The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
We share personally, pastorally and professionally about how we can best fulfill Jesus' mission to save the lost and serve the saints.
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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Multisite Churches: What works and what doesn't | Wade Burnett - Live from Reach Australia
Live from the sidelines at the Reach Australia Conference on the Central Coast of New South Wales, we sit down with Wade Burnett from McLean Bible Church in Washington DC and Derek Hanna, Reach Australia’s church planting and multisite specialist, for a fresh look at the multisite church model.
Multisite was a buzz seven years ago. Today, with thousands of campuses launched in the United States—and many hard lessons learned—the mood is more measured. What’s changed? What’s endured? And what can church leaders here learn today from the American experience?
We explore the personnel, strategic, and pastoral complexities of multisite ministry. From varied governance models to launch strategies, leadership fit to congregational model —
And how to decide whether we should launch a new campus, reassess a current model, or weigh multisite against church planting.
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It is the Pastors Heart and live from Rich Australia. Today, and just before we get into it, a quick appeal from us. In our tax deductible appeal leading up to the 30th of June, we still need to raise $26,000 towards the production of the Pastors Heart going forward. So can you please help us by going to thepastorsheartnet slash support. We are at episode 409 today. Pastors are benefiting all around the world but we are asking for your help. You can make that tax-deductible gift in Australia to our new Creative Arts Fund to support the research, production, distribution and promotion of the Pastors Heart. Go to thepastorsheartnet slash support.
Speaker 1:It is the Past's heart and Dominic Steele and coming to you live from a quiet moment at the Reach Australia Conference on the central coast of New South Wales and today we're taking a pulse check on multi-site churches. Wade Burnett is with us from McLean Bible Church in Washington DC. He's been brought out to be one of the lead presenters at the Reach Australia Conference in the multi-site stream. Derek Hanna is also with us. He is the church planting wizard for Reach Australia. And Wade look, thanks for coming in and joining us on the Pastor's Heart and you and I spoke seven years ago and I asked the question and we'll link to that in this interview that what can we learn here in Australia from the American multi-site journey? And I want to come to that in a moment, but I mean firstly just your pastor's heart and coming to Australia and the REACH Australia conference and the things you've seen so far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, it's great to be back, certainly to be back here with you, but also just to be back. In general, a lot's changed since I was here all those years ago. I would say one of the most noticeable things for me that has encouraged my heart is how far different leaders here have taken things forward. So eight years ago, 10 years ago, there would have been a lot of meetings with teams here with potential, and we were talking about dreams, you know. But we would have been meeting with churches that, as they had those big dreams, maybe had 40 people and one of those that we met with this Sunday had 1,400 on Easter and could trace back to some of those times that we spent together. I have joked even this morning already that it's been fun to watch Australians squirm a little bit as I talk flowery about them, but there were some genuine tears at that meeting as we praised God for all that he had done, and it filled my heart. Isn't that lovely?
Speaker 1:It was it was, I mean, and Derek, kind of super encouraging to think that. I mean, if you think seven years ago we were really just talking about early days in church planting thinking in Australia. But yesterday, at the Reach Australia conference and this is not by any means the mainstream of Reach Australia, but a hundred-ish people I was at the back of the room watching a hundred leaders at all different stages of multi-site thinking. I mean, as somebody passionate about that kind of stuff, it must have done your heart good, Amazing day.
Speaker 3:Amazing day, I think it's not only the numbers in the room, although that was incredibly encouraging 100 thinking about multi-site with Wade, 100 thinking about church planting in all its forms but it was, as I said to Wade yesterday, it was the posture towards these conversations which I think has also shifted from seven years ago Less scepticism, more open-handed learning with it as well, not pushing aside of theological rigour, but an adaptation between how we take biblical principles and apply it, rather than assuming that our biblical principles can't push into these ideas that Wade presents I'm going to come back to biblical rigour and Knox Robinson and all those kind of things in a few minutes' time.
