When I first started working on architecture projects for churches, I began to see ministry space with a more critical eye. I became aware of traffic flow, aesthetics, and details of how church buildings were laid out. But it wasn’t until my first child was born that I began to see ministry space through a new lens—a mother’s eyes.

Around 2009, my friend Warren Bird, at Leadership Network, called and asked if I was seeing a lot of mergers in my multisite church consulting. I was, and he was seeing the same. “God is doing something,” Warren said. “We ought to write a book about it.” A couple of years later, we published the book, Better Together, Making Church Mergers Work. Originally, like many pastors and church leaders, I had a vague, negative idea about church mergers. We didn't see it coming when we started thinking about multisite during my years at Willow Creek Community Church, but mergers have become an unintended consequence of the multisite movement.

In part 1 of this series, we examined six keys for a successful church restart. According to Mark Jobe, lead/founding pastor or New Life Community Church in Chicago, a restart can be a story of redemption rather than as a “take-over.” In part 2, Jobe uses the acronym GRACE to describe how to discern whether the restart process is right for your church and God-honoring ways to embark on a restart journey.

New Life Community Church is a multicultural, multisite church that gathers in 25 locations, each with live preaching. When we first started launching new sites, I didn't know hardly anyone else that was doing it. Today, there are many churches taking this approach, and it's a great strategy.  Of our 25 New Life sites, about 14 of them were born out of a “restart.” This is the term we use when an older church has invited us to move into their existing building that was on the verge of closing and restart the church under the New Life banner. Though we didn’t set out with a plan to engage in restarts, they’ve become an important part of New Life’s multiplication strategy.

What makes your church your church? The distinctive elements within your building that tell the story of who you are as a faith community? Kevin Miller, Senior Pastor at Church of the Savior in Wheaton, Illinois, shares insights he gleaned from his own experience leading his previous church—Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, Illinois—through a major adaptive reuse building project. He explores three keys for discovering the essential elements that make your church distinct in a video series titled, “Telling Your Church’s Unique Story.”

We join you in celebrating our Savior's resurrection on Easter Sunday. Aspen's mission is to create space for ministry impact. May your church serve as a place for all who enter to experience the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection, and the ultimate impact of his salvation for every person.  

As Sunday services go, Easter ranks as the highest attended worship service throughout the year—outpacing Christmas and Mother’s Day. You know this. You’ve seen your crowded worship spaces each year. And no doubt you and your ministry staff have already begun your sermon and lesson preparation for Holy Week. But in all your planning for the most important day on the Christian calendar, don’t forget to think beyond the pulpit.

When asked about the biggest challenges facing the church of the 21st century, church missiologist and president of Lifeway Research, Ed Stetzer, replied:

Ensuring you’ve got the correct number of parking spots for church attendees isn’t nearly as much fun as selecting the right fabric for all of the seats in your sanctuary. But you’ll never fill those seats if you overlook adding new spaces in your parking lot. Here’s a quick guide to determining how many parking spots your church needs.   3 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Church Building Partner

Many church leaders could write out a list of tasks and priorities for launching a new site. More challenging is having an effective communication plan and solid timeline for sharing the vision, building the team, and creating anticipation that leads up to the launch. What steps are most important to start with? How much time do you need, from start to finish, to build a core group and launch a new site? When is the right time to ask people to make a commitment? What should we be doing to get the word out?