[00:00:00] JimBo Stewart: Here we are back at the boot camp, back at it again. Hope you’re ready for the next episode. today I’m excited to have another special guest on, Pastor Dustin Slayton in the great nation of Texas coming to us today to talk to us about his ministry and pastoring and multi site ministry. But before we dive into that Dustin, man, just welcome to the bootcamp. Introduce yourself if you would and tell us a little bit about you and your ministry.

[00:00:27] Duston Slaton: All right. Thanks Jimbo. Thanks for the invitation to be here today. So yeah, I’ve been like you said, I’m in the nation of Texas. I’ve been here at First Baptist Church of Round Rock, Texas for about three and a half years. Before that I did serve at a multi site church, a Green Acres Baptist Church up in Tyler area, served there for about six years.

And that’s kind of what got me. interested in this multi site discussion, but all total been in ministry for around 21 years and area of youth and campus ministry. And now is a lead pastor. So have been married to my beautiful wife for about 21 years and we’ve got four kids and just living life and loving what God the different seasons God puts us in.

[00:01:07] JimBo Stewart: How old are your kids?

[00:01:09] Duston Slaton: They range from 16 to 10 right now.

[00:01:12] JimBo Stewart: So you got a little bit of multi site at the house all over the

[00:01:15] Duston Slaton: It seems that way sometimes, spending so much time at the football field, or the basketball court, or, you know, whatever’s going on.

[00:01:22] JimBo Stewart: Well, talk to us. So when we say multi site I mean, just give me a little bit of a, I know that they’re all different models of this, but a basic introduction definition for those that might not even really know what that means.

[00:01:35] Duston Slaton: Okay, yeah. The general definition of a multi site church kind of historically has just been a church that meets in multiple locations or venues. the general definition would say, they share a common vision, mission, and budget and leadership. And so I took that in a little different direction and consider a multi site church to be more than just that budget or the organization that holds us together it’s really got to have a covenant a group of people that have covenanted together as a local church But which happens to have services or meets together in different places I feel like a multi site church should seek to meet together as a whole church at least periodically.

[00:02:13] JimBo Stewart: Yeah. How do you handle some of the pushback? Obviously, you’re well aware that this is not an issue that we’re in great alignment on ecclesiologically, theologically, and you’ve written on this. So, I’ll tell you what, first point is to the book that you have written on this subject.

[00:02:31] Duston Slaton: Yeah, the book that came out back in January published by Kregel is called Multi Site Churches, Biblical Foundations and Practical Answers. And this grew out of my Ph. D. work at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth. When I became a campus pastor at Greenacres the idea of multi site ministry had already been something I’d looked into before but obviously I just got into it more then.

And I was starting into my PhD studies and I was like, well, this would be a good topic. And I didn’t even realize there was so much pushback until I got into my PhD work. And I had some great seminar guys who were, challenging me on those preconceived ideas that I had that multi site was.

you know, fine, no problem whatsoever. And so that made me kind of back up and dig in and say, okay, well, is this a viable option for, especially a Southern Baptist church, a congregational church to to pursue? And so got in, began to read and really understand the arguments that people were making against multi site.

Models, but I felt like that there was still some viability there. And so that’s what I spent basically four years studying and researching. And this book came out of that. It was my dissertation. I just sort of reformatted it to be into a book form. And so, like you said, there’s lots of arguments against multisite from the standpoint of just practicality.

Like a pastor can’t shepherd people that he does never get to see because they’re at another site. Things like the, the fact that the ecclesia, the assembly never actually gathers together is one of the main, one of the main arguments. And so the book addresses a lot of those.

And what I did in the book is basically, first I went back and looked at the movement, the multi site church movement, and kind of gave a history of The people who have really studied it and given some scholarship behind it, survey of the multi site church history, you know, where have we seen this?

How have we seen this? Is this something that really is new or is this something that has some history behind it? And then just some of the foundational assumptions of multi site church. And so the book itself is, It’s trying to be general so that it’ll, you know apply to churches of different denominations, but I wrote it specifically for a Southern Baptist, with a Southern Baptist church audience in mind.

