MondayMorningInsight - Leadership & Encouragement for Church Leaders

Profile: Seacoast Church (Modern Megachurch!)

Posted by: Todd
Posted on: Tue, September 06, 2005
Viewed 529
(8) comments so far

Outside Seacoast Church's bustling main campus in Mount Pleasant, people stream past a cavernous building under construction and into an auditorium that, 14 years after being built, is packed during most services.

As the riffs of the contemporary Christian rock fade, founding Pastor Greg Surratt leaps onto the stage.

He launches into this weekend's message, part of a series called "Ten Simple Rules: Rediscover God's Perfect Plan for Your Life."

"And for those of you in Summerville ... " Surratt calls to involve those watching him from far beyond Mount Pleasant.

Seacoast was born in 1988. Already, on a given weekend, Surratt's words are heard by worshippers at nine campuses across South Carolina and into Georgia.

In Summerville, a new flock meets at the Dorchester County Senior Center, where they, like those worshipping at Seacoast's seven other satellites, have their own campus pastor but watch Surratt's videotaped message on monitors.

About 250 people gather in chairs, not a suit jacket or tie in sight. A live band brings home modern music that's come to define Seacoast.

The church that started in 1988 with 65 people meeting in an apartment clubhouse now draws 7,500 on a given weekend and can top 10,000 at Easter and Christmas services.

Love it or wince at it, Seacoast has brought the modern megachurch to Charleston.

The conservative, nondenominational, nontraditional approach to worship you'll find here has grown into something of a brand name.

Now, Seacoast is getting noticed beyond South Carolina.

The Church Report released its ranking of the 50 most influential churches in America. Atop the list were megachurch heavyweights including Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in California and Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago.

Seacoast ranked 27th and was the only South Carolina church to make the list.

Outreach magazine also recently released the results of its 2005 ranking of the nation's 100 largest and fastest-growing churches. Seacoast ranked 28th fastest-growing and 77th largest.

And Greg Surratt is one of three pastors who've been booked by The Leadership Network to discuss multisite churches at its national conference in October.

The church's success has come at a cost.

Several years ago, it became so successful at attracting people that the congregation no longer could fit into its Long Point Road campus.

So it began to spread out. And spread some more. And more.

Today, Seacoast has brought to South Carolina a national trend: huge, multisite churches that draw tens of thousands. The churches often meet in different places but share some staff, a name and a worship style, according to the Leadership Network, a group created in 1984 to serve large congregations.

In 2003, the Leadership Network released a study that found at least 1,000 churches across North America could be described as multisite.

The Hartford Institute of Religion Research in Connecticut surveyed 153 megachurches in 1999. Back then, 22 percent had satellite campuses. A revised study is under way, and its lead researcher is confident it will show more growth.

SATELLITE WORSHIP

Glenn Wood has been at Seacoast since it had 250 members. Now its business administrator, he sits at his computer and calls up a spreadsheet. It tallies each campus and how many people attended services on a given weekend.

There's the Columbia satellite, where in 2002 Seacoast partnered with an existing church that was drawing barely 200 people. Today, with the Seacoast name and format, it draws closer to 350 and has a capital campaign under way for a children's area.

Then there's Irmo, where members meet in a theater lobby. So do Seacoasters in Savannah. Summerville meets in a senior center. Downtown meets in a theater. There's the Mount Pleasant annex next door in a shopping center. And there's Greenville, where members meet in a former church building.

Seacoast didn't set out to grow through satellites. But in 2001, when the town of Mount Pleasant denied its request to expand on its main campus, the church switched gears.

The result: In three years, the church has launched eight satellites.

"We're called to reach people," Wood says. "So we had to find another way to do church."

The new way has spread the Seacoast name across South Carolina and into Georgia. And, perhaps soon, even farther. It's looking at several other areas to launch satellites, though none have been chosen yet. (And Naeem Fazal, Seacoast's young adults minister, is leaving to launch a whole new church in Charlotte. Like Seacoast, it will be a nondenominational, contemporary church.)

Seacoast even has a new motto: "One church, many campuses."

Turns out, there are a few good things about satellites.

For one, they provide important tools for evangelism. People like the convenience of going to church close to home.

Satellites also can tailor their music and ambience to attract certain people. For instance, Seacoast's downtown campus includes more high-energy music to draw college students.

And launching satellites can be pretty cheap. Seacoast rents a building, relies largely on volunteers to set up for services and hires a pastor to oversee the congregation. It can cost a megachurch like Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago roughly $3 million to $5 million to launch a new church with a new building.

It costs Seacoast about $75,000.

Satellites also help megachurches feel not so big.

At each Seacoast campus, people get to know a smaller cadre of folks rather than floating around a megaservice. It feels like a small church.

But members still get the benefits of a megachurch. Classes on single parenting, Alpha programs, family services, small groups for boating and motorcycle enthusiasts, you name it.

Yet there's a downside. Or is it an upside?

At Seacoast satellites, the music is live. But the sermon is not. The satellites watch sermons from the main campus on video.

"We all go to church together, we're all sharing the same discussion," Wood says, "so we can build on it."

Sound impersonal? Well, it works. The satellites are growing in ways many churches only pray for. Take the West Ashley campus. It opened in 2003 in a movie theater. Most people figured it would draw 150. By the third week, the campus added a second service.

Today, it draws 750 to 850 people on an average weekend. That's more than many of the old, mainline churches in downtown Charleston.

In fact, it became so big that it needed to move after a year. Now Seacoast leases part of a former Food Lion grocery store for the West Ashley crowd. This fall, the satellite will hold three Sunday services.

It also doesn't hurt that Seacoast boasts a core of pastors, led by Surratt and his brother, Geoff, who have a knack for delivering lively, practical sermons (which he prefers to call "messages"). They've ridden mountain bikes onstage, played golf, you name it.

BUILDING PLANS

Seacoast's growth has been no secret for years. Just ask the people who live around its main campus.

Until recently, Long Point Road was only two lanes outside the church. Each time one of Seacoast's services began or ended, cars caused long traffic delays.

When the church wanted to expand, residents from several large, nearby neighborhoods protested building an even bigger church on the site.

In 2001, the town of Mount Pleasant denied its request.

Then Long Point was widened to four lanes. And Seacoast, which had owned 14 acres on the site, bought adjacent property. That more than doubled the church's property to 30 acres.

"We retooled our whole master plan," Wood says.

In 2002, the town approved plans for, among other things:

-- 3,300 seat auditorium (the current one has 1,350 seats).

-- Classroom space.

-- 1,450 parking spaces (it has 700).

The whole expansion will take eight or nine years. First, Seacoast added a second parking lot. The average age at Seacoast is about 35. That means lots of kids. An average weekend draws 700 to 850 children from nursery to high school.

To accommodate them, Seacoast is building a 60,000-square-foot education center adjacent to the current auditorium. The new building also will have a 250-seat wedding chapel on the front, so for the first time, Seacoast can hold weddings in a traditional setting with red carpet and a center aisle.

The building, for which the church has raised $13.9 million in pledges so far, should be done in mid-2006. It will hold 12 classrooms plus space for upper- and lower-elementary students and large areas for junior and senior highs to set up their own places to hang out. That's especially important for ministering to older children, Wood says.

"A lot of it is look and feel and energy," Wood says. "We're trying to impact the next generation."

Any thoughts, anyone?

Chris mentioned on his blog this morning that his church had been written up in the Charleston Post and Courier. (Thanks for the heads-up, Chris!). Here’s the article written about Seacoast Church…

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