerous that, I know he had a team of people. And then you know, after a period, I can't remember however long we've got this heart. And a few people as I say travelling from Derby, let's, let's do something in Derby. So that team went and did something midweek for a year. And then after around a year we we launched they they they they kind of moved and let's let's do Sundays.

Nathan Benger 7:41

So we repeated that again with Sheffield, in terms of Mark and Nicola who lead Sheffield, they were leading our 9:15am service, early risers. But again, it is the same model. And we just tweaked, you know, we didn't do mid weeks as long in Sheffield, because we'd learnt some of the lessons from Derby. But yeah,

David Mckeown 8:04

I suppose one of the questions I've been thinking of, it's open for any of us to discuss this is, is there a biblical model for because a lot of people will think well, first of all, is it in the Bible? You know, should should we do it? If it's not in the Bible? What our thoughts? Is there a biblical model on?

Paul Benger 8:20

Yes, great, great question. Some people argue quite strongly, there isn't. Yeah, that is actually non biblical. I would say there is, but I would say it looked very different. Yeah. But everything looked very different. 2000 years ago, worship looked very different. 2000 Yeah, absolutely. Everything elders, leadership teams, the whole thing looked different. So So where's the biblical model? Then people would say, Well, I would say if you think about the church, let's say in Jerusalem, you would have a leadership and eldership, they would call it, I would, I would guess in that first century, but you would have people meet in in different locations, as a church grew. In some of the cities, maybe they just had one location, one house, and it was usually the house of a wealthy person who would have a courtyard or a roof, where, you know, a number of people, let's say 30 40 people plus could gather in there. And then in Jerusalem, as the church grew, you know, they would have they would have several of these the same in Ephesus. Some people estimate that, you know, by the time you know, we get into the 60s of the first century of the 70s, the church in Ephesus is around 10,000 people. Well, they that was one church, but they would be meeting you know, they they didn't have a big arena for they would be meeting in different houses. And Paul calls them churches. Yeah. Because soon yeah, you know, there's a phrase where he says greet, Priscilla and aquilla and the church that meets at their house and that would be probably a church. We don't know. Exactly, but probably a church of between 50 and 150 people would gather, depending on the size of Priscilla and Aquilas house.

David Mckeown 10:09

Yeah, very good. Great, great answer. Yeah. I think as you say, people will either say there is, you know, the multi site model there in the Bible or is not in one sense, I was thinking of the fact that even if it wasn't in the Bible doesn't mean you shouldn't do though do you know what I mean, because people say, well, we're going to loop back to Acts chapter one, chapter two. And if it's not there, we shouldn't do it, but I don't think that's the way do we do you think we get stuck? trying to find that, yeah, yeah. Yes. I think you're trying to look back and trying to find where

Paul Benger 10:44

the principle is the key, then contextualise. Yeah. So I don't think everybody should do it, because it doesn't fit their context. There's countries in the world where multisite the way we're doing is just, like, would never fit in their context, but it could fit ours. The other thing I would say is that he you know, even across a region, you would have apostolic figures, yes. Who would minister in different churches? So Paul writes the Corinthians. And he says something like this, although you got 10,000 guardians? In Christ, I think he uses 10,000. Yeah, he said, I became your father. Yeah. And so there was something special about Paul's ministry, into a group of churches across a region. That is clear. When you think of his missionary journeys, some of which the latter ones, were to go back and strengthen the churches that had been planted. So the churches that he'd started, he went, he still had that relationship and the connection that they Yeah, the connection and he's writing letters to them. But then on one of the trips, he decides, I'm going to go back and just go one by one and just strengthen them on a journey. So I think that connection is strongly there. Yeah,

David Mckeown 11:58

definitely, I think, a couple of things. Then just to pull out is, you know, when when we think of multi site, like people have different ideas, whether we call it multi site or multi campus will be different ideas. Some churches, or some leaders may say, I'll never do that, because it means every church needs to be the same, almost like a franchise model. Would we agree with that? I mean, is that true? Does every church that we're planting or sending out or whatever language we use, do they need to be the same?

Paul Benger 12:02

Well, we've not thought so. We've we've not thought so, in terms of identical in the way that some have done. There's I mean, Nathan and I, a few years ago, visited some great churches, actually in America, who have very much done that model even with their buildings, yeah. So you know, that they said, you know, you, if you walk in the building, and you turn left, it's kids work. And that's true of every building, if you walk in the building, and you look over there, the walls red. And that's true in every building. They've really gone that route. And I think that's great for them. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But we certainly have not in terms of the way we've built thought that but we haven't also said, well get on and do your own thing. So the way that it's almost like a spectrum. Yeah, we're at the one end, you've got the church, I've just explained. This is the church explain podcast. So churches, I've just explained in America, and then you've got the other end where, you know, it's just going, you know, do whatever. And we'll stay connected. I think we're more towards, I guess, this, this end of being unified. So we have got a common leadership across all our campuses. And then we've got local leadership that work out how vision and our values, contextually and contextually can mean, in terms of are you in a city, are you in a village in a town, but contextual, it can also mean the congregation size. So there's things that we can do, let's say in our Chesterfield campus, just as the central central campus we can't do elsewhere. You know, and but we, we can still do something meaningful in those other campuses as well. And they can still have our vision, they can still have our values, and they can still feel like IKON church, because IKON church is about our vision and our values.