And so then it just kind of goes into some of the, healthy church practices that a multi site would need to include in order to be multi site, but also ecclesiologically sound, biblically sound. And then the last part, which I think probably is the highlight of the book for me was to address those critiques that people have brought out against multi site and show how, in general terms that may be correct, but in more specific terms, whenever you really get down into it a lot of those arguments were based off of assumptions or generalities, or maybe the worst case scenario of a multi site model.

But in a certain way, multi-site could be very valuable and useful.

[00:05:24] JimBo Stewart: Specifically when it comes to church revitalization and replanting, where do you see the multi site format as a beneficial option or strategy that, I mean, I know I’ve, seen, I could speak to, but I’d love to hear from you what you’ve seen be helpful in regard to replanting and revitalization.

[00:05:44] Duston Slaton: Yeah. I really feel like the way that it could be used health or in the best way is in the area of those struggling churches. Those churches that are maybe on the verge of closing their doors or have had a. door of pastoral leadership, whether that’s because they just couldn’t find a good leader, or maybe there was some conflict between the lay leadership and the pastoral leadership.

And rather than close their doors or just trying to keep doing the same thing and beating their head against the wall constantly, they could come under the leadership or assistance of a local church who’s doing it well and really has a good solid leadership structure, a solid theological, foundation and has the capacity to be able to take that church, whether it’s temporarily like a fostering situation or more permanent, like an adoption where that church literally merges into the new church and the two churches become one with multiple campuses.

I just really feel like. There are a lot of churches out there who could benefit their fellow local churches by giving them some great leadership, helping them to restructure, to reorganize, to discover a new vision for their church. You know, a lot of times we see here in our area, a church that’s maybe tucked back in a neighborhood that has lost touch with the changing demographics of their neighborhood.

A lot of people have moved out and just haven’t connected with the people who have moved in. another local church that’s maybe in that same city or the same area could find them and say, okay, let’s re imagine what this church could be. we’ll give you some support, help get the governance going, help get leadership and whether that church ever actually goes out on its own again, it’s just determined by, What they decide but that has the potential to replant, relaunch some churches.

And I just really feel like one of the the thing that really breaks my heart is where I’m driving through town and I’d come to a corner and there’s a beautiful church building that is now a church boutique shop, you know, or you know, something like that. And I just think, man, that, that gospel presence there on that corner has been lost because those people lost the vision for what the church truly is and what the mission of the church is.

And I would much rather see rather than sell that property and take the money, give it to another church or another ministry. Keep that property because once it’s sold you know, it’s hard to reap by property in that area. But you know, a multi site church could help to revitalize that church bring it back to health, give it a fresh start, a fresh vision, see it grow, and then either maintain it as a campus or launch it out as its own, as its own body.

[00:08:22] JimBo Stewart: in Jacksonville, Florida, it started out as a campus of church. And this was, a little over 10 years ago before there was a lot of research on replanting models. So really the only kind of model anybody knew was multi site. And I remember having the conversation with the lead pastor of

the central campus or the main church. And this is their first foray into this. And I asked, Hey, is this strategy here for this to long term remain a campus or for it to eventually get healthy again on its own autonomous again. And I honestly, I loved his answer was we don’t know.

You know, we did eventually determine that it was healthiest that it eventually roll off and become its own autonomous church again, which is what it did.

But I would tell you, I don’t know that we could have made it through those first years. of trying to replant without as much outside assistance as they were able to come in and bring. And one of the ways I often think about it and talk about it is in, in Galatians chapter six, it says in verse two and this is the Jimbo paraphrase, but it says you know, when anyone has a burden too heavy to carry, those who are spiritual, And I think that’s not super spiritual, like, oh, you’re the Superman, but I think coming right off of Galatians 5, it’s those that are walking in the Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit.

Those who are spiritual should help restore and carry the burden of that person. And I love the end of that verse, verse 2, And therefore fulfill the law of Christ. And that’s, and so in that sense, I love the idea of Churches helping other churches get healthy and carry that burden that they can’t carry on their own.

I think a lot of people, do want to see, I would love to see that church get autonomous again, one day, whenever it’s there. So, Talk to us about, I think part of the pushback to multi site sometimes comes because people have seen or at least have perceived to have seen it be done in a way where it’s more about building that kingdom than the kingdom.