Speaker 1:But the question seven years ago, wade, what can we here learn from the American multi-site journey? And so, starting in the same place, what can we here learn from the American multi-site journey in the last seven years? How's the thinking changed and developed? Yeah, great question.
Speaker 2:I think seven to 10 years ago the dominant assumption on American shores was that we would follow one style of multi-site. That was just beginning to change 10 years ago, and was that the kind?
Speaker 1:of mega church planning, daughter churches. It was yes, and I suppose that's what makes us skeptical. Yes, I do.
Speaker 2:I do. I think previous to me coming there had been some interactions with American leaders and pastors here that maybe weren't as helpful around the importation of one model to here. You can say, mark Griskell, well, I wouldn't. But even coming into your interview I landed, came with Scott Sanders to you. You were the very first thing I did on that first trip, and Scott's counsel in the car was be careful about taking too authoritative a position because of the skepticism that's here. What I tried to stress then and it's really in the nature of what I've wanted to work on and been privileged to work on these whole 10 or 15 years is the development of new ways of thinking about multi-site that are different to that one prevalent model that comes to mind for everyone. It may have emerged out of that, but that was what I was sharing then.
Speaker 1:What's happened in America since then is that each of those different variations have had a lot more development and now there are some recognized streams that was really helpful for me to hear that when, when I talk more so, when somebody tells you their story of what they're doing, you are putting them into a category of your part of this stream, and this is going to be the things.
Speaker 2:They're going to be easy for you and these are the things that are going to be hard for you yes, yeah, I think multi-site for a significant point, a significant period of time in its development, was associated with one way, and so if I said to you I'm a multi-site specialist or consultant, everybody assumes it's that one way we're going to be selling me on that.
Speaker 1:That's right'm going to have to persuade you that I want to be bespoken.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's exactly the dynamic that was present eight years ago, I think. What happened is several leaders here took us up on the idea that it could be done differently and began to implement those ideas around the bigger thing that we all agree on, which is reproducing healthy congregations in ways that could actually help you reach Australia. I mean, that was the idea then, and so I would say the most encouraging thing to me is, through work that Derek's doing or Scott is doing or many of these leaders on the ground, we spend less time here looking at what's happened in America over the last seven years than we do looking at what's actually happened in Australia over the last seven years, because you're now developing your own streams here that have unique application in the culture that you guys understand way more than me. It's been fun to see that taken in and then applied in ways that have been uniquely Australian.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to ask you I mean, the big question that you guys keep getting asked is which is better, multi-site or church planting, independent churches? But before that, you broke it down super helpfully in the seminar I listened to you on yesterday under five L's and we might just put them out on the table, and the first one was the leader. And the leader and the kind of leader is the person who influences whether you're going to go multi-site or independent church plant. Just unpack that for us, sure yeah.
Speaker 2:We've learned over the years that there is a bent to leaders that's difficult, if not impossible, to change. It can be developed. You know more in one direction than the other, but over time what you start to see is an inclination to a model with leaders. The problem is when you're talking with younger leaders. He's so gentle, isn't he?
Speaker 1:Would you say, one of them has mongrel.
Speaker 3:I think they do, but that's the and that's what Wade's picking up on there Again, that's Wade's contextualization, that's the nuance that he brings to this conversation. But, yeah, keep going.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the permission to be direct. So we would say church planters want to do things their way and you can find that and multi-site campus pastors the best possible location. Pastors in the world in the multi-site model are ones that have come up through your church and been transformed by the ministry of that church and they don't want to do their own thing. They want to do the thing that they experienced in such a profound way at your church. They want to see more people experience that same thing. And so, yes, I'm trying to be diplomatic, but if we see people say, dominic, I love what you're doing, but as soon as we hear that, but I say you need to talk to Derek about church planning Because I want to do it my way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as soon as we hear that we lean this way. If instead we don't hear the but and we hear, I love what you're doing as a church.
