Willow Creek Community Church reaches more people with strategic regional campuses.

In 1975, a group of young renegades in the Chicago suburbs decided to “do” church a new way. Starting in a local theatre, they brought a fresh approach to living out their faith in Christ. With 100 in attendance and a children’s ministry that met in one of the washrooms, no one could have imagined what God would do with these impassioned young adults.

The small church that met in the Willow Creek Theatre in the northwest suburbs of Chicago became Willow Creek Community Church.

Within 31 years, the suburban megachurch church had opened its fifth regional campus at another theatre – the historic Auditorium Theatre in the heart of Chicago. And in the fall of 2011, with more than 1,000 in attendance each week, Chicago’s regional campus had expanded, adding a ministry center for offices, meeting space and special events.

Now with six regional campuses in Chicago, including Casa de Luz for the Spanish-speaking community, Willow Creek experiences most of its growth from these smaller regional sites. Along the way, Willow has learned a lot.

When does a church know it’s time to launch a regional site?

“We began discussing a regional strategy in 1995,” says Greg Hawkins, Willow’s executive pastor. “We learned one-third of the congregation drove more than 30 minutes to attend church.” People who drive long distances were less involved in the life of the church. When they invited friends to church, they were turned down. Drive an hour to go to church? No thanks. “Our mission – to turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ – needs strong participation and a commitment to relational evangelism,” says Hawkins. “Our mission was being compromised by geography.”

How is Willow’s strategy for regional sites unique?

Regional sites offer a full scope of ministry to people at all stages of life. “When the leadership of a campus has their own expression of worship, small groups, Promiseland (children’s ministry), and student ministry, they own the outcome,” says Hawkins. “All the campuses operate under the same policy governance and elder board, but they survive because they have worked to establish their own identities based on their unique demographics.”

“There is no one model for a campus,” says Steve Gillen, regional pastor of Willow’s church on Chicago’s North Side. “Each community is different and there is no one-size-fits-all. What works in a suburban area composed primarily of young families won’t necessarily translate to an urban area.”

Jon Klinepeter at Chicago’s downtown campus agrees. “In our urban environment, people have different attitudes, mindsets and a different pace of life. Because we’re in the center of the city, we have a greater diversity of people, backgrounds, ethnicity and a wider socio-economic band. That influences what we look like and how we spend our time and energy. The values are not much different, but how they play out is.”

What does it take to launch a successful regional site?

“Launching a campus takes optimal horsepower,” says Marcus Bieschke, the campus pastor of Willow’s Crystal Lake church, which recently birthed a new campus. “It starts with a strong healthy birthing campus, with a deep leadership bench that won’t leave a vacuum. Naturally it takes sufficient capital and a strong infrastructure, but senior leaders must have a God-led hunger to reach the people in the new demographic.”

A successful site starts with a permanent campus pastor who is in place from the start, a committed core of people and the right location.

What has Willow learned from launching multisite campuses?

“We set an initial goal to launch a new site once a year,” says Hawkins. Several years into it, Willow slowed down the process. “Knowing that a good campus pastor with strong leadership skills and a critical mass of Willow DNA is essential to the success of a new campus, we discovered the key limiting factor wasn’t money or facilities, it was finding the right leader.”

From the start, a regional site needs a permanent (and fantastic) campus pastor. “It’s nearly impossible for an interim leader to cast vision for the future,” says Bieschke. “Campus pastors need to be senior pastor material with strong leadership and teaching gifts.”

Campus pastors unplug from the central campus to teach at their sites approximately eight times each year. “All of us also teach at support workshops and classes, so overall, it amounts to a dozen or more times each year,” says Bieschke. This can translate into a recruiting challenge since most senior pastors want to teach more than eight times per year.

Timing is also critical. “It takes a core of approximately 500 to open a new campus and in most cases, those people come from the birthing campus,” says Hawkins.  “It’s important they be replaced because their departure is felt on multiple levels, including the energy in the room.”

What are the challenges and advantages of a multisite church?

Advantages: “We’re free to lead. Just lead,” says Bieschke. “We get direct coaching from Senior Pastor Bill Hybels, a man who has advised presidents and who Jack Welch said should be president. That’s invaluable.”

Disadvantages: A campus site has to do more ministry with fewer resources. “The sagging economy is a transcendent reality for any church, especially a multisite location,” says Bieschke.