Nathan Benger 14:27

Yeah. How do we so like, just delving into that a little bit deeper for someone, maybe us listening? Like practically, how do we keep you know, so like, there's a common leadership? That's what we call our core leaders. And then we have our campus pastors, who are who are not in that kind of core leadership, how do we keep them on the vision and values and, you know, kind of carrying that culture into every campus?

Paul Benger 14:55

Yeah, well, we have regular meetings and and every meeting so we Have a so there's our core team, which is, I guess, our biblical eldership, you would call that. And then there's our core campus team, which brings the campus pastors in and expands that core team to them, and we meet with them regularly. And every Wednesday we have a staff meeting that they're a part of, and we have a particular segment of that that is just for them. And every week, we talk about something to do with our values, something to do with the way we think something to do with the way we operate. And we then discuss practically, how are we going to outwork what the church is doing in this season? So you know, this week, we are thinking about vision Sunday is coming up and we you know, we're all online because of where it's still in lockdown. But had we not been in lockdown? We'd be saying, how are we going to make vision Sunday special in your campus in every campus? how's it gonna work for you in your context? We can do this here. But what can we do everywhere else? And so we would we would work on that together? And we would we would do that do that work together constantly. So we're having those conversations.

David Mckeown 16:08

So so that's great in the sense of like, it's a shared vision for shared leadership that pulls the thing together, almost as one family really doesn't it. Yes. But let me just pull it out a little bit further if I can and like what what are the challenges? Because people who are listening or watching with that certainly is challenged? What are the challenges that we think of multi site or multicampus?

Paul Benger 16:32

Well some of the big challenges. One is that cultural challenge, keeping the culture and keeping the culture and keeping what matters? I think because our leadership is so united across our campuses, I don't think we've had any major challenges. Yeah. So but I think that can be when churches move this way, if they've not got that level of unity, and connectedness. Yeah, that's a great word. Actually, if they've not got that, that becomes the biggest challenge. And that becomes the most destructive element not having that. I think a second challenge can be around the people in the campus. Because they they just want their campus to be great. And they just want their needs to be met. So it's it's usually fairly easy to get leaders on a big vision. But the person sat in the Pew will call it let's say in Derby. What is concerned about what's happening to Derby. Yeah. And so and so the bigger picture, getting them to see the bigger picture and see the one church, how do you how do you do that? Well, like I feel, I don't know what you two feel, but I feel that the whole pandemic lockdown has really helped us, helped us to because we've had to do most things as one church. So it's really helped us it's helped people see that we're one church, but also we've discovered some things that actually we can do together. And when we do them together, they're better. They're better. Yeah. So like prayer meetings will be my classic example, that the prayer meeting, we did not the last one, the one before which was the first one when we did, we did all together. And we did, we could do a little bit of in person. We did a little bit on zoom, and we broadcast the whole thing to YouTube. It was the best prayer meeting in 34 years of our church. Because it felt like we were one big church across multi campuses. And you know, it was really good. I say that was better than the last one. Because the last one we couldn't have the in personnel in here. You were locked down. But we did the same thing. We did the zoom and we did the broadcast.

David Mckeown 18:48

Yeah. Which was fantastic. Really? Yes. I mean, let's just pull out a little bit further in the sense. So we had the one family stuff has been fantastic across the COVID stuff not that the COVID been fantastic. But But this idea of we've been able to create that one family. But I guess I suppose for somebody, you know, let's say leaders think of right, we're gonna do multi site, we're gonna start another campus. I think things that need to be careful in the sense of if if, they think that everybody in that campus on the ground, let's say, for example, at Derby or somewhere like that, has to be thinking of the central or the bigger picture. You know, I think once a go down that way, actually, you know, they make a mistake in one sense, because they're not going to that person sitting in the Pew, as we've used that language, that they're they're not really so fussed of what's happening at the big picture level. And as I think church leaders make the mistake of wanting them to be so concerned. Yes. And when they're not concerned they think they haven't bought into the vision. That's true. And I don't think that's true. I think I think if they bought into the vision at that campus, and they have a bigger interest on what's happening in the bigger picture. It's fantastic But even if they don't, you know, you know, the responsibility of a multi site church or a campus is to serve those people on the ground, not to get them to think of here's what we're doing all over the place.