Speaker 3:That's where we start to lean more toward that being a campus pastor, and so the tweak we've made to some of these things and I'll let you get to your L's is we've smuggled multi-site and act conversations in under this church planning umbrella. For this reason because we want leaders who are starting new things in different ways to not see a multi-site campus as something less than an independent rogue church plant itself, and so for a leader to be able to see themselves in a different model and understand that there isn't one that's better than another, they're just different in order to reach new people. That's been an important tweak in our context we've had to make in order to understand A church plan. Isn't just that we're thinking, mark Driscoll, you don't have to be like Mark Driscoll in order to start something new. We need people with mongrel, but we need people as well who look at churches they love and think we could reach more people if we did this over there as well. It's not a lesser work, it's just a different work.
Speaker 1:One of the light bulb moments for me and I'm embarrassed that I hadn't picked it up before was that you were really strong on if we were to have I mean, this is almost one of your non-negotiables on location. You know that it shouldn't be five minutes away, it shouldn't be three minutes away, 20't be three minutes away, 20 minutes.
Speaker 2:You said yeah it's one of the lessons we've learned. We've learned it through, uh, really really hard experiences. You know my, my uh observation in, almost without exception, all of the conversations with with leaders, senior ministers, teams uh is it's it's motivated in the right place and by the right things. All that Derek just mentioned. We want to see more healthy congregations reproducing and reaching out to more people. The church is growing, the kingdom being established.
Speaker 2:We all want to see those things, and so one of the hardest parts about being in these seats is watching when people go all in on that kind of hope and it doesn't work. It's a really, really painful thing, and so we tend to try and learn from those experiences in ways that can help people avoid it, and one of those lessons has been if you plant too close, you're creating some difficulties that are unnecessary. It will become harder to establish momentum if people can just go five more minutes and be back to the mother church when times get hard. And, by the same token, you can create some difficulties that are unnecessary. If you go too far, it can be really, really hard to. There's a point at which stretching reaches a breaking point.
Speaker 1:What's the advantage of? I mean, I'm sorry, I can get why you're saying not too close, yes, but what's the advantage of of? I mean I'm sorry, I can get why you're saying not too close, yes, but what's the advantage of 20 minutes versus 45 minutes?
Speaker 2:and we used to call these rules and tell everybody that you know there are exceptions and you're not one of them. That used to be our, our joke, because everybody tends to think we're an exception. But the 20 minute rule, uh, is a sweet spot, so it could be 18 or 25 or you're in a dense area. There are some. We now call them principles. It's 20 minutes driving. 20 minutes driving on a Sunday morning, typically without traffic, or whenever your church gathers and whatever traffic conditions are there.
Speaker 2:The idea of going too far and I don't know the magic number it is here in Australia but you lose, or again really stretch, the ability to reproduce culture. It's hard for staff to get out there every Sunday morning and so you get less time with all of the same people. But again, as you heard yesterday, people address that here with different congregational times at different locations. But I would say the 20-minute rule is a hard-won lesson. But I would say the 20-minute rule is a hard-won lesson and if you're going to go very far one direction or the other, be very, very mindful of how difficult it's been for some other really, really good teams.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was talking yesterday after your presentation to a couple of people and they said what was so helpful was ah, that's why we had the problem. Helpful was ah, that's what we had. The problem yes and yes, and it was just helpful for them to have categories to understand some of the difficulties that, when one of the big ones was the five minute one but yes, and actually it's, it's been part of, I'd say, the conventional. I'll look forward to you challenging on this, derek, but in the tribe that I'm swimming in, it's been part of the conventional wisdom that you should go five minutes away, you know, or you should go to the church next door. That's not going so well.