And so talk about the distinction between multi site for the sake of we want to get our name big and multi site for the sake of we’re trying to be kingdom minded.

[00:10:58] Duston Slaton: look across the multisite landscape and the churches that probably get the most attention are the ones who have, you know, five campuses, 10 campuses, you know, 15 campuses, and they’re scattered all up and down a coastline or all across a state or even across the country.

I don’t feel like that in the book doesn’t make the case for that being a healthy version of multisite. Because That has just really expanded it out to where they don’t have any opportunity to get together. There can never be a, you know, a potluck fellowship once a year where we all get together and fellowship and do baptisms and worship together and stuff like that.

It just makes it really hard. But I really feel like for me personally, multi sat is a means to an end of helping churches. Reach an area and develop healthy churches. I would, I would hope, like I, I hope that one day we’re able to become multi site here at, at First Baptist Round Rock but I, I don’t have a vision of us having perpetual multiple campuses in our area.

I would much rather see our multi site strategy help to develop healthy local churches that can then go off and do their own thing in a great, healthy way. Healthy plant churches. foster churches, whatever they want to do, so that we can help another church and take those resources that we’ve helped them get established.

Now we can go help another church get established. So, you know, like, I feel like the resources and not just talking about financial resources, but resources of people and resources of vision and resources of strategy development all those different things that, One church has are pretty easily shared with another, especially when those people are constantly working together.

And so the the expectation I think should always be that we hope one day This will roll off and be a autonomous church. I do feel like that that is a healthier longterm model. And I’ve even experienced that as a campus pastor. we had a great relationship with our if you want to call it the central campus or whatever you want to call it.

 we had a good relationship with them. We worked well with them, but there is always a little bit of a pull, you know, to, to kind of do some things your way because you are unique. And you are in a different location than those other people. And so there is an aspect of where, Oh man, we’ve got some great ways that we can reach our community.

and oftentimes you’re free to do that. But you know, multi site kind of, it does keep you connected as a group depending on what strategy you use. Like if you read multi church by Greg Allison and Brad House, they have, a whole gamut of different styles from everything from, We look exactly alike in everything that we do, to we are just very loosely associated with one another.

And so depending on what model you’ve chosen, you do have a lot of that flexibility. But eventually getting to that point to where now you’re healthy, you’re doing well, you’ve got great leadership, you’ve got a good vision, you’ve got solid polity, solid theology. You’re growing, you’re ready to thrive on your own.

So you go thrive, we’re gonna, you’re gonna graduate, you’re heading off to college now, you’re gonna go figure it out on your own. And we’re gonna work on these siblings over here and help them get to that point. It’s kind of how, me personally, that’s how I prefer multi site churches to work.

[00:14:11] JimBo Stewart: I love that perspective. I do think there also is a reality sometimes of places where getting to that point of financial viability may be very difficult, and so it’s going to end up lasting a lot longer. You know, the community where we replanted is so transient. You know that there’s always like there’s a lot of renters.

There’s a low income community, a lot of renters. And so people move in, they live there for a year or two and then they move out. And so it gets really hard to build traction over time without regional draw. Or then even I think about like Andy Addis’s who’s on our replant team, leads the rural strategies, his church Crosspoint, which does multi site, and kind of a, I don’t know of many others that have taken this strategy approach where Andy’s church is a rural church that they focus on, you know, churches in very small population rural communities where that population is never Probably ever going to be able to afford a pastor and so Yeah, they’ll have some bivocational guy for a little while, but sometimes that’s hard to get and so They end up, taking on that and really for a long I mean, I don’t know that there’s ever a plan for those to go autonomous I do see some viability in that as well

[00:15:34] Duston Slaton: yeah. And I really, I think that that’s an incredible opportunity to use multi site. I didn’t include it In the dissertation, because I had to cut it off somewhere, but I would love to see some research or even some examples of how. Churches out in rural West Texas, what you’re talking about, where you’ve got three communities within 30 minutes of one another, and each one of them is trying to have their first Baptist church of such and such town.

But like you said, they can’t afford a full time person. And you may not even be able to find somebody who is willing to go out there and work part time and And I know that some people will say, Oh, well, the church needs to raise up leaders. Well, sometimes it takes good, solid pastoral leadership to raise up those leaders.

