When you’re a growing church consistently adding new members every year, goals are met, bills are paid, members are happy and life is good. Such was the case for Central Christian Church, an evangelical church located in Las Vegas, NV. But this popular church didn’t get to 13,000 members by taking a passive approach to its mission: “To connect the unconnected to Christ and together grow to full devotion in him.” They wanted to do more to reach out to the community and extend their ministry to other areas.
As a result, they developed two additional campuses in the Summerlin community and in the Southwest area, which reproduced Pastor Jud Wilhite’s Henderson campus message via HD re-imaging technology. The idea worked and before long they had not only increased attendance, but also involvement in the church’s small groups, serving and tithing all by establishing additional campuses closer to people’s homes.
“We found that if we put a campus within 20 minutes of a person’s home and brought church to them versus waiting for them to come to us, their involvement went way up,” says Mike Bodine, senior leader with Central Christian. “Instead of attending church once a month they started participating three times a month and took on a more active role.”
Other ways to expandThe church immediately saw the power of reproducing their successful Henderson campus at different locations and began thinking about other ways to further expand their ministry.
At that time, the Internet had already become a social networking phenomenon with Web sites like MySpace and Facebook leading the charge with more than 135 million and 100 million users, respectively. The Barna Group research report, Most Americans Are Seeking Net-Based Faith Experiences (May 21, 2001), projects that within this decade as many as 50 million individuals may rely solely upon the Internet to provide all of their faith-based experiences (barna.org).
This fertile social networking environment sparked the interest of Central Christian. Leaders began strategizing about ways they could leverage social networking and take their successful Henderson campus model to the entire world.
“The church already is a social network and if people are doing life on the Internet, then why not the church,” says Kurt Ervin, executive pastor of church expansion for Central Christian. “Given the overwhelming success of MySpace and Facebook, we believed there was great opportunity to reach millions of people.”
Interactive and engagingThe church began developing what would ultimately become one of a handful of online church campuses in the world, but with a few, distinct differences. For Central Christian, the online services couldn’t be just a podcast or digital recording of its Henderson service that could be downloaded on demand. Instead, they wanted an interactive service that engaged members and encouraged them to actively participate just as they would a traditional church service.
“We wanted people to experience God online through a community where they could find others to engage in fellowship with,” says Ervin. “We also wanted to help people who may be far from God to grow in relationship with him and others within the church.”
The church leaders already had an idea about what they wanted the online campus to look like and created a function and feature document and sent it to our company. As both a developer and part-time lay minister, I shared their ministry goals.
In June 2008, a timeline was developed, the graphics were determined, the milestones were set and a comprehensive plan was created. A beta site was put up to test it and the Internet campus went live three months later launching centralonlinecampus.com on Sept. 7, 2008.
The online campus features simulated live services — unlike traditional on-demand podcasts — to promote real-time participation and interactivity between users and church staff, a critical goal set by leaders during the creative phase. The services are captured during Saturday services and then scheduled for Sunday at various times to meet all time zones. At each service users are virtually greeted in the lobby by an online pastor and volunteer greeters and can then chat in real time before and during a service, take notes and make an offering.
After completing development of the campus, Central Christian’s leaders with “zero marketing funds” marketed the campus online by creating a Facebook group and eventually engaging hundreds of users. MySpace also put them on its Community Impact page which features up and coming leaders.
To date, leaders say the results have far exceeded their expectations. About 400 people participated the first weekend and the online church is currently up to more than 1,300 users in 50 states and 31 different countries.
With Phase 1 complete, Phase 2 is in the development stages. Scheduled for completion the first quarter of 2009, it will include increased interactivity within a three-dimensional virtual church environment. Users will also be able to buy a cup of coffee or snack, sit by people in church and go into the bookstore.
With CentralOnlineCampus off to a great start, the church’s leaders are optimistic about the future and are excited about the opportunity to spread God’s Word to the world, while continuing to execute on their vision to be one church, in many locations.
Tony Ferraro is a lay minister with Sandals Church, Riverside, CA, and president and CEO of 360Hubs, Riverside, CA. [360hubs.com]
