In the fall of 2012, the pastoral leadership of Blue Valley Baptist Church began having a conversation about our future.  That conversation was expanded to include the ministry staff in early 2013 and the entire church later that summer.  The conclusion we reached is that we could best accomplish our mission of glorifying God by helping people become followers of Jesus by becoming a family of smaller congregations spread throughout our area; by becoming one church on many campuses.

 

Being a multi-site church doesn’t mean that we are arrogant enough to believe that we are the only ones who know how to do church “right” anymore than other churches building a larger central campus means they believe they are the only ones who know how to do church “right.”  For us, it simply means that we have concluded that the best vehicle for us to accomplish our mission is to grow BROADER, not BIGGER.

 

We will do that by creating campuses that utilize the Five Habits of a Jesus Follower as a guide for their preaching plans, worship experiences, Sunday School instruction, and age-graded ministry programing.  Each campus will be led by a campus pastor who will, in turn, lead a campus staff appropriate in size for our ministry philosophy on that size of campus.  The central leadership of Blue Valley Baptist Church will ultimately oversee the work of all campuses.

 

The Sunday experiences at each campus will incorporate live preaching and music as the primary vehicle for worship.  This means that expository preaching that calls for commitment from people’s lives and stylistically-diverse, generationally-inclusive music will be primarily led by people on site each week.  Each campus will also provide Sunday School for all ages as the primary small group connection point, and age-graded ministry programming that emphasizes relationships over activity.

 

By planting numerous, smaller campuses instead of building a larger, central campus, we hope to create highly-relational communities of believers in all parts of our area that allow those who live in those areas to reach their neighbors, coworkers, and families for Christ.