What does it take to lead a multisite?

“A campus pastor needs a kaleidoscopic variety of skills – from team building and strategic planning to experimentation and development,” says Bieschke. “It takes acrobatic flexibility. An adaptability gene that someone either has or doesn’t.”

With more than 24,000 in attendance each weekend (including all the campuses), Promiseland children’s ministry no longer meets in washrooms, but with Chicago’s regional site, theaters are still a part of Willow Creek’s DNA.

Susan DeLay is in Communications Services at Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, IL. www.WillowCreek.org

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Who is a successful campus pastor?

A successful campus pastor:

• Has the spiritual gifts of leadership and teaching.
• Strikes a balance between character and competence. A campus pastor is a person of integrity and displays self-leadership, strong decision-making and judgment.
• Is adept at dealing with ambiguity. Even if the strategy is fuzzy and part of the information is missing, a campus pastor can still act.
• Exhibits high learning agility – the ability to take in new data, redefine the goal and hit a moving target.
• Influences appropriately the leaders who are above, around and below.
• Sets healthy boundaries and understands how to establish a pace that includes rhythms of rest.
• A campus pastor is a cultural architect who builds culture through teamwork.
• Develops a robust funding plan through the various ministry systems and annual seasons of a church, including discipling donors.
• Is organizationally savvy, collaborative and has pastoral leadership.
• Takes advantage of leadership training and opportunities to exchange best practices with other church leaders.

Would Jesus have set up his ministry in a regional church in a prominent town in Galilee and worry about the seating capacity?

Through new worship services in new locations, a church could make a permanent investment in people in another place. These reasons to consider multi-site all made sense. Reasonable minds could see that this approach was a viable option for a healthy, growing church.

In fact, many may have perceived that multi-site is primarily for reasons such as economic efficiency, more worship services, or seeking to do more ministry on your own. Yet the actions of many multi-site churches defy these reason-driven perceptions.

By Brad Hill

With the multi-site church revolution in full swing across America, much attention is paid to video venues, program development and community outreach. An equal or greater amount of attention, however, should be paid to the digital communications strategy. Whether or not your church is offering its own live video streaming or “Internet Campus” experience, running a Web site for multiple locations is a much different challenge than that of a single-site church.

The good news for a church considering the communication issues around multi-site? Nobody quite has it all figured out yet. Most “multi-sites” acknowledge that it’s still in the experimental phase, although many do agree on some fundamentals.

The challenges facing most far-flung ministries would be familiar to any Fortune 500 company operating in multiple locations. Internal communications, brand loyalty, and consistency of message rank as the trickiest hurdles.

Keep lateral lines open

Dave Adamson at Liquid Church (www.liquidchurch.com), Morristown, NJ, says that keeping lateral communication lines open requires effort from their leaders. It’s not a Web-specific challenge, but it affects every aspect of communications — both internal and external. “It’s easy for silos to be created around individual campuses,” he says, “unless the communication between them is kept open and honest.” Liquid Church operates two physical campuses in the suburbs of Manhattan, and Adamson is the pastor of Liquid’s Internet Campus (which also operates its own Web site, on par with the physical locations).

Parkcrest Church (www.parkcrest.org), Long Beach, CA, operates multiple campuses in the Long Beach, CA area. With 2,500 weekly attendees across three locations, the church asks each of its lead pastors to provide weekly information to their congregations. This can work well, because each pastor can build rapport with his or her parishioners, but isn’t guaranteed to produce uniform results.

Steve Dunham, worship arts pastor, describes the challenge of communicating information through multiple mouthpieces. “Since each campus has a different campus pastor, it is hard to know if the information is being put before the people with the same enthusiasm and regularity,” Dunham says.

Site strategy

Enter the Web site strategy. Using video, images, and consistent content updates across three Web sites and a mini-mobile site, Parkcrest is able to keep its campuses on the same page. Newcomers are greeted with vital information; meanwhile, regular attendees can quickly find updated information on activities, connection points, and media resources.

There’s also the not-all-campuses-are-created-equal problem. For most multi-site congregations, the oldest location is the largest. In a “one church, many locations” model, this poses a delicate dilemma. AnnieLaurie Walters, communications director at McLean Bible Church (www.mcleanbible.org), McLean, VA, says that getting the 13,000 attendees of the church to stop thinking of their first and largest campus as “the mother ship’” is a struggle. She’s helping to solve this challenge with the Web strategy, since the Internet is a great playing-field leveler.