Speaker 1:But Derek yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, I think part of that is driven by the location of the buildings and the parish model, if we're thinking Sydney Anglican, but even in Queensland, wherever in Brisbane where I'm, the churches often aren't further than haven't been planted further than five minutes away. So you have a building that's sitting, dormant or vacant or dying and the natural expression is to want to extend your congregations into that down the road. So it's a natural expression to do that. But because it is so close, I think in this day and age, because people are more mobile than they were, this 15, 20 minute rule means that they do exactly what Wade says. We plant with good intentions five minutes down the road, but this plant will never quite be as strong or as healthy as we are, so people will drive past so it can never quite get the traction that we want it to get in those places. So there's a geographical thing that drives us towards it, but there's a practical thing that drives us away from it.
Speaker 1:We took. I mean just going through those L's. Next one is launch team and the multi-site church starts. You're saying 50 to 80, we might go a slightly smaller number in Australia, but the church plant starts 304 in a lounge room. Do you know?
Speaker 2:That's Derek. Yeah, so this is great to have us here in the same conversation. The 50 to 70 is actually from Paul Harrington, so that is a little smaller number than we would recommend, even in the United States. But when we use those larger numbers here, that's where people start to think okay this may not apply, that's a whole church that you're talking about taking and launching.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I'm not planted with 15.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, and that's.
Speaker 1:That was before Reach Australia, when we knew that you were supposed to have 15.
Speaker 2:Well, I would say Derek and his work calling out church planters is looking for men who are willing to step out and plant with 15. That's a wonderful thing. This is where, again, this is the encouraging development over the last 10 years. There used to be a conversation.
Speaker 1:It was actually a good night when we got to double D yes.
Speaker 2:See this does his heart well.
Speaker 3:You're talking about a pastor's heart.
Speaker 2:That encourages him. I think 10 years ago there was a divide between church planting and multi-site and those who viewed one as better than the other. I genuinely think that Now we talk much more about best fit and so, for example, if somebody comes with theological convictions and they say, I don't think you can fully that's not a church to be a multi-site, I would say then it's not the best fit for you. You know, I think that's the kind of difference in this. We don't get into a prolonged debate around either one and then you just drop that one off. If you come to a planter who can and is excited about launching with 15 people, like you did, I don't try to convince them into a multi-site model that they can't do it until they get 50. Because there's somebody right here who will equip them to launch with what we put on the board yesterday three or four around a table and let's go. And that's just as exciting three or four around a table and let's go.
Speaker 1:And that's just as exciting. All next L, lots of money. Do you know? Now, what do you mean by that?
Speaker 3:Derek. Well, again, we've grabbed these Ls from Wade. In Australia it's slightly well, I don't know if the number is slightly different it costs a couple of hundred thousand, particularly over a few years, to launch a new congregation. So I think Wade's saying is whatever you think it'll cost, increase it. And that's what it is. It's more than you think it could possibly be. And so, in order to start something new again Wade might talk about this in a second the first recommendation they would have is maximise what you have here, because whatever you do offside is going to cost significantly more than what you will do here. So, heaps of money to start something new, to do the multi-site, to do the multi-site, to do any campus off-site, but here we're talking multi-site, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would agree. People ask me how much I struggle to put a figure on it because it's all so different depending on where you are. But property is only getting more expensive. Staff costs are significant, whether it's a church plant or a multi-site location. This is not an inexpensive strategy and what you're essentially doing, if you break it all the way down to just a practical level, is you are helping cover a lot of those barriers for someone until they can get established on their own. The way they get established is a little different depending on the model or how long it takes, but there's a significant cost either way. I would say multi-site is a typically slower, more stable kind of safer, maybe lower on the risk profile approach than church planting.
Speaker 1:But does the percentage of multi-site things that work is higher than the percentage of church plants that work?
Speaker 2:And work is always a difficult term because of the theological convictions we have but survive is what I would use that are still there three years in. I don't know the data here, but in the States we would see up to 90% of multi-site locations still there three to five years in, and often half that in some of the church planting streams, Derek.
