Multi-site pioneer and consultant Jim Tomberlin helps churches develop customized plans to extend the impact of their churches to multiple locations. He talked to Rev! recently about the multi-site strategy -- what's driving it and what direction it's likely to take.

Why are so many church leaders thinking about going multi-site?

Tomberlin: One of the biggest factors is the growing struggle that large churches are having with the larger community. When a pastor who has a teaching gift and a leadership gift grows a church, the need for more land and buildings becomes a conflict with the local community. When the church builds a big building, it takes money off the tax rolls; it causes traffic problems. Megachurches are seen as a liability to a community, not an asset.

Even within the church community, megachurches aren't necessarily what people want. I think people who go to a megachurch often go in spite of its size, not because of it. There are traffic problems they have to put up with; children's areas can be overwhelming to a child when there are hundreds of other kids. For a lot of different reasons, I think people have always preferred a church that's more intimate, has more of a community feel to it. So the multi-site strategy allows a church to grow large and have great resources -- great preaching, great worship, great leaders to lead it -- but it can stay small by being in multiple locations. And I think that's a lot of the appeal.

How do you respond to those who say multi-site churches encourage a "star syndrome"?

Tomberlin: Every generation from the first century on has always had men and women who are gifted communicators, who draw followers around them. I think the multi-site movement is acknowledging that there are individuals with these teaching gifts and asking how to maximize this.

In the first century the Apostle Paul would write a letter and send it to a city, and it would be read in all the different congregations of that city -- one sermon delivered in multiple locations by way of a manuscript. Fast-forward to the 21st century -- and today's technology allows us to deliver the communicator preaching the written word.

What changes do you predict for the next 10 or 20 years?

Tomberlin: Here's my biggest prediction for the future. We'll have what I call super megachurches or "giga" churches, but in smaller buildings. They won't be contained in one location. That's one development. The second development will be a lot more merging of vibrant churches in desperate need of space with struggling churches who have facilities but are in desperate need of a vibrant ministry. I think we'll see this happen in the rural and urban areas, which have often been abandoned by the evangelical church. The megachurch movement has been essentially a suburban movement, but now with the technology to be in multiple locations, there's a renewed passion for the urban areas and for the rural areas, which would never have the benefit of great preaching or great ministry because of the cost or the lack of support.

As those kind of churches are growing, there will always be home churches and smaller churches that appeal to people who don't want to be a part of something big, but they're going to want great teaching and preaching. There's video available of the great preachers that every generation has -- so churches can have good teaching while they keep it small.

What sort of succession plan is possible when one of these giga-church leaders falls or retires?

Tomberlin: The same thing that's going to happen when a megachurch pastor falls or retires -- or a small-church pastor. There's a pause at best, and then there's a "What do we do? What's our next step?" My hope about the megachurch or the multi-site movement is that it's a lot healthier. If you're one church in multiple locations and a successor can't be found for the whole, most locations could probably find their own pastor like any other church would. That church of 10,000 in 10 different locations is a lot more sustainable and healthier in the long run than one big church. What do you want to be? An elephant or a virus? You know an elephant is big, impressive; it makes a big splash, but one dart can take it down. But a virus -- you can cut it off at one spot, and it just springs up somewhere else. It not only is hard to stop -- it infects, it grows, it spreads. As an analogy, a church that's spreading across a region in multiple locations has a stronger ability to impact that community for transformation than if everything is contained in one location.