Most multi-site churches quickly outgrow a single Web site. This is especially true for those who operate programs and events at each location. “If we tried to have all that on one Web site it would turn into a supermarket catalogue of odds and ends,” Adamson says.

Walters, whose church operates six video venues with live worship and pastoral/ministry staff, describes the identity balance between the campuses: “We are not identical twins, we are fraternal twins. We have a lot of the same DNA on the inside but we look different on the outside. Therefore, we are committed to reflecting that with our Web presence.”  They solved this by creating a central hub site for all information that is central to the church. Each campus, in turn, runs its own Web site for activities, blogs, Twitter, announcements and newcomer information.

Easy content management

McLean Bible Church wrapped up a major overhaul of its six Web sites in early September. Working with the team at SiteOrganic, McLean implemented a system to feed content from the central campus site out to the individual campus sites. Walters says, “This way, I can create one page in our central site and make that page available to the other campuses for syndication. The content can only be edited in one place, making content management pretty easy. Otherwise we would be creating content again and again for every campus page.”

Liquid Church also uses a syndication model, along with some old-media smarts. “Lead Pastor Tim Lucas is a former English teacher and before coming here I was a TV reporter in Australia,” says Adamson, “so we are the gatekeepers of content quality.”

Like any operation with satellite divisions, the desire to develop unique personalities while identifying with and benefiting from the umbrella organization is genuine.

All three congregations have a consistent brand identity, with some minor variations (color, tagline, etc.) to delineate each campus. Most are also using social media in various ways, since it knows no boundaries or multi-site limitations. “During the lead up to [a recent fundraiser for Africa] we did a series of viral videos that raised awareness in an informal and entertaining way,” Adamson says. “We’ve seen our people use our social media across their own Twitter and Facebook pages to invite their friends. It’s been very successful.”

Brad Hill is founder and president of SiteOrganic, Reston, VA. [www.siteorganic.com]

By Jim Tomberlin

Going multi-site is not for every church. It will not turn around a sick or dying church, but it can be an instrument to extend a healthy one. Multi-site is not a growth engine, but can be a vehicle for a growing church. Multi-site is not a fad to jump on, but it has become a proven strategy to reproduce healthy, fruitful, growing churches.

What began as a “band-aid” in the late 1990s for a handful of megachurches that found themselves out of room or restricted by zoning laws, the multi-site idea quickly proved to be an effective option for any healthy, growing church regardless of size. Though nearly 50 percent of all megachurches have multiple campuses or video-venues, they only comprise about a third of all the multi-site churches across America today. Church size doesn’t matter, church health does.

What started as a radical idea with a few early pioneers has become the “new normal” across the national church scene in this century. According to a recent survey by LifeWay Research, 16 percent of Protestant pastors indicate that their church is “seriously considering adding a worship service at one or more new locations or campuses in the next two years.”

New multi-site books

Healthy churches reproduce and going multi-site just got a little bit easier with the recent publication of two helpful books. The Multi-Site Church Road Trip by Greg Ligon, Geoff Surratt and Warren Bird is the sequel to the Multi-Site Revolution which helped launch the multi-site movement.

Revolution introduced the multi-site pioneers and became the primer for the next wave of early multi-site adopters. Road Trip re-visits some of the pioneer churches, but mostly focuses on the second wave of early adopters who are proving the model can work for any healthy church with a desire to reach more people and better serve their local communities.

As the authors explain in their own words, Revolution is more of an overview and how-to manual, while Road Trip is more of a series of drill-downs on particular multi-site themes.”

Road Trip introduces the various ways churches have adapted the multi-site model to their local situations. Innovation and variety abounds — rural campuses, urban campuses, international campuses, virtual Internet campuses, campuses through mergers, and second-generation campuses. From Hawaii to New York, Miami to Toronto, Vancouver to Baton Rouge, multi-site has infused new energy and DNA into the church of North America. Road Trip documents this transformation and I loved the ride. You will too.

In spite of the broad embrace of the multi-site model across the nation, no two multi-site churches are the same. Every multi-site church has its own unique “church-print.” There is no “one-size-fits-all” formula on how to do multi-site. Nevertheless, all multi-site churches will wrestle with the same basic issues — funding, location, facilities, technology, staffing, structure, inter-campus relationships, etc. With the broad expansion of multi-campus churches across the nation, best practices are beginning to emerge that will help guide church leaders in the multi-site adventure.