Speaker 3:Well, this is where we've seen, so we would agree with that number. In fact, the closer it's about eight in our network, about 87% of churches that we've launched. So we've launched about 100, well, 153 at the moment. 87% have reached sustainability and still going. So that's irrespective of the church plants, that's irrespective multi-site mother daughter pioneer plans 87 percent um. What what we've seen, though, is the early days, where the risk factor was much higher. They were more pioneer church plans. They some of those did stall a little bit as we learned and got through um. We've learned, no matter the model we've worked out as a network, what are some of the principles in order to get to sustainability. So we've seen that increase. But 87 is where we're at for all models, but I think way's right, it probably would be maybe mid 90s for a multi-site model, which is quite significant seeing as, uh, mid 2000s it was about 44, irrespective of the model um back then that survived. So that's a huge increase across the network.
Speaker 1:That's exciting, yeah now one of the things you said the big driver for multi-site should be. I've run out of space at my place. Just explain that to me. Sure?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the well not only is it the big driver, it was the original motivation for Multisite in the first place is running out of room for churches, and so it was originally. I tried to stress this, and Paul Harrington, who is one of my favorite people in the world, as he was teaching with me, shared this was true for him in Adelaide. I can't remember the number, but I think he said they were full for 80 years. They had been right around 800 people for 80 years. Finally, but not without some challenges, but, yeah, I do think the desire to do something is significant, and so what you see and this is again what we were putting on the board, dominic that you saw, what I would encourage for churches is you have something that you're stewarding and leading. There's a building or a certain number of seats or a staff team. The first task really is to squeeze every bit out of that. You can, as a leader and steward that well.
Speaker 2:I do think people look to these other strategies too quickly in some cases, maybe when they haven't fully leveraged what they're currently doing or stewarding. Paul was a he's a very, very good leader. He made a decision that I loved hearing about yesterday not to reproduce additional congregations at times that weren't as helpful for them and to call it full earlier with the specific intention of planting, and so that was one of the reasons why they've been able to see so many generations. I think there are up to three generations in some places of churches planting churches and 14 overall. That was something I took away. That was a light bulb moment for me yesterday to really include a step there where you're evaluating do we launch more service times or congregations within our current facility or do we move toward church planting earlier if there are really strategic opportunities out there? Both were helpful evaluations for me to see here.
Speaker 1:Let's talk conflict and just navigating as the lead guy with your campus pastors, because I'm imagining that's one of the big questions it is.
Speaker 2:It is, and that conflict can be everything from just practical decision-making on a Sunday to a shift in theological convictions that happens over three or four or five years for a leader at a location. You may be able to pull this up. If not, though, you can certainly point your listeners to the chart that I showed about decision rights and where those lie.
Speaker 1:We'll get that on the screen as people are watching.
Speaker 2:So as you move from left to right on this diagram, you're essentially moving toward more and more autonomy or decision-making power at the location, which is wonderful, until a conflict comes up and then you can get stuck in your model if too much has been given away too soon and that conflict is unresolvable. So we highly recommend in the early stages of development for a church with either of these models that more authority stay in the more mature sending church. More decision-making authority stay there for as long as it takes to establish trust and the ability to get over those hurdles. Because you want Paul Harrington resolving that conflict, you want him to still have the authority to tackle that In those early days, in those early days.
Speaker 2:that's right and so it can feel the word I've heard here. It feels mean to say to a location pastor, you know what? I'm going to keep this for now and if we have an issue I'll resolve that. I'll keep that authority.
Speaker 1:But I still would recommend it, even if it feels a little uncomfortable to someone. What kind of negotiations have you seen that have been complex in Australia on those issues? Because I'm imagining it's the same issues.
Speaker 3:It is, and I think there is an Australian attitude towards this. When Wade came out, it was helpful to hear him because I think Australians think we'll work it out. She'll be right. We'll, no, no, no. It was helpful to hear him Because I think Australians think we'll work it out. She'll be right you know we'll.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, it's all going to blow up in your face.
