Ministry Insights from the Q4 2024 Unstuck Church Report
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It’s the most wonderful time of the year… time for The Unstuck Church Report!
Every quarter, The Unstuck Group compiles all the data we’ve collected to monitor trends in churches in the United States. Our Q4 report focuses on current data and trends in multisite churches specifically.
We received data from over 100 multisite churches ranging from fewer than 500 people in physical attendance to more than 20,000 people in attendance. These churches had as few as two locations to more than 20 locations, and the average attendance of the churches responding to the survey was 2,982 people.
In this episode, Sean and I discuss findings from the Q4 2024 Unstuck Church Report and take a targeted look at trends and data for multisite churches.
EXCLUSIVE MULTISITE DATA & INSIGHTS
- Key trends in our data about multisite churches
- Healthy campus launches vs. unhealthy campus launches
- Next steps to consider
Subscribe to the Quarterly Unstuck Church Report:
This Episode is Sponsored by Horizons Stewardship:
Horizons Stewardship utilizes a collaborative and integrated ministry framework designed to fit each organization’s unique culture and support church and faith-based nonprofit leaders in their mission to grow disciples and fund ministry through coaching, planning, technology, and analytics.
Horizons has over three decades of experience and has developed a spiritually focused approach that consistently yields more funding for ministry and more effective disciplemaking strategies. With the support of seasoned ministry strategists, proven generosity guides, and ICF-trained coaches, ministries that partner with Horizons experience, on average, a double-digit increase in giving within the first year.
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Transcript
Sean:
Well, welcome to the Unstuck Church Podcast. I’m Sean, your host today. Amy, it’s the most wonderful time of the year again, and I am not talking about the holidays.
Amy:
Thank goodness.
Sean:
I’m actually talking about the Unstuck Church Report. But before we get to the report, let’s settle the never ending question, most pressing question that our listeners have. Is the correct pronunciation data or data?
Amy:
Oh, no, you’re gonna get in my head right before this podcast. All right. Tony always said data, and I always wanted to say data.
Sean:
Okay.
Amy:
I did actually go to the dictionary, the online one to see how they said it, and they said data.
Sean:
Oooh.
Amy:
So, I’m trying to say data, but data leaks out every once in a while.
Sean:
Of course, Tony was right.
Amy:
I dunno, any of our listeners, of course, if you are an English specialist and you wanna email me Amy at the Unstuck Church that my email?
Sean:
No, it’s at theunstuckgroup.com.
Amy:
Unstuckgroup.com.
Sean:
There you go.
Amy:
You can tell me how to pronounce data. You say data.
Sean:
Data.
Amy:
I say data. All right. Data. Data.
Sean:
We’ll see how many times we say it differently through the podcast today. That’ll be a fun game. All right. Well, in recent years we started focusing our fourth quarter unstuck church report on the current trends in multi-site churches. Specifically, we’ve served over a hundred multi-site churches through the years, and in the past 12 months, we’ve seen more and more churches either going multi-site or expanding their multi-site footprint, which we’ll actually get into a little more in later in the data. In this quarter’s report, we’ve received data from over 100 multi-site churches, ranging from fewer than 500 people in physical attendance all the way to over 20,000 people in attendance. These churches had as few as two locations to more than 20 locations. And the average attendance of these churches responding to the survey was 2,982. So just shy of 3000 people in total. In fact, the annual in-person attendance growth in these churches was overall was 15%. So an increase of 15%. Amy, I think we’ve kind of gotten accustomed to seeing double digit percentage growth over the last couple of years in these surveys. And in some ways we kind of expect to see that type of growth. But do you remember the days when growing by double digits was actually really uncommon?
Amy:
Yeah, I do. And it doesn’t really seem that long ago. And I think, Sean, if you look at like the broad scope of churches in North America, we would probably say that’s still very uncommon. But that, that’s what’s different about our surveys because our surveys are really measuring the churches that are in our unstuck tribe, because those, the churches we primarily send that survey to, we ask pastors to share it, but the primary audience are people connected to the unstuck group in some way. And typically the churches in our tribe, they’re just more strategically focused than other churches. And because of that, I believe they’re seeing different results than what we hear in the broader narrative of the church in North America. So seeing this, this quarter’s data though, I think it’s encouraging and it gives me hope that every church can be an unstuck church.
Sean:
Absolutely. So if you’re not yet, you can join the over 16,000 other churches that subscribe to get these free reports each quarter. We’ll deliver ’em to your inbox. They’re completely free as soon as they’re released. So just go to theunstuckgroup.com/trends to subscribe and get these reports. Alright, so let’s dive into the data. Amy, could you take us through some of the, just kind of the general highlights from the data that stood out to you?
