Amid decreasing church attendance in Western Europe, multi-site churches have still managed to take root and spread, according to one mission group.
Leadership Network has released a brief report providing snapshots of the various kinds of multi-site churches growing in Europe.
"While some people have questioned whether the multi-site model works in the more post-Christendom context of Europe, there are European churches, who organise themselves as multi-site churches," states the report by Joanne Appleton of the European Church Planting Network – a project of Dallas-based Leadership Network.
In the United States – which some say has also entered a post-Christian era – multi-site churches have already spread to nearly every major city and state. Almost one in 10 Protestant worshippers attend a multi-site church in the United States or Canada, according to A Multi-Site Church Road Trip.
The report notes a growing interest across Europe in multi-site church. Providing an initial picture of the movement overseas, the report follows three western European churches that have gone multi-site and explores their rationale and unique practices.
Holy Trinity Brompton is a London-based church that has adopted the multi-site strategy. The church draws about 4,500 people weekly.
Miles Toulmin, executive pastor of HTB, went multi-site with a vision for the "re-evangelisation of the UK and the transformation of society", according to the report.
"We worked out how big we would need to be to resource the vision, and decided that going multi-site would be the best way to help us expand the base for church planting," Toulmin stated.
Toumlin explained that they were holding five services in one building and four of them were completely full.
With "nowhere to grow", the HTB pastor said they "wanted to do something that would grow the base, but keep alignment with our core DNA – which was more likely in a multi-site situation".
