South Site is Back!
After an 18-month hiatus we are back! For Becky and I (and many others) this has been a very exciting and much anticipated moment. Not only because we are excited to be able to meet in person again and definitely not because we are glad to be back to normal. But primarily because we are excited to have a geographical base from which to love, serve and reach South Birmingham with the love of Jesus.
Multi-site creates more opportunities for people to serve, it enables us to have a tailored local presence and it reduces the barriers to us inviting our friends to church. We have seen all three of these even in just the last two weeks of being back!
Opportunities to Serve
One of the exciting things about multi-site is that it creates more spaces for people to serve and contribute their gifting. It creates more opportunities for people to preach and service lead, as well as all the other opportunities to serve that are there. It’s easy in a big church for 20% of the people to be doing all the work, which means that 80% of the people are missing out on the blessing, the growth and the community that comes with being on a team.
As you will know if you have been with us for any length of time our desire is ‘that everyone gets or play’. Just the other week we had a newcomer, who had joined us for the first time that day (they had just moved to Birmingham and were living just down the road), come up to us after the service and ask how they could join a team and find a small group. It’s so exciting to be able to provide these opportunities for discipleship, but also to be a church that is just round the corner!
Local Presence
There is something special about being a part of a worshiping community in your local area. I love being able to walk to church (and not just because it’s better for the environment). For me it makes church feel more integrated into my everyday life. I walk to the shops, I walk my kids to school, and more recently I even work from home.
I was chatting to someone who had been traveling a significant distance to church, they joined our church over lockdown because they felt nudged by the holy spirit to find a local community. They described bumping into someone from church in the supermarket, getting to chat about how things were going and even praying for one another. They said it was such a fun experience because they had never bumped into someone from their old church before. We believe church should be an integral part of your life, not just something you do ‘over there’ on a Sunday.
Travel is not easy for everyone and it is not cheap, when we first started South site many people were able to engage with church in a way they hadn’t before because they didn’t have to pay for public transport or a taxi, multisite enables us to be a more diverse church.
Someone once described Birmingham as less of a city and more of large agglomeration of villages. And I think this is quite true, each area of Birmingham has its own feel, its own ‘highstreets’, its specific demographic and that is in many ways why multi-site is so well suited to it. By having a local expression, we can make small changes to the feel or format of the service that can help us serve our community better and making it easier for our friends to come.
Invite Friends
This might be my final point but it is by far the most important driver for us going to all the effort of doing multi-site. As our vision statement says, we want to start more environments where people can encounter God. Warren Bird and Ed Estetzer have found in their research that multisite is the best way to reach people who don’t know Jesus yet, even overtaking church planting.
The reality is, it’s unlikely that my seeking friend is going to travel on a Sunday to the City Centre Site for church. It’s much easier and gives me much more confidence in inviting my friends to church, when it’s a short walk away. Even in just the last two Sundays we have experienced this, people have been bringing their friends to church, and they have been encountering God!
As a leadership we are feeling freshly stirred to pursue the call to multi-site church in this coming season. If you have read this and it is stirring something in you then please do get in touch.
To chat more about multi-site contact Jeff Stamps - jeff@birminghamvineyard.com