A few of you have emailed me about Highlands Fellowship, which I mentioned in an earlier post. Jimmy shared some more details which you might find interesting:

Jimmie explained their multisite and multi-venue approach as follows:

Our first additional site was in a strip mall which we converted into a campus. About 15,000 square fit of space, very little work just some paint and a great HD Projection head to toe. We are running about 7 to 800 in attendance, it's two years old. Our advantage a core group of about 100 from the main campus already driving from Bristol which is about 20 minutes away. The twin cities of Bristol, population 50,000. We did a preview service on Christmas 2005 and then launched second week of January 2006. This gave us time to build momentum before the summer. We have a great campus pastor there, Curtis, who is a gifted leader / manager.

We started an additional site in Johnson City, Tennessee (population 50,000) last Easter. That is 40 minutes from our main campus and it was meeting in a community center on Sunday's. We launched with about 400 in attendance on Easter Sunday 2007, doing a couple of previews and then launch using direct mail. We ran into several problems.

1. We did not have a core group that lived in the area. So this was more of a true new launch.
2. The church right off of Easter began a steady decline from the 400 not reaching bottom until late summer at around 120.
3. Leadership Issues. Our leader did not have the start up combination gifts of Leadership/Management essential for a new work. We found his nitch at the main campus and placed a new leader there.
4. The city had a history of failed church plants and there was skepticism this would work.
5. We feel the location and not having a permanent site hurt us although we started Highlands and grew to 700 in a high school this has not been ideal for us with our satellite. In Johnson City, we moved to a permanent and relaunched Christmas and now are averaging 200. It's starting to really take off. We have a full time Ministry coordinator.

Another problem with these two launches is cost. Around 400,000 per campus which is not reproducible on a scale we want to achieve.

We are now launching a new idea called "café congregations." Our goal is ten of these by January 1, 2011.

We will launch our first 30 minutes away in a small town called Marion, in a county of 37,000 people with a core group. This is a low cost, low risk with great potential.

There is also no other contemporary witness there. We once again have leased space but much smaller, I'm guessing around 2200 square feet. No worship team/music/singing etc. Café tables/chairs and refreshments in a great environment and watch the message on a drop down video screen.

We have a volunteer children's director overseeing nursery, preschoolers, and children's class. Service will begin at 10 and 11. We will have a small group director volunteer overseeing small groups. The café will seat 65 adults. At 200 adults we will move to new location with live worship band/leader etc.

In our cafes at the Abingdon, Bristol and Johnson City campus we are packing out the café venues with seekers. There is no music other than background. The cost around 60,000 start up and another 60,000 for six months operating.

The benefit is over 270 families have visited or are attending Highlands from this region. Our preview service is Palm Sunday and launch on Easter. I know it's another Easter launch but you can't wait for perfect conditions. If this works it could be huge. We want to reproduce these in a five state region around Highlands main, within a two hour drive in each county seat town. Starting with those closest to us and building out from that.

Here is one other idea we are about to innovate.

We are having folks ask if they can start a Highlands site in their cities/towns. We are going to give it a try. We will give them a DVD of the service, shape them to see if they fit the leader/manager type to do it, and let them start in community centers/existing cafes already there. This is a no cost/low risk and great potential. They can even start in a home. These are people driving a distance from our church but have the Highlands DNA. This one excites me the most and has the most potential to become viral. Once again our goal is to go to the places others are not, either declining towns/cities with no contemporary witness close to us.