A Collaborative Conversation

Two weeks ago I announced a new social networking community for multi-site leaders called Leading Multi-site.  Well after only two weeks the site now has over 300 members from 140 different churches.  The response has been overwhelming.Here are three things that have surprised me:

1. The level of conversation taking place.  The members have started over 30 discussion forums with over 130 comments in less than two weeks.
2. There are churches from six different countries who have joined LM: USA, Canada, Netherlands, Portugal, United Kingdom and Australia. (So spread the word to your international multi-site friends)
3. More than just campus pastors and Multisite executives have joined the site.  Worship leaders, children’s pastors, youth pastors, technical directors and more have joined and started groups or conversations for their specific areas. 

Here are three desires for the site:

1. Multi-site is still a very young movement, so our desire is to see multi-site leaders sharing their learnings and discovering best practices.
2. We want to see multi-site leaders getting to know other multi-site leaders and building a sense of community and camaraderie. 
3. We want to see LM become a place where current and future multi-site leaders can develop their leadership skills.

Here are three prayer requests I would ask you to pray:

1. This week we are hosting a phone call with over 30 different churches asking them to join us in an effort to develop Leadership Training content for the site. 
2. As I have researched Ning (the platform LM is hosted on) I’m beginning to see we have only scratched the surface of the power of this tool  Pray that God will send someone who has technical expertise in Ning to help us take it to the next level.
3. Pray that multi-site churches will catch the vision of this collaborative effort because as more churches catch this vision the more multi-site leaders will be helped and become more effective in their efforts to reach the lost.

Here are four quotes from those who are using the site:

1. "Love this site, like a facebook for multisite peeps. Looking forward to connecting and learning from others here" - Mary
2. "We are just looking into the multi-site concept. We do have a video cafe on site and working out the video stuff for that, but haven't ventured off site yet. I'm looking forward to learning a lot. Thanks tons for creating this community!" - Dave
3. "Thanks for starting this awesome group. I look forward to the growth in the church that this site is going to bring! It's a fantastic tool." - Nick
4. "This is exactly what I've been looking for since we launched. I have learned a lot but I know there's so much still to learn."  - Doug