Amy:
Yeah, I’d love to. Well, let me start with one of the key stats that I wrote about in the report, because I think this is an important principle for multi-site churches to remember. And here it is, churches that have launched new locations and have sustained the health of those locations long term launched with an average of 483 people in attendance compared to churches whose campuses have experienced decline or have closed. Those churches, the ones experiencing decline or have closed, launched with an average of 142 people in attendance. So basically 500 versus 150. And here’s why I mentioned in this quarter’s report. Of the churches surveyed, 41% said they’re considering launching a new campus in the next 12 months.
Sean:
Yeah. Wow.
Amy:
And if you do the math, Sean, that’s what, 40 new locations in these churches this next year. And now I think a lot of this launching new locations soon has been driven by this double digit percentage growth as well as man, the high cost of adding on to an existing facility. But we can’t overlook that these churches are typically very outwardly focused. And they’re working to find ways to reach people that haven’t been able to reach yet. But the risk for those churches is that they might launch too fast. And again, likely because they’re trying to keep up with growth, but if they move quick too quickly, they could end up launching too small. And, and here’s what I’ve seen when churches launch too small. First they have this proclivity to become insider focused. And what I mean by that is, you know, obviously launching a multi-site church is exciting ’cause we’re bringing a church to a community where a lot of our people are, and we want them to invite. But if that core is too small and they don’t invite, they actually just got a small version of the church they love and they don’t want it to change. I’ve worked with a couple of those churches in the past couple of years. They have continued with their multi-site strategy, but they’ve actually closed those small locations. Second, if the launch team is too small, then they really don’t have enough staff and volunteers to execute their ministry strategies. So now the church doesn’t feel like their church. And then third, and this is a big one, and it’s related, but they aren’t able to replicate the culture and the feel of that sending location, meaning it doesn’t feel like their church because it’s on a different scale. And maybe, you know, just doesn’t, it doesn’t feel the same. So that’s the recipe for becoming multi-stuck. So I start there just as a caution that while we’re seeing great growth and momentum in these churches, now’s the time to plan to launch the right way so that your next location actually pours gas on the momentum you’re experiencing instead of water.
Sean:
Yeah. That’s good Amy. And a great reminder, I think of what we’ve seen play out when we’re on the ground with stuck churches. We’ve seen it anecdotally, but also now showing up in the data. Any other general metrics from the data you’d like to talk through?
Amy:
Well, of course we need to celebrate the number of people who are making faith decisions in these churches. On average, these churches baptized 8% of their total in-person attendance. And the average church celebrated 219 baptisms in the last 12 months. Isn’t that just incredible?
Sean:
Yeah, it’s great. Love that.
Amy:
And here are a couple of other interesting stats that I believe are related to each other. The churches that responded to this survey are about 10 years into their multi-site journey, and on average launched their first location in 2014. So related to that, about a third of these churches now have four or more locations. So all that to say multi-site strategy isn’t a fad, it’s not going away as some predicted coming outta the pandemic.
Sean:
Yeah.
Amy:
It doesn’t belong on that list of those strategies that were all the rage for a year or two and never to be heard of again. It’s a viable strategy for some large growing churches who are ready to replicate the health of their church into areas where they aren’t reaching people yet. So I think we would all agree we need more healthy churches in North America.
Sean:
Absolutely.
Amy:
And that should bring hope to the churches who are considering multi-site who are listening today. So if that’s you, here’s the bonus, because so many churches have been in a multi-site strategy for so long, we now have best practices and predictive. Outcomes to help you establish a strategy that will increase your health rather than get you multi-stuck.
Sean:
Yeah, that’s a great point, Amy. You know, so many churches have already been there and done that. And we’ve seen that when, when we have these best practices now to help you help churches make the right decisions. And it really is critical you make the right decisions because as any of these pastors would tell you, multi-site is not easy, right?
Amy:
Right.
Sean:
I mean it’s much easier to be a single site location, multi-site is complex and it can be messy. So starting, starting out with an informed intentional strategy is absolutely critical to your multi-site success. Alright. I wanna shift gears a bit and talk about what we’re seeing in leadership and staffing trends in multi-site churches that we get a lot of questions around these types of things specifically. Amy, what did we learn from the data there?
Amy:
Well, you know, I remember our founder Tony Morgan, saying that if he could look at just one data point and predict the health of the church, it would be the ratio of volunteer leaders to average attendance in the church. And the reason being we’ve seen in our data over the years that the churches who have the greatest volunteer leader engagement are also the healthiest churches. So the multi-site churches in this quarter survey had an average of one volunteer leader for every nine people in average attendance. And before you ask, a leader is an adult or student in a serving role that’s responsible for a team or a group of other people. So think about your volunteer team leaders or small group leaders. Now, I said that was, what did I say, Sean? It was one leader for every nine people.
Sean:
One to nine. Yeah
Amy:
Okay. So compare that one to nine ratio to what we saw in last quarter’s report, which included primarily single site churches. They had an average of one leader for every 17 people in attendance. In fact, the gap of leadership development between multi-site and single site churches has widened over the last 12 months.