Best practices identified

Scott McConnell’s book, Multi-Site Churches — Guidance for the Next Generation, begins to surface those common best practices. This is the book I wanted to write. It draws from nine multi-site experts and 40 multi-site churches. It is more of a “hands-on, here’s how to do it, and what to avoid” manual for going multi-site. I found myself saying “yes, yes” on every turn of the page.

Guidance does what I strive to do with my multi-site church consulting. It draws general conclusions from the collective multi-site church experience, illustrates the conclusions with specific church examples, and then offers specific practical steps in putting together a customized multi-site strategy.

Road Trip is written by pioneers of the multi-site movement. Guidance is written by an outside observer with an objective eye who did his homework. Together these two books are excellent guides for every church leader who wants to multiply the impact of their church through a multiple campus strategy. Both books are illustrative, prescriptive and practical. They complement, reinforce, and sometimes overlap the basic tenants of the multi-site model. They will be required reading for all my multi-site church clients.

These two books came from two different directions, but land at the same location. Multi-site has changed and is changing the face of the church in North America. Be fruitful and multiply!

Jim Tomberlin is founder and senior strategist of Third Quarter Consulting, Scottsdale, AZ. Tomberlin pioneered the multi-site strategy for Willow Creek Community Church. [www.Third Quarter Consulting.com]

By Sam S. Rainer III

The multi-site paradigm has become a mainstay in conversations about the church. The multi-site church takes many forms, and numerous models are used. At the core of the movement is the principle that geography does not limit a single local church. The success of several multi-site churches demonstrates that the model may be around for quite some time.

It’s not for every church, nor should we expect every church to strive to become multi-site. However, for churches that do expand to multiple locations, there are unique rewards and challenges.

Our story as a multi-site church is like many others — we stumbled into it by accident. Sarasota Baptist Church celebrates 25 years in September 2009. Back in 1984, having more than one campus was completely off the radar for the handful that started our church. That small group had no idea where God was taking them — they were just seeking to be obedient. But we’re multi-site today because of the culture that was fashioned 25 years ago.

The founders created a mission statement that became the culture of the church: Doing whatever it takes to connect people to Jesus Christ. I was in kindergarten when our church began to reach the Sarasota community, but now I serve as campus pastor alongside many of the same people that started it all.

A month away from defaulting

Becoming multi-site was not intentional, but it happened at Sarasota Baptist because of intentionality of mission. The second campus was unplanned and rushed. A dying church 11.5 miles north approached our congregation about merging. They were one month away from defaulting on their bank note. Within 30 days, Sarasota Baptist Church became two campuses. From initial contact to church vote to the first service, everyone united around the 30-day, whirlwind process.

The mission was intentional; the process of becoming multi-site was unintentional. Our church seized an unlikely opportunity to reach further into the community and overcome geographic challenges. Like our church, many multi-site churches have stumbled into it. A healthy church culture only goes so far before exciting chaos becomes frenzied frustration. Once the process begins, churches making the leap to multiple locations must become intentional. Staffing the multiple locations is one area of critical importance. Here are some of the key markers of intentionality in staffing a multi-site church:

Build the right structure. Staff structure is more than an organizational chart demonstrating who oversees whom. The structure of the staff is also not as important as other facets of staffing. Staff culture and morale are more important than structure. Without the right structure, however, communication breaks down and responsibilities are muddled.

In many ways the structure of the staff is determined by the structure of the multi-site model. Our church has a regional-campus model with two large campuses that are staffed with similar positions. Our senior pastor, Mike Landry, oversees the staff at the first campus. As the campus pastor I oversee the second campus. My primary role is to ensure that our senior pastor’s vision is implemented at the second, newer campus.

Balance authority and responsibility. Nothing frustrates a staff person more than having a large amount of responsibility and little authority. Senior church leadership must be intentional about balancing the responsibilities of staff roles with the corresponding authority to accomplish those roles.

A staff member with big responsibilities and little authority will either withdraw from making decisions or battle others for authority. A staff member with little responsibility and big authority will either waste time or micromanage others. Matching authority and responsibility is crucial in a multi-site system where decisions are made in different venues and geographic locations.

