Welcome to an Office Hours episode of the unSeminary podcast. In our Office Hours episodes I’m happy to answer your questions that you can submit via an audio file through our website. Mark Strickland is the lead pastor at Milton Bible Church in Milton, Ontario, Canada. His mid-sized church has about 300 attending on Sunday mornings, has a relational family vibe, and also ministries that connect with the community. They don’t want to stay comfortable with just filling two services and cruising along. They want to fulfill the Great Commission and expand, whether with church planting or multi-site. Mark asks: When is the right time to church plant or go multi-site? What are the best practices when considering expansion as a mid-size church? And lastly, are there any permanently mid-sized, healthy churches that are models to look at? * When is the right time to multiply? // Healthy things multiply. In the ECFA New Faces of Church Planting study, one of the indicators for church multiplication is conversion growth. Take a look at the people who are coming to your church. If 51% or more of them are new people coming to know the Lord, that’s a good indicator that you should be thinking about multiplying. * Start casting vision now. // What is your current vision for multiplying? You may not be ready to start a new campus or plant now, but how can you start casting that vision, even if it is a couple years down the road? Start casting vision with your elders and your team around what God’s calling you to do in the future. Don’t look just at a growth spurt but a pattern of growth over time. Ask yourself if you are seeing sustained growth from people coming to know Jesus. * Are members ready to launch? // Post-COVID, the average church plant core team size is 18 and the average multi-site core team size is 45. The size and health of the launch team is critically important. Are there a healthy 45 people you could send to a community on the other side of town to launch something new? * Prepare for the financial side. // Another aspect to think about is the financial side of expansion. It’s financially taxing to launch a new site or plant a church. Often church planters rely heavily on fundraising the first few years. How could you start building financial resources to gift to a church planter to help them launch strong in a couple years? * Questions to ask yourself. // Not every church needs to be big, but every church needs to have a big vision for what God is calling them to do. What is the big vision that God could call your community to? What is it that He’s calling your church to that ultimately looks like the transformation of your community for the message of Jesus? If you’ve got a question that you’d love to get answered, drop by the Office Hours link to upload an audio file. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes,