Multi-site churches are licensed once for the whole church, not separately for each site. This requires that:
The church must identify one Site Leader for the whole church. Normally, there will be a key leader at each location as well, but there must be a single, named, qualified person who is responsible for seeing that the Redemption Groups ministry at the church across all sites remains in compliance with our standards. This Site Leader could be one of the key leaders at one of the locations, who serves in this global capacity in addition to a local one.
The reproduction of group leaders should still run along experiential lines. In other words, the initial core team of leaders must be qualified at an Immersion, and future leaders should be trained and qualified through their participation and apprenticeship in groups led by previously trained and qualified leaders. This will probably mean that the multi-site church launches groups by one of the following approaches:
- Core leadership teams from each launch site are developed together to launch at each site simultaneously. For example, with three sites, three core teams would launch; that would involve training approximately twelve leaders—two men and two women per site.
- A single core leadership team comprised of leaders from multiple sites trains. They would initially run groups as a shared ministry for multiple sites, with a plan to use these shared groups to train leaders from various sites, who would eventually launch local groups in their own sites.
- A single core leadership team from one site, champions the launch. Other sites would be trained by this first site, which would serve other sites as an equipping center.
Other models will be considered. Include your proposed model in the ministry development plan in your application. What’s important to us is that you have a plan for a self-replicating ministry where training runs primarily along experiential lines where future leaders are observed, qualified, and trained for leadership within the Redemption Group environment itself.