Capitalize on the role of the campus pastor. Not every multi-site church has campus pastors. And some don’t place campus pastors at every location. Some campus pastors preach regularly but others do not. The position of campus pastor is a difficult one to fill at many multi-site churches. It requires strong, visionary leadership at a specific location, but the campus pastor is not to be the main person of the church.

One of the most important components of a campus pastor’s ministry is to connect with the leaders in the community around the campus.

Create a common vision and philosophy among the staff. One of the biggest problems in a multi-site system is differing visions and philosophies among the staff. Rogue leaders and island campuses can become major headaches with high potential to break away from the multi-site system.

At Sarasota Baptist, our philosophy is for each additional campus to remain in the multi-campus system. Our senior pastor made it clear when I came to the campus that the second campus would not become autonomous. I assured him I was not his man if there were plans for it to be autonomous; we were totally on the same page.

At a multi-site church, the elephant in the room must be addressed: What are the plans for the campus? The issue of autonomy must be addressed upfront. Campuses that will likely become independent have shorter periods of investment from the multi-site system, but they also have more freedom in creating their own vision. Campuses that will unlikely become autonomous have a reciprocal, long-haul relationship but less freedom to do their own thing.

Determine how communication takes place. In a multi-site system, a recurrent complaint is that someone did not receive the communication. Multi-site churches have unique problems in this area.

Select specific times and modes of communication. At Sarasota Baptist, we have layers of communication. The strategy team sets the vision. The administrative team organizes the vision. The support team helps implement the vision. All meetings must take place on Tuesday, and everyone at both campuses are required to be in the office that day.

Staffing a multi-site church correctly is not the main thing, but it is critically important for the health of a multi-site system.

Sam S. Rainer III serves as the campus pastor at Sarasota Baptist Church at Lakewood Ranch, Sarasota, FL. He is president of Rainer Research. [www.rainerresearch.com]

Tom Greenwood

Many large and growing congregations often think seriously about starting regional branches of their churches to spread the Christian message. The multi-site church trend has proven very rewarding for some churches, but not without each church backing up the fervor underlying it with a wise analysis and decision-making process.

By some estimates, 1,500 to 2,000 churches have started mult-site locations in the U.S. We’ve discovered our church clients who intend to implement or expand an existing multi-site concept are learning the value of creating a strategic approach to planning those facilities.

Several of our church clients have launched a total of nine successful satellite locations. Leading the pack is the much-watched Fellowship Church, in Grapevine, TX, with three church campuses in nearby cities and one in Florida. What the churches learned along the way could help other congregations that are thinking and praying about doing the same.

‘One church, many locations’

The multi-site church concept is best summed up in the phrase “One church, many locations.” Existing churches open second or third locations in another part of a city, county or, in cases like Fellowship, in completely different states. The concept seems to be working for a variety of reasons: resources are shared, there’s a unity of purpose and the leadership’s strength from the existing church serves the new churches too.

Congregations like Gateway Church in Southlake, TX, say good discernment and planning should precede any major decisions. Gateway launched a satellite church last November. Located just eight miles from their primary location, the second site shares the same church name, staff resources, operational costs and ministerial leadership. Worshipers see and hear the pastor’s sermon on large screens in the sanctuary via delayed broadcast. One campus pastor serves the church, but has an office back at the Southlake location. Otherwise, the second congregation provides its own worship music and programming.

Given each congregation’s one-of-a-kind character, history and approach to ministry, it’s hard to cite definitive steps to launch a satellite church. It’s not a cookie-cutter kind of process and there are many variations of the same model, each customized to do what works for each congregation.

Some churches have seen their multi-site ministries grow organically, either as a response to rapid growth or as a special opportunity for ministry. However at some point all churches intentionally begin to think through the dynamics that fuel current and future multi-site facilities. So how does a church begin to get its arms around their multi-site facility strategy?

Full-fledged phenomenon

Because the multi-site movement has now grown into a full-fledged phenomenon, there are a number of key practitioners, or teaching churches, which are excellent sources of experience. However, there is great value in tapping into the knowledge of professional facility planners, architects and construction consultants. Outside consultants who can assist in helping the church understand the financial and budget requirements of multi-site approaches are also invaluable in forming a holistic picture of good strategic ministry planning.