Sean:
Yeah.
Amy:
So what we’re seeing in the data is multi-site churches do a better job at developing and engaging volunteer leaders than the average church. In fact, one church in the survey had one volunteer leader for every four people in average attendance.
Sean:
Wow.
Amy:
And that church has grown by 33% in the last year.
Sean:
Yeah. That’s incredible. Amy, you know, it reminds me that when we’re on site working with churches that are preparing to go multi-site, we do this multi multi-site readiness assessment.
Amy:
That’s right.
Sean:
One of the key areas that we look at is assessing the church’s, what we call leadership bench. And that is one of the most consistent areas that churches find is not healthy enough to sustain a campus launch. And it really needs immediate attention, but it brings visibility to having depth in leadership that typically hasn’t existed before for those churches. So as they start their multi-site journey journey developing leaders has to rise to the top of the priority list for them. In fact, we noticed in this quarter’s report, and I saw in the data, the data, I tried to mix the two words there.
Amy:
You did.
Sean:
The data that 93%, 93% of churches in this survey indicated that volunteer engagement increased with the launch of a new multi-site location. 93%. And over the years, what we’ve actually learned is that commonly that increased happens both at the sending and the new location.
Amy:
And Sean, that makes sense because there is such excitement when we launch into a new community and where we’re launching the people from our church that live there, all of a sudden they are just more excited to serve and to take on leadership roles. And just the whole momentum of going multi-site and having multiple locations, for whatever reason, just has this tendency to draw people out and up into serving roles.
Sean:
Yeah. That’s good. Any other data points from the staffing section you’d like to call out?
Amy:
Yeah. There was some good news on staffing levels that appeared in the data. Multi-site churches are staffing one full-time equivalent for every 71 people in average attendance. If we were to compare that, in our last report, we found out that the average church was staffing one full-time equivalent for every 60 people in attendance. And at the Unstuck group, of course, we say it all the time, we recommend one for every 75 people in attendance. So bottom line, we’re seeing multi-site churches staffing at a healthier level than the average church. Multi-site churches on average are developing central teams at two and a quarter locations. So somewhere between their second and third location, they’re forming those central teams. But about 30% of churches are forming central teams when they have three or more locations. And here’s what I’d want churches to remember. My friend Paul Alexander from Sun Valley, church in the Phoenix area, his coaching line to young multi-site churches are act your age. In other words, if you’re launching your first location, you do not need to form pure central teams. In fact, on the journey from one to four locations, you’re gonna be in this kind of dual role time where you have people who have a central responsibility and they have execution responsibilities at a campus. So they’re wearing two hats and it’s somewhere around that fourth launch where we really get back to singular roles instead of dual roles. So think of your central teams as a myriad of people who are carrying central responsibilities for the church. Lastly, multi-site churches are allocating about 66% of their staff to campus roles and 34% to central roles. And we recommend a two to one allocation between campus and central. So the churches in the survey seem to be right on track. In other words, two campus roles for every one central role.
Sean:
Yeah. That is encouraging data. Amy. There was a season, especially during the pandemic when more and more churches were overstaffed. In fact, back in 2023 when we did the survey with multi-site churches, the multi-site churches in that survey were staffing at one FTE for every 55 people in attendance.
Amy:
That’s right.
Sean:
So, but I think part of that had to do with the decline in attendance that we’d experienced before that. But with so many churches growing right now, maybe attendance is catching up with some of our staffing levels. Before we continue with the episode, Amy, I’d like to take a minute, just thank our podcast sponsor Horizons Stewardship. You know, many of the capable giving households contribute more to their favorite charity than they do their local church. That puts a lot of financial strain on churches everywhere. And that’s why we’ve joined forces with Horizons to create the financial sustainability crisis guide designed to help churches really tackle some ongoing financial challenges. In the resource, we’ve put together some practical strategies to effectively budget and manage financial resources, connect your giving to your discipleship journey, and then to identify ways to ensure that your ministry plan is fully funded. You can download the full Financial Sustainability Crisis Guide today at horizons.net/fundministry. That’s horizons.net/fundministry. Well, recently I also had the chance to ask Joe Park, CEO and principal at Horizon some questions related to the financial aspects of leading a multi-site church and related to the data that we’re talking about today. So here’s my conversation with Joe. Joe, what advice would you give a church when launching their first multi-site location?
