The team met on Monday, April 3, 2023, 7pm at the SCC Central building in Salmon Arm.
After a review of the last meeting, including the team’s purpose and guiding principles (see last blog post), and a time of prayer, the team took time to review a draft of a document entitled, “What Is The Multi-Site Model of Shuswap Community Church?” This is an important document that will serve as a point of reference throughout the evaluation process; it will form part of the information that will be given as information is gathered. For example, when the congregational survey becomes available, this document will serve as a preamble so that respondents have some background knowledge about the multi-site model before answering questions about it. A second draft of this document will be reviewed again by the team and will be made publicly available in the near future.
A large portion of this meeting was spent conducting a SWOT analysis of the multi-site model. SWOT is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Interestingly, the SCC staff had conducted a brief SWOT analysis of its own at the beginning of March, and several similarities were observed between the two SWOTs. Following are a few highlights collated from both SWOTs:
STRENGTHS
- There is a good sense of team, camaraderie, community, support, and peer accountability at leadership levels (i.e. staff, pastors, board). Furthermore, there is good relational health within and across these various leadership groups. At a congregational level, last year’s SCC “Together” services were a good demonstration of the sense of being a part of something larger.
- Sharing resources can be a real strength at times. Resources include things like people, equipment, and money. For example, when one campus is short financially, there is almost always surplus elsewhere to make up the difference. Redemption Counselling is also a good shared resource.
- There is a good diversity of gifts across the different locations and ministries. This diversity allows the church to contextualize the mission, ministries, and message across the Shuswap region.
- The multi-site approach has helped form a strong missional philosophy for the church. We really are here to declare and demonstrate the transforming power of the gospel through making disciples and planting churches.
WEAKNESSES
- There is a noticeable disconnect between, for example, campuses and central, campus pastors and board, etc. Each location or ministry tends to function differently - almost autonomously in some ways - and, as a result, many of the strengths of the model are not taken full advantage of. This can be observed in things like our public-facing communications (website, social media, etc.) where it can be very difficult to present a unified message.
- This multi-site model can feel very big and unwieldy; it can be very difficult to manage from an administrative perspective.
- Even though the Salmon Arm campus is, strictly speaking, simply one of the four campuses, there can be a strong Salmon Arm-centricity to the model. Because Salmon Arm is the original and largest location it tends to dominate the leadership’s focus. Furthermore, there seems to be fairly blurry lines and confusion around the difference between the Salmon Arm campus and SCC Central.
- In our model there is a general lack of leadership development in various ways. For example, because there is a centralized board and executive leadership, smaller campuses have not had the incentive to more fully develop local leaders to serve in these types of functions.
OPPORTUNITIES
- Given the last weakness listed above, there is a great opportunity for more leadership development especially in light of the diversity of strengths and gifts across the entire church.
- There could be a more clear role for the SCC Lead Pastor, as distinct from the SA Campus Pastor. For example, the SCC Lead Pastor could be more mobile and not the primary preacher in Salmon Arm. This could help connect the church across the region.
- We could do a better job of utilizing our strengths across campuses and ministries. For example, there is an opportunity to build the counselling ministry as a truly central, regional service.
- We have an opportunity for more intentional collaboration in order to be on mission through things such as outreach campaigns and sermon series.
THREATS
- There is no clear “campus” vs. “church plant” definition (i.e. no potential “exit” plan for campuses).
- A sense of complacency (i.e. “It’s someone else’s job/responsibility.) could be a threat in light of the lack of local leadership development.
- An unintentional “drift” to local autonomy (i.e. vision drift) could threaten the multi-site model and its effectiveness.
- The financial drain on the Salmon Arm campus due to the dependence of smaller campuses has almost always been a reality.
- This model could create isolation from other churches in the area. There could be an unhealthy pride in SCC and our multi-site model.
- A general sense of unsustainability threatens the life of the church in the long run.
There is a lot to digest in terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and the team is looking forward to gathering more perspectives in these areas from across the entire church.
A draft of the congregational survey will be reviewed and refined at the next team meeting and will be ready for public access in the coming weeks. Furthermore, tentative dates for Town Hall meetings in each campus in May and June have been set and will be confirmed and published soon.
Until next time!
In the meantime, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Pastor Andy deHoog (andy@aplacetobelong.ca) or the SCC Board (board@aplacetobelong.ca).