But if there was one church, maybe that was a little, you know, Stronger or healthier or larger because it’s in the county seat or something like that. You could develop as a multi site strategy Those three churches connected together paying one full time staff member and almost doing like a circuit preacher kind of thing or you know developing a strategy by which these churches have Collectively gather together and are working together for the sake of the kingdom in that county or, something like that.

[00:16:46] JimBo Stewart: So even, let’s talk about leadership development for a minute. You know, how does the multi site model contribute to leadership development within the church? And maybe could you share some examples of how new leaders emerge, can emerge through this approach? Because I know some of the pushback is that idea of like, well, they just need to raise up leaders or they need to and, and are, are we stifling that?

leadership development opportunity when the larger church comes in and provides all of the leadership. And so talk to us a little bit about that perspective of multi site.

[00:17:20] Duston Slaton: Okay. Yeah. Some people, like, that’s one of the arguments is that multi-site church doesn’t develop new pastors or new preachers because you take your best preacher And broadcast them out. Well for one thing, I make the case that the best model is to have live preaching at every campus.

I don’t make the argument that that’s the only biblical model. I say that’s probably the best. And that’s just been, my experience as a campus pastor. Starting out as a purely video driven campus. And then moving after a few years to more of a hybrid version where it was kind of alternating each week.

You know, those folks, viewed me as their pastor, even though they loved seeing David Dykes on the screen. He was the senior pastor then, an incredible communicator of God’s word. I was glad I was getting to sit under his preaching instead of having to, do my own preaching every week.

But eventually I began to see that they wanted to see that local leadership really leading them visiting them in the hospitals and preaching on Sunday morning. So I think multisite church creates a unique opportunity to develop leadership because the multisite locations.

Become a place where you can train up your new leaders where you can develop them. Maybe they’re not quite ready to go be a senior pastor, which I wasn’t ready to go be a senior pastor when I went from youth ministry to be a campus pastor. But those six years there prepared me to be the senior pastor now.

And so that was really a training ground for me. for one, for God to, to show me that he was leading me into this, but then also to be able to learn from those who have more experience. And so that’s one of the things about multi site that I think really provide a great opportunity for a replanting church or a church that’s in need of replanting is that, you know, we have a tremendous amount of people with incredible skills.

It’s not just on our staff, but also in our volunteers in music ministry and student ministry and kids and all that kinds of stuff. And so a replant church, which might be able to afford a bivocational pastor if they could get somebody to come and serve as a bivocational pastor who had another job that they could afford to live.

in a very expensive area like we live in here just north of Austin. Well, we have people that we could say, Okay, part of this person’s job description now is going to be campus pasture. And he’s still going to have some responsibilities for the whole church, but he’s going to be campus pastor for this church until we get it replanted and going and everything.

And then we’ve got a, worship team here that we can have some of their leaders go over here on Sundays. We’ve got enough people to where we can kind of rotate that around. So now what you’ve got is you’ve got us developing multiple people who are able to lead worship.

We’re able to lead Bible studies. We’re able to preach. You’re actually creating more opportunities to develop those leaders so that if that church does get to where it’s ready to replant and relaunch and go out on its own, well, then we can say, and look, boom, you’re starting with a tremendous group of leaders who are already here, already invest in community.

They’re not having to move in, they’re ready to go. and so it just kind of, it creates a good, a good situation where it would be a lot harder. Yeah. And I’m sure you guys who have been in the replanting world and maybe worked with the local church have probably found this. It’s kind of a lot harder to say, Hey, here’s a church that just almost died.

And what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna throw some money at it. we want you to leave this church that’s healthy and that you love and that you’re invested in and go be a part of that church. That’s a harder sell. This is now us. This is us on another location and we’ve got our best leaders going there and we want you as one of our best members to go and be a part of that too.

But we’re all still in the same family. seems like that’d be a little bit easier sell and give you some opportunities to develop those leaders within that congregation.

[00:20:57] JimBo Stewart: What advice would you have for anybody that is you know, trying, so you say your, your hope that your church would get to the point that they’re doing some multi site. What advice do you have for somebody that’s trying to explore that as they lead

[00:21:09] Duston Slaton: I would just say, do a lot of research, do a lot of reading read the people that disagree with me. Jonathan Lehman’s book has a book that I would encourage, you know, encourage you guys to read. One Assembly. I would encourage, he’s got a great book there that talks about the reasons against multi site.

