Church Partnerships: Hub and Spoke Model
In the Michigan District, Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) podcast episode, "Church Partnerships – Part 6: Hub-and-Spoke Model," Reverend Randy Johnson discusses the hub-and-spoke model as an innovative approach to church partnerships.
This model involves a central "hub" church collaborating with multiple "spoke" churches or ministries, enabling resource sharing, coordinated efforts, and mutual support. Rev. Johnson says the hub-and-spoke structure allows for efficient distribution of resources, such as leadership, training, and administrative support, from the hub to the spokes, fostering a network that enhances the collective mission.
Rev. Johnson emphasizes that this model can be adapted by churches of various sizes to strengthen their outreach and community impact. Also, by embracing the hub-and-spoke model, congregations can maintain their unique identities while benefiting from shared resources and unified strategies, ultimately enhancing their ability to serve their communities and fulfill their mission.
Listen here.
Read A Transcript of the Episode Here
Hi, I'm Jeff Heisen with the Michigan district, and welcome to the podcast. Today, we're talking with Randy Johnson, the director of the district facilitators and the facilitator for the West region, and we want to talk to you about some different models that we might use in the church and how they're kind of set up. But before we get into that, remind us about those district facilitators and how you can help congregations. Yeah, district facilitators are designed to assist congregations in all their mission and ministry that can be anywhere from helping them to find strategic planning for their future to the call process that we help with congregations and pastors leave also, we help with many in very good partnerships in congregations, setting up dual parishes, tri parishes, and other ways of serving their communities.
So when should someone reach out to you and who reaches out to you?
It should be someone from the leadership of the congregation, whether that's a pastor or the leadership that's there prior, if they don't have a pastor, but they should reach out sooner rather than later. Sometimes they wait too long to reach out to us, and we have a really difficult time of trying to help them to get in moving forward.
Ah, very cool. All right, so now let's kind of dive into some of the work that you've been doing right now in the Michigan district, and we're kind of talking about a hub and spoke model. But before we get into what that is, let's start with the why this model is important.
Well, one of the things that's happening in congregations more and more is the loss of their pastor to another congregation, and they're starting to get smaller and smaller congregations, and they do not have the financial wherewithal to call another pastor after their pastor leaves. And therefore we have to find ways to assist these congregations to still do ministry within their community, and some of the ways we're doing that is by finding ways to partner together. And also, one of the ways that we're looking to try to do is called the hub and spoke model. All right, let's dive in. What is the hub and spoke model? If you can kind of give us that idea, and, well, hey, we've got some stuff there that can, can kind of show you a little bit more visually about what it is. Yeah, COVID spoke is is kind of a model where there's a hub church that's in the center of the hub, and it's one that's more financially grounded. It's doing better than probably the other surrounding congregations. It has a good grasp of what's ministry is going on. This particular church is now wanting to also assist the other congregations around them that are maybe struggling a little bit, but either lack of a pastor or lack of financial wherewithal to call a pastor. So we're trying to find a way to make one of each one of these churches I spoke hopefully, between three to five congregations working together to with the hub in a way that will allow the wheel to turn, which, in other words, to move forward, to make and reach out into the community, to touch lives and to make a difference in their community for the kingdom of God.
So why don't you explain a little bit about what that pastor's responsibility might be.
Well, the pastor responsibility will be at the hub. Congregation will be the there will be like a senior pastor, and perhaps a an associate pastor will be called specifically to assist the congregations around the hub. Now this he will also have some responsibility within the hub congregation, but his main responsibility will be to serve the congregations around him that they're trying to help and to grow. Now, one of the ways that this works is that he may spend one Sunday at each one of the congregations, depending on how many congregations they have, where he is preaching there and giving the sacraments, and then on other holiday or other Sundays, he may not be there. There may be another way of serving the community in a ministry setting, either via video service or through a elder or someone else reading a sermon, perhaps, and walking through that congregation, through that ministry, that particular Sunday.
And then what we're hoping for is that this will serve these congregations in a way that allows them to continue to grow and thrive, and hopefully in a way that will allow them to be a more dynamic congregation in their community. So when we're thinking about this for both the hub and then the spokes, are there different responsibilities for the congregations and the laity involved in that?
Yeah, the in the in the spokes, your your laity is going to need to step up and do a little.
More of the functions of the church, because the pastor will not be there all the time. He may be serving you on Sunday and maybe one or two days during the week, coming there to facilitate, maybe Bible studies or work within the congregation. But other than that, he's going to be working at another congregation, and that will cause him to need to step forward and do a little more work within the congregation on their own to continue to work in their community.
How do you kind of identify how this process will work and who would be a good fit for the hub and spoke model?
What you're looking for is hopefully a fairly close geographic churches that and they don't have to be on top of each other, but they need to be fairly close. And what you're looking for is a congregation that for the hub congregation, one that's stable, that's working in their community, that's doing the right things, that will allow them to be the the congregation that is allowed to call another pastor, then to assist these other congregations. And the nice thing about this is it leaves each congregation still with their own governance. They're not going to be merged into and they're going to be taken over. It's something that's going to allow them to be a part of this hub and spoke ministry, but at the same time, still be their own individual church and do things in their community that fit their community, that may not fit the hub model, but you also be a dynamic. Thing about is, is that the hub can also be a resource for them. They can take and bring stuff to them that they couldn't afford via otherwise, because when you're buying it for two or three churches, or even five churches, you're going to get discounts. You're going to have be able to use it between all the congregations. Gonna be a very good, supportive way for trust, for people to to use the the resources that they have. Why don't you talk about the partnerships that we're seeing in the churches around the Michigan district, in in how maybe this could be that next step into, you know, maybe the plan for continuing, you know, we've seen the numbers. It's the LCMS is not growing, right? But this could be a chance to change maybe some of that, right, yeah, yeah. Some of the partnerships that are occurring is, is between congregations where they may only have one or two confirmation, confirmands, and then all sudden they decide, well, if we take these three geographically fairly close congregations and we put all of our conferments together, now you have a much more larger group of students. And this also allows the pastors to preach or teach these compliments only, maybe once every three weeks or every couple weeks. And therefore they're also getting a broader sense of of who Christian Lutheranism is for these Congress, for these students, but it also gives these students now more people to get to know and also do things with which, in turn, will allow say, like some of the larger things that we do, the Lutheran youth gathering here in Michigan, but also the National Youth Gathering, they're going to have a more dynamic group of kids to go with, because they're they're they know more kids, and makes the learning process a little easier too. Whether rather than one on one, it's it's now you're learning together with group. There's also congregations that are now starting multi site Bible studies, where the Bible study meets at each congregation differently, and the pastor at that congregation teaches that Bible study, and it continues around kind of raw and Robin thing, and instead of maybe just a few at each congregation, now you have many people meeting together and learning together, which also allows them, hopefully, a broader outreach into the community as well.
Yeah, in talking to a lot of these churches who are are working with these partnerships in other churches, it's been pretty cool to see and to hear about some of the stories. And I imagine that that you're really encouraged to hear some of those stories that that you find out there, whether it's on the west side, the east side, up north, wherever it may be, yeah, yeah. It's really, it's really fun to listen to these people enjoying being in fellowship with one another and really starting to learn deeper into the scriptures, deeper into their faith, and in turn, they have more of a sense of being a disciple and reaching out into the community because of that dynamic change. Yeah, great point, Randy. Check the show notes. We're going to have much more information, including the entire PowerPoint on the hub and spoke model. We'll have much more on partnerships as well, and also ways that you can reach out to the district facilitators and reach out to Randy himself. Randy, we want to thank you so much.