Joe:
My first piece of advice is for churches to follow the Unstuck Group counsel because in doing so, they’re following data-driven recommendations that not only come from your experience in churches all over the us, but equally important is that your recommendations are supported by a large pool of research from successful and non-successful church plants. And I think that’s important. And my second piece of advice would be to ensure that the culture of generosity embraced by the planting location is fully present in the new plant from day one. We’re frequently invited in when there are divergent cultures of giving between the main campus or the planting campus and the campuses. When this happens, it’s really difficult to correct. Most often when you begin to move a location toward the culture that you want, the planted location or the one that’s being moved, feels anger and disappointment, broken expectations from what they see as a bait and switch. And this really gets at the issue of trust. And so that makes the repair that much more difficult to make and typically involves loss. So if you can get it right from day one, you are saving yourself so many headaches throughout the life of the church and the few campuses that you plant.
Sean:
Joe, what are some of the common generosity tools or practices that you recommend be the same? Across all multi-site locations,
Joe:
There’s several things. First, we recommend that the Theology of Generosity that explains what your church understands about the Bible in regard to stewardship and generosity be written and used in all of the campuses. At Horizons, we recommend that it specifically define words like percentage giving, tithing and offerings explains how they will be used and how they will be measured. We frequently confuse people by using different definitions and ambiguous non-measurable words when we ask somebody to take steps along a giving pathway. So speaking of giving pathways, we also recommend that your Theology of Generosity includes what we refer to as that giving pathway. And this is an illustration that defines I measurable terms what is being asked of givers at each step along the pathway. So they identify where they are and then pray about taking the next step. And those are clearly defined measurable steps. Now, if you’re not using video to stream a common message, we also recommend that pastors work together on messages related to giving. So that there’s a commonality in the theology, everything’s aligned and that the supporting collateral be the same. Yes, you can skin it differently, but the embedded theology and what you are asking people to do the illustrations they need to be as close to the same as possible. The last recommendation is to ensure that giving is clearly delineated in your discipleship pathway, using words that don’t have to be unpacked or can be misinterpreted or misleading to the listener.
Sean:
Okay. So to wrap up our conversation on this month’s report, let’s look at the data on multiplication strategy. What were the highlights there, Amy?
Amy:
Yeah. Well we started the podcast talking about the importance of launching large. And we see in the data associated with launch strategy that churches had an average in-person attendance of 1,455 people when they launched their first location. And a common question we get is how large should our church be before we go multi-site? And our answer is, of course, the larger the better. So churches should have a minimum of a thousand attendance. So seeing that church is launched with an average of 1,455 people is really encouraging. And I would just, I would double down again, larger is better. In fact, I’m working with a church right now. They’re actually big enough to go multi-site right now, but they’re staging a 1500 seat addition into their church. And they might have to actually go multi-site before they get that done because it’s gonna take several years to get that addition done.
Sean:
Sure.
Amy:
But I said, if you could wait until you had that open, that would be ideal because that just gives a healthy base of people from the sending location to launch a larger subset out from their church. So larger is often better. But we also saw in the survey that multi-site churches lean towards identical locations with some or just little campus autonomy. In fact, Sean, fewer than one in 10 churches in our survey, gave campus autonomy with some central influence. And this was great to see. We talk about predictable outcomes, right? We talked about this specifically in last year’s multi-site report, but what we found is more identical churches tend to be experiencing more growth, more baptisms. They have more volunteer leaders. And because of that, they’re more likely to have a leadership development strategy. They’re also hear this three times more likely to use video teaching for message delivery. So it just seems that what we’re learning is not all multi-site strategies produce the same results. And so pay attention if you haven’t gone multi-site yet to the wisdom and that information again, that when you go more identical with little autonomy, it’s gonna affect your growth rate, it’s gonna affect the baptism numbers, volunteer years, all of that because we are, we’re building off of proven ministry strategies. We’re doing them together. That’s what brings in the efficiency within multi-site strategies.
Sean:
Yeah. I think that’s been such a helpful learning. We’ve shared it with a lot of churches, and we’ve seen it in both the metrics but also as we’re on the ground serving churches. And we’ve heard over the years, you know, I’ve heard this saying, Amy, at least, I don’t know if you’ve heard this. There are many ways to do multi-site. But what we’ve experienced is that there aren’t many ways to do multi-site well. Right?
Amy:
That’s a good quote. Say that again. Yeah.
Sean:
There are many ways to do multi-site, but there aren’t many ways to do multi-site well.
Amy:
Excellent. True. Yeah.
Sean:
Amy, thanks for your insights into the data. And, and just as a reminder for all of our listeners, if you haven’t received this quarter’s report, there’s a lot more information than we were able to get to in today’s podcast. But you could subscribe to get this report as well as our future reports at theunstuckgroup.com/trends. If you’re a church that’s currently multi-site, or you’re considering adding a new location in the near future, we’ve helped well over a hundred multi-site churches with their long-term multi-site strategy. I’d be happy to share more information what that could look like for your church. And you can reach out today at theunstuckgroup.com/start. Thank you again to everyone who tunes in to these weekly conversations. We’re so glad that the content’s been helpful for you. Until we’re back next week, have a great week.