And his whole point there is that you should actually meet in one service, not just one church location, but one service. And so that’s a great book to read to check out. I feel my book is pretty good. So if people want to check that out, that’d be a good place to start. Look at what Tom Rainer and Sam Rainer are writing about church fostering and church adoption.

They’re kind of on the forefront of that fostering adoption conversation. And so they did a whole podcast January of last year that talked about adoption and fostering and if somebody was right for that. But I would just want to encourage people to really, to not just assume that multi site polity is wrong or it’s unbiblical.

And also, I mean, don’t just assume that it is biblical either, you know, do the research. But what I’ve found through my study is that we can trace examples of multisite ministry that weren’t called multisite, but they were multisite all the way back to the 1740s here in the United States.

States with Baptist churches doing that. I found some of our greatest Baptist leaders like john brought us and B. H. Carol and some of those others who were writing, who wrote and said, Specifically, like, if a church meets in multiple locations in a city or region, it can still be considered one church.

And so, this is something that’s been hinted at in Baptist polity, even going way back. So, I don’t want people to be afraid of it or to just assume that it doesn’t fit within the Southern Baptist context. And so, do your research and really just figure out if this works for them. Make sure that they feel called to do it.

They feel called that God is saying, yeah, I want you to take this church on or start a new campus here make sure it’s for the sake of the gospel and not just for the sake of having a bigger name, a bigger church.

[00:23:06] JimBo Stewart: That’s good. And I would encourage your book. I enjoyed reading it. I’m grateful for you doing the research that you did. Always love when a book

[00:23:13] Duston Slaton: Appreciate it.

[00:23:14] JimBo Stewart: research based and experience based rather than just theory.

And what are some ways that our listeners could be praying for you and for your ministry?

[00:23:25] Duston Slaton: Yeah, well you know, we’re down here just north of Austin, so we’re in a, kind of a, a, a, Interesting area to live in here in in the nation that probably one of the most liberal places In the south and so we get some opportunities to do some interesting ministry down here, which is fun But it can be challenging as well.

So just pray for that. And then we are intentionally seeking To plant some churches or bring on some campuses if that’s the way the lord leads Had a conversation with one of our convention leaders today about some churches in our area, which are really struggling. And he said that he was gonna mention maybe coming on board with us.

But specifically, we’ve got a city outside of Round Rock, about 30 minutes that were Samsung’s building, and there were thousands of people moving in to work in those plants, many of them from international places. And so we’re desperately seeking to Develop a strategy and a plan for planting a church out there And so that’s really one of the things that’s foremost on my prayer list right now.

[00:24:24] JimBo Stewart: Would you be willing to close us in prayer by just praying for those that are listening as they try to do the best they can with where they’re at?

[00:24:32] Duston Slaton: All right, sure Well, Lord, thank you so much for this opportunity to talk with Jimbo and thank you for the work that he does for NAMM and for churches replanting and all across the all across the country Well, I just know from talking with brothers who were in the trenches of replanting that is a it is a challenging challenging task it’s one that It’s often undersourced underfunded and understaffed.

But those men and women who were called to those churches to pastorate and to the ladies that are standing there beside their husbands who are serving in so many capacities and having to carry so much weight or for the kids that are maybe the only kids that are there on a Sunday morning because they’re just trying to lead and grow a struggling church.

We just pray for their health, pray for their mental and emotional health. We pray that you would give them encouragement in the form of that church member that is just always giving them a smile and a question. Pat on the back for encouragement from other brothers in their area of other churches who are just willing to come alongside them, Lord.

And we do pray, Lord, that as these churches are struggling and so many churches need pastors and leadership, that you would raise up men to lead them and to answer that call of pastoring, even if that’s not what they felt called to. Previously in life or the career that they chose that they would feel that call Well, I pray that we’d be able to resource them and encourage them as they do So God we want to do all this for your kingdom and for your glory for the sake of the gospel and for The hope of our world in the name of Jesus Christ as we just pray this in his name.

Amen