Speaker 3:That's exactly right and that's exactly what we saw. And so the early days of this multi-site attempt, we're thinking, no, no, we'll just work it out. We're the exception, we're always the exception, and it's in the first campus. You might get away with it, we saw. You might get away with it because, relationally, the sending church, the campus and the senior are so strong in there. Um, but actually, over time, what you see is a pull towards this launch team, this campus growing, and they have no connection to the start. And so that's the point in which you, you begin to see the relational tensions happening. And so we realized early on um, we need to, we need to ensure that the, the campus that's going to happen and ascending church have a memorandum of understanding, have decision rights, have these campus constants locked down.
Speaker 1:You've got those kind of memorandum of understanding.
Speaker 2:I do we, uh, we, we call them working agreements. Um, because you know you are working together as you, as you do, I do think, on front end you guys may know this term, but good fences make good neighbors. You set those boundaries up in advance and then again, if you're the senior leader launching someone out, you can keep in mind over time. I'd like this to eventually be more autonomous, even maybe at some point release it, but those are not necessarily things we would recommend be embedded from the beginning. We would recommend be embedded from the beginning. We would recommend autonomy and authority in that central sending church until it is established and trust is built.
Speaker 1:What do you do with where this theological shift takes place? Because I've got some friends who are noticing that what about the campus pastorships theologically? What about the senior pastorships theologically? And they're not on the same page.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's an issue we see come up regularly because again, you're dealing with younger leaders who aren't fully formed yet and they're thinking they get exposed to different things now that can shift that thinking in ways that maybe weren't as prevalent 10 or 15 years ago. So we do see this come up. If you have retained that authority centrally and you're able to address it, you have a couple of choices. You can change the leader because you know, similar to bishops, here you've got oversight.
Speaker 2:I know this is an issue in different ecclesiological approaches, but you can, in a multi-site model, change the leader if that theological bent goes too far in one direction. Usually there's a strong aversion to doing that because people have connections with their pastor and you'd like to work it out, but it is an option on the table in this model. The other thing that you can do is look at releasing. If that genuinely can't be worked out and two churches are teaching two fundamentally different things theologically, you can begin to look at whether that should exist as its own church, separate to you. That creates a whole different set of questions around whether they can make it as their own thing. But those are really really really hard decisions to begin to tackle and one of the reasons why we stay very closely connected on the front end.
Speaker 1:What if the senior leader moves theologically?
Speaker 2:Well, that's an even bigger question. I referenced yesterday that this is a bit like high dive in the Olympics and you go up in degrees of difficulty when the senior minister changes positions again. I'm assuming you mean in like core theological convictions, and there starts to be a change in the church. We would expect to see that expressed across all of the different locations as well, unless the church just says no, and then you start getting into polity questions around what should happen then. In those situations I often step in and rather than serving as a consultant, it's much more a mediator. Can you hold this thing together?
Speaker 3:Derek. Well, we're seeing that at the moment in a number of areas that the senior leader you know on occasions is beginning to shift in some areas and yet, as Wade said, it's creating some tension underneath that at points, it's not only for the campus pastors, also often for those within the churches, so it's not just felt at leadership level. I think that, um, and I'm not sure, at least in australia, we're not sure how that's all going to shake out at the moment, um, but we're watching it happen in real time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, I think it'll be messy, there's no doubt about that. But, um, yeah, how we that, whether we can navigate that, the releasing from the campus, we've seen happen and we've seen it happen really well in a number of circumstances. So we have precedence in Australia, if you're knowing. But from the top I'm not sure how that will shake.
Speaker 2:Can I just acknowledge something? This is a just so everybody has it. You heard me say multiple times. I don't think there's an intent to sell anything at all. It's just to look at all the different models and their strengths and weaknesses.