Before making specific decisions for launching a new location, church leaders should evaluate the validity of the mission and vision of their churches. Are core values and purposes for doing ministry and serving God and others in line with the new endeavor?

Next, leaders should take a solid look at the church’s health, analyzing strengths and weaknesses. Starting a Christian community at another address will tend to reflect similar factors.

For Gateway, the issue came down to accommodating explosive growth. Six worship services were occurring at the main facility to provide for more than 7,000 in attendance. Church leaders realized attendees came from other burgeoning Dallas/Fort Worth suburbs to the west of their current church site. That’s where a new site was targeted.

Conduct a demographic study

Planting another church site un-doubtedly requires a demographic study. The church’s data should reveal what faraway ZIP codes have active or inactive attendees for starters. Additional visits to prospective areas will reveal whether a satellite church is needed or whether the location has plenty of churches there already. An initial evaluation should also include financial health since a second location will create new expenses that existing congregants will help fund.

Finally, leaders should gauge the existing members’ spirit and behavior to determine whether they will support a second or third location in “word and in deed.” Existing members make great volunteers for new locations. Similar consideration should be made of the existing staff. What responsibilities will change? How will their workloads change? Should more staff be hired?

To Doug Sluiter, executive director of campus development at Gateway Church, the issue comes down to:
•    Is it part of the vision of the church and its leaders?
•    Is there a demand?
•    Is there a base of support?
From a facility standpoint, potential locations should be evaluated from the outside site first. Parking needs, traffic patterns on weekends, visibility of the building, and permissible signage are just a few of the key considerations.

Drain on volunteers

Warehouses, “big-box” retail stores, movie theaters and even old church buildings are all options. Leasing a local public school is a popular choice and yet, while affordable, meeting in a school is also demanding on volunteers who must carry in and out much of the necessary furniture, AV equipment and other items each week.

It’s also important to understand a municipality’s zoning restrictions. Cities usually require more stringent obligations for church sites. That’s due in part to the fact that churches are like major event venues in which hundreds of people converge on the premises at the same time.

Consideration of a building’s interior to be adapted for a church use will require defining space expectations for all age groups and ministries. Most important is the space for worship since it demands higher ceilings, good accessibility and traffic flow and large unobstructed spaces.

If renovating an existing space, a church must consider electrical, HVAC and plumbing loads that are generally much greater for churches than other businesses. Restrooms must be larger, exits must meet safety codes and changes like raising ceilings and relocating columns may be required.

Opportunity for special focus

Gateway purchased a vacant 50,000-square-foot supermarket for its second location. The span of open space permitted the design of an 800-seat worship center, children’s areas, a large lobby, as well as a 15,000-square-foot youth section, correlating to their special focus on youth ministry.

Undoubtedly, current technologies and our culture’s comfort watching action on a screen, has helped the growth of multi-site. Since many locations rebroadcast the sermon of a lead pastor from the main campus, the church must decide whether to produce a live simulcast or a delayed broadcast.

Simulcasting can have tremendous challenges in both the cost and ability to run a tight schedule at multiple locations. For some, congregations such as Fellowship Church, a more achievable approach can be recording and delivering a DVD with sermon to the sister church across town. The technology choice is one that should be carefully weighed based on cost, staff to support and desired ministry environments on each campus.

Not to be underestimated is the importance of exporting the inspiring spirit ministry of the existing church to its other campuses. Every church has distinguishing characteristics and cultures that both members and visitors find familiar and comfortable. In marketing terms, it’s called the church’s “brand.”

Consistency is important

Leaders should determine how their church’s brand will be reintroduced and maintained at the second location. What architectural elements are vital? Consistent design in printed materials, graphics and signage are also important. The exception would be in starting a new congregation with a different target audience or with approaches or ministries unique to the new church.

Since every church is unique, no formulaic approach works for creating a master-plan for multi-site expansion. But that doesn’t mean it’s not important. “There’s no real magic in a strategic plan, it just helps you evaluate things,” says Sluiter. “It’s not hypothetical, but shows you real patterns, real objective data.”

By following these and other steps — steps that have proven important for other churches who have made similar commitments — congregations can achieve their desired missional goals of changing the world one nearby community at a time.

Tom Greenwood is director of church services at The Beck Group, Dallas, TX, an architecture and construction firm serving churches throughout the world. [beckgroup.com]