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Editor's Note: Multi-venue churches are changing the way congregations look and function. Multi-venue churches meet in adaptable buildings. They have additional sites, on or off the premises. And they plant new churches without starting from scratch.

In this second of a two-part series exploring multi-venue churches, Church Central examines the Cedar Ridge Christian Church in Kansas City — a smaller, young church that is using the multi-venue model for growth.

LENEXA, Kan.—Danna Carter stood teary-eyed before her suburban Kansas City congregation during an outdoor service this spring and recalled how she had looked across the same park-side property 18 years earlier and seen the perfect place for a church committed to outreach.

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"From that first time I saw this place I envisioned a building where hundreds of thousands would be influenced for Christ," Carter said. But when the hundreds dwindled to tens at Country Hills Christian Church, where Carter and her husband, Bob Carter, served next to the park — when more people were jogging around the trails and pushing their kids on the swings on Sunday morning than sitting in the pews — the Carters handed their vision over to a new ministry.

The sign out front still reads Country Hills Christian Church, but the building now contains the offices for the staff of Cedar Ridge Christian Church and Cedar Ridge Parkside. Those churches are concerned about the people in the park, too. In fact that's where they see their ministry existing.

"The church is not a building," said Brian Wright, who joined the Cedar Ridge staff as campus pastor at Parkside about five months ago. Instead, he said, the church is people. The vision for Cedar Ridge is to bring church to people, rather than building a church and inviting people to come. The churches are meeting in a local high school in the growing suburb of Lenexa.

They are also in the midst of building a community center for the people at the park. They broke ground in May.

A demographic study of the area indicated that the community is made up of young families. One walk through the park indicates the same thing. So it's easy to see how a church "park side" can fulfill its purpose to reach people where they are simply by being where they are.

"This church is really evangelistic. It's outreach-minded. That's the first priority, reaching the lost," Wright explained.

In addition to matching its outreach strategies to the demographics of the community, the church is also matching its building to the community.

"What we're finding is that nobody wants a big anything in their backyard, Wal-Mart, Target, church or anything," said Cedar Ridge senior minister, Justin Moxley. Even the community center was a concern for the back-fence neighbors. But the local planning board approved the church's plans for the 26,000-square-foot gym, activities center and coffee shop.

Church planter, Brian Wright, puts the last touches on new landscaping at the Cedar Ridge Christian Church Parkside campus.

Parkside will meet for worship in the gym once it's completed. The rest of the time the space will be open to the community for activities, sports, and conversations over coffee. Cedar Ridge ministers want the space to be part of the local community.

A smaller big church

Moxley said that being part of the community, rather than creating a separate church community, is one appeal of multi-venue churches. "I think its kind of a possibility of returning to the neighborhood church. It provides a smaller environment with larger amenities."

Amenities like a climbing wall and a coffee shop are planned for the new community center. The center may sound more like what is typically offered at mega-churches than what might be offered at a smaller church such as Cedar Ridge, a growing group of several hundred people.

Moxley grew up in a small church and attended a small school, Manhattan Christian College, where he and Wright first met. Then they both went their separate ways, to ministry at mega-churches: Wright in Louisville, Ky., at Southeast Christian Church, and Moxley in Longmont, Colo., at LifeBridge Christian Church.

The Parkside Church prepares for a groundbreaking ceremony under a tent.

Moxley and Wright both say they have brought with them the lessons learned from serving in big churches, including non-traditional models of outreach.

Wright served in the activities ministry at Southeast several years ago, a ministry that continues to be one of the largest draws to the mega-church campus. Each year thousands —including many unchurched — visit the center there for aerobics classes, little leagues or open gym sessions. And typically they are people would otherwise never set foot on a church campus, according to Wright.

Because of its evangelistic effectiveness, the idea of a community center is appealing to Cedar Ridge as well. "It's our desire to help people know Christ and that's it," Moxley said. 

According to Moxley, that drive has inspired the Cedar Ridge congregation to fund the new Parkside building first, while they continue to meet in a high school. The congregation has also been asked to commit time and service to the project once completed, to keep it open with volunteer labor.

"We hope it's open as much as it can be," said Moxley. He called on the congregation to commit to serve to make that happen. He told them they weren't dedicating a building, but rather dedicating themselves to service.

Setting up and taking down is part of the Sunday ritual for the multi-venue Cedar Ridge church.

That's part of the church's mission: "Cedar Ridge Christian Church exists to Connect people to Jesus Christ and Equip them to Impact their world."

Planting

The Parkside project impacts Kansas City in two ways: First it's an outreach for Cedar Ridge at the park, and secondly it's a church plant. Statistics show church planting continues to be an effective way to introduce people to Christ.

According to Wright, church planting expands the influence of the church and promotes unity within evangelical churches nationwide. That comes primarily through the focus on evangelism, he said. The multi-venue model is particularly unifying for churches, according to Wright, because one church passes on its mission and its methods to another church.

"We just want to train people up and send them out," Wright said. "Missions should be a mindset for the whole church Ã¢â‚¬â€ not just one ministry. Evangelism is what we're talking about. Make sure you're focused on reaching people."

The multi-venue model Cedar Ridge is using to plant Parkside means they can use the effectiveness of a new church for outreach to the unchurched, without having to start from scratch.

"We're multiplying our efforts rather than consistently adding to them," Moxley said. "For us it's an issue of stewardship."

Church members plant marker flags with prayers around the new building site.

May 23 the Cedar Ridge congregation met for worship under a tent to officially dedicate the ground for the new community center at Parkside. "God doesn't do things the way we think they'll hapen," Danna Carter told the group, "but Praise God his way is better."

Church members penned prayers on marking flags and dispersed to plant them around the building site. It was a quiet, reverent moment as the crowd hobbled around the construction site to pray.

Click here to read Changing up church: Multi-venue churches, Part 1.