Speaker 2:I do think it's helpful to note that one of the weaknesses of this multi-site and even the development of different streams approach where you're looking at the best fit is that you fit it to a leader or a leadership approach and when those things change either the leader themselves through succession or the philosophy of that specific leader the fit is not as good anymore and everybody starts to feel nervous and anxious and it can be really hard to refit something to it. And so big changes in theological convictions or the changes in the leaders themselves shake this model in ways that are really really destabilizing and hard. So what you see when it works well is long tenure for Paul Harrington and his team, long tenure for Greg Lee and Dave Moore and their team. That kind of stability speaks really really well to this model where you see change again at any level regularly. This model is hard to refit. Fragile it is, it can become much more tenuous.
Speaker 1:Let's talk the issue of merging churches, where you've got one church that's kind of going well but may not have filled its space and another church that's struggling, and there's been a conversation in our denomination about well, that's probably a way to help those things and instead of putting two dying churches together, we put one church with momentum with another church that needs momentum, and I mean the conversation has often been quite close ones, whereas you're definitely saying 20 minutes apart I'm hearing but what are the um? I mean, I picked up yesterday. That's a conversation you've had many times and so I've only had it with a few people. I'm looking forward to listening to you. Who's had it with many people?
Speaker 2:yeah, this is an area where I think Scott Sanders and Derek and the Reach Australia team have excelled at initiating and facilitating really good decisions. It's not that you always want to see a merger, it's you want people to make good decisions about whether to merge or not. So I'm very encouraged by the skill set that they've developed in that we do continue to see, in fact, jim Tomberlin, who is my mentor, but he's also sort of the voice on that original model of multi-site. He would say this is the next iteration of multi-site across America because we have so many denominations that are struggling and declining and churches closing and all of the challenges that go with that. So you can see in this approach a multi-site merger, a church that needs space. So we'll just say, for the purposes of this, that's your church, you have momentum, you're out of room, you need space and you've begun to explore where that might be. And then you have another church who has space but lacks all those other things. They don't have momentum. They haven't seen people in the children's ministry in a long time. They've struggled to keep the doors open or maintain the property. So it makes a lot of logical sense to put those two things together. You now have space. He now has leadership and vision and momentum. The problem is they aren't puzzle pieces that just fit together easily and everybody says, okay, that is a really, really difficult process and so I'll be the mean American here and just dive right into it.
Speaker 2:The lead church and the joining church do not enter into that as equals. What we would say to the lead church and you heard a great example of this from Paul yesterday is say exactly what you would do if you were given a piece of property without a merger. What would you do? And then let's present that to them and say are you willing to join that? Because you shouldn't change it at all? This is what's working. And so for them to bring that into your building, your decision really is, as the joining church, do you want to do this?
Speaker 2:And Paul laid out a wonderful example of that, where a church that he thought would immediately say no because of the level of change that was involved. He just said I hadn't heard from him. I assumed that meant that they were not going to do it. I called him up and their response was sounds good to us. And you heard the wonderful outcome that came from that. It's rare, so maybe 10 or 20% of the conversations go that way. But when they do, what we've seen in America is a vibrant outcome for both churches.
Speaker 1:That sounds like I mean we've run out of time, but that's a whole other discussion that would be super helpful to have, because you just said a whole lot of churches in America are facing that issue. They are, I think, a whole lot of places in Australia are facing that issue, and so we're going to have to wrestle them through.
Speaker 2:You need a guide. I know we're running out of time, but I would be failing if I didn't say that a guide that can help that's why I mentioned Reach Australia and the competency they've developed can speak to both churches in a really tense conversation. Last word Derek Hanna.
Speaker 3:I would say on that that that is our next challenge as well, and I think we need to work out how to clearly and graciously, particularly with churches that have momentum, clear gospel, dna that conversation, but not in a way that compromises it. I think that's really key for the next steps.
Speaker 1:Thanks, so much for having this conversation with us. Wade Burnett has been my guest and Wade is from McLean Bible Church in Washington DC and he's been our speaking at the Rich Australia Conference, along with Derek Hanna, who is the church planting and multi-site wizard for Rich Australia. My name's Dominic Steele. You've been with us on the Pastors' Hub and we will look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon.
