The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast CNLP 834 | Everything You Know About Multisite Church is Wrong! What the Largest Multisite Study Ever Done Actually Found with Warren Bird and Sean Morgan
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Oct 6, 2026 
Sean Morgan, relational leadership developer and Leaders in Living Rooms podcaster, joins Warren Bird, renowned church researcher and author. They dismantle the “8,000 multisite churches” myth with the verified count of 1,800. Explore franchise, federation, and family models; mergers that revive declining churches; teaching teams; grandchild campuses; leadership pipelines; succession; and why multisite growth slows after year four.
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Tiny Share Of Churches Reach Ten Percent
- Multisite churches represent roughly 0.5% of Protestant churches but serve about 10% of weekly churchgoers.
- Researchers surveyed more than 600 churches and approximately 1,000 leaders, giving the findings unusual depth.
Multisite Models Fail Without Shared Boundaries
- Multisite models range from centralized franchises to semi-autonomous federations and highly contextualized families.
- Misalignment between executive teams and campus pastors often reveals unclear decision rights and unwritten boundaries.
Multisite Has Entered Its Jet Era
- Leading multisite churches have quietly moved from experimentation into repeatable, sustainable campus multiplication.
- With thousands of church closures projected against far fewer successful plants, healthy multisite replication can help close the gap.
