On May 3rd, 2009 LifePointe Christian Church launched their second campus located in Fort Mills, SC. York County is the fastest growing county in South Carolina and LifePointe feels God has called them to plant themselves in the very midst of the community.
The launch went great. We had tons of new faces show up to hear about this church that calls itself a “Grace Place” and professes that we’ll “love you where you’re at, but love you enough not to leave you there.” The above was the main drive for the Sunday; that authenticity is a value in our community, that we don’t pretend to have it all together, and we welcome any and all that are imperfect just like us and want to work through this faith thing together in a place they can call home.
One of the unique things about the Fort Mill Campus is that the facility God has provided is the former training facility for the NBA Bobcats. It was vacant for about four years and God opened some pretty incredible doors for our faith community to be responsible for such an incredible resource. The above is a picture from the balcony looking down onto the two basketball courted floor and stage area. The vision for this building lines up with LifePointe’s overarching goals to be in the thick of their community, to be a blessing to those around them, and use everything at their disposal to build relationships within the community in hopes that it may eventually allow the opportunity to introduce those friends and partners to Christ when they are ready. LifePointe hope to create partnerships with different groups in the area in need of such an incredible facility, host area events, and call it a Community Center.
If you are unfamiliar with this multi-site model of church planting here’s why it seemed the best approach for LifePointe in Charlotte and the surrounding area:
- With the close proximity of Fort Mill to our other campus, resources (e.g. staff, marketing, equipment, programming, facilities, etc.) can be shared between the two sites. The result can be a higher quality, higher impact launch at a lower cost (i.e. more people can be reached more effectively).
- Unlike a traditional church plant where new processes and practices may be implemented, the multi-site church plant improves and builds upon existing proven processes and practices of the church. Where improvements are identified, they are incorporated at both sites.
- Organizational culture is a powerful tool for aligning people and ministries. Like guardrails along a road, the LifePointe culture helps to keep us from running off the road. We will function as multiple sites with one culture. Specifically, all sites of LifePointe Christian Church will share common values, beliefs, expectations of people, and empowerment of leaders.
Essentially, these are the main distinctions/benefits of the multi-site church model. With this model, we can reach more people and improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of all we do. The goal is to ensure that ministry is not limited to the borders of what staff can do on their own and we’ve found that also means it isn’t limited to one building per church community.