Paul Benger 20:11

Yeah. Yes, that's, that's, that's true. You don't you won't fix that fully, I think the more that you can get people to see the big picture, the better because the challenge is finance. Because that should be a bold right? is an expensive thing. Yeah. It's not a cheap thing to run multicampus you've got to finance some central resources that will serve everything. And and often that is the bit that gets confusing. And so I've worked with some churches, and people are saying, why are we giving all this money to Central resources? You know, yeah, when when we, you know, we want to do stuff in our, in a city or town. Other point is, that is enabling you, you know, in this model to do to do that. And so sometimes the financial challenge and people just seeing their own interests, can can be can be a difficulty.

Nathan Benger 21:10

And I think for anyone who's listening, you know, okay, we talked about, you know, starting Derby, I think, and we talked about, like, you know, the bigger picture and the vision and, you know, yeah, there are people who, you know, just, you know,, you know, we've mentioned here's Derby, a Sheffield, I'm interested in this. But I think the more that you show the benefits of being like, this is bigger than just us. And you show the benefits personally, and also to you as a church. I think people begin to buy into that more. Yeah, I think, you know, you show that like, Yes, I get the support. Yes, you know, as as a church leader, this enables me, but then also, as a church, this enables us to do this, to move forward to do all of that, because,

David Mckeown 22:03

because you're not starting from scratch, either. That's a thing and a campus setting. They're going with people resources to go in with physical resources. And I think picking up on that, Nathan, I think it's genius, because really, there is some real benefits of multi site, you know, and the support I think that's the biggest thing, you know, out of all the things like, you know, we can talk about collaboration, we can talk about shared resources, all that stuff, but I think it's that overarching support. When we send a team or where, you know, a campus pastor, they're not on their own. And that's the genius of it, isn't it? Really?

Paul Benger 22:41

I mean, you mentioned Nathan, before we start the conversation didn't hear about when we started IKON, church, I was 22. Yeah, I think your mom was 21 passion to start a church, I actually went to some people and said, I need some help, because I know what God's called me to do when I have no idea what I'm doing. But then I didn't find the help I could have done with I had some great people, I have to mention Stuart Bell, and the ground level network became very supportive of me. But at that time, initially, I was in another denomination, and they said, we've not got anyone who can help you. And so I felt completely alone. Yeah, you know, and, and yeah, you know, you think of you go into Derby, or you think of you know, Ben and Hannah, coming to stocksbridge you're, you know, Nathan, and April going to rotheram. Mark and Nicola, you've mentioned in Sheffield, there's a whole team of us, and, you know, real experience and real, you know, many years of ministry, and great team that actually will work with we're co workers. Yeah, we're all in this together. We're all wanting it to succeed. Yeah. Yeah.

David Mckeown 23:51

So there's a lot of stuff there. I think I think just to wrap up and in the sense of like, if a church leaders watching or you know, the team member and are thinking about multi site, I mean, we'd encourage them contact us, you know, getting get in contact with us. If we can help you we will, I guess our heart. As we've said before, in previous episode, we talked about IKON open sharing our resources. But But I suppose the takeaway would be like, even if you're not in a multi site, church, like make sure you don't do ministry on your own. Yeah, that's got to be it like, even even if you think well, I'm just called to do this one single church, like, make sure you're well connected. Because if you're not, you know, you're just causing yourself hassle really aren't yet. Yeah.

Paul Benger 24:34

And as you've said, that's the heart behind IKON open. It's the heart behind the church explained podcast as part of that, just want to add value to church, help them grow as leaders help churches grow as well. And

Nathan Benger 24:46

I'd like to just recap very right at the start. We talked about a model, you know, starting multi site we said we just gave someone a responsibility over a service. Yeah, you might just think what's the Next step that we can take, is it can I start a Connect group and can I give someone the responsibility? Can we start a new service? Because you may not be at the multisite level, but you might be thinking we want to grow this. Yeah, I think there's a next step that you can take.

Paul Benger 25:14

Yeah. And leaders always grow when they've got responsibility, not just a task. Yeah. So it's giving the responsibility. But that's another podcast we could talk about.

David Mckeown 25:26

Well, we're gonna have quite a few podcasts coming up. We are excited. As we've said, church explained podcast, we're gonna have other guests coming in as well. We'll share that at another point. Nathan, you're gonna wrap up for us.

Nathan Benger 25:38

So that's all for this episode. It's been so good talk. And Thanks, Paul, again, for being on the podcast. And that's all. We're going to talk about multisite on this podcast, and what it has to offer. So it's been great to be together. Thanks for listening to the church explained podcast. And remember, if you want to support us then share, like, do whatever you need to do on whatever platform you're consuming this content. It really helps us get the word out there. And yeah, why don't you think about somebody that you can share this with maybe another church leader or someone in your team who would really benefit from this. And let me just mention again to head over to ikon.church/open We have loads of resources on there, and you can sign up for exclusive content for you, your church and your teams. Well, that's all for now. But we'll see you next episode on the church explained Podcast, where we're going to talk about youth ministry that builds the church.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai