There once was a time when you could say, “I’m going to the bank” and everyone knew that you meant the bank at the corner of Elm and Main. But now if you say, “I’m going to the bank”, it could mean one several branches! Some of us can remember the days when a hospital meant a facility. You could tell people, “I’m having some tests done at the hospital” and everyone knew that you meant the hospital facility downtown. But now many hospitals have multiple facilities! And today I live in a small city where I could never say, “I’ll meet you at Starbucks”…because there are 5 of them in Naperville. And I couldn’t agree to meet someone at McDonalds without saying which of the four McDonalds I meant.

And now we can add to that list churches! No longer does a church have to only have one branch, one location or one campus. Unlike Starbucks or McDonalds we didn’t start Community Christian Church with a franchising concept…with an intention to go multi-site, but now in just eight years we’ve grown from one church with one location and an attendance of 800 to one church with eight locations and a weekend celebration service attendance of over 5,000 people.

Four of Community Christian Church's locations in the Chicago suburbs: