Wall Street Journal, God Inc.—Church Startups Spread Franchise Model Across U.S.:
Aaron Burke launched Radiant Church a decade ago in a rundown movie theater in Tampa, Fla., offering a model of Christianity increasingly popular among America’s faithful.
The church leans conservative on matters of gender and sexuality, and its services feature a Pentecostal-style exuberance with high-energy bands and entertaining sermons. Radiant drew fewer than 200 guests in the early days. It now averages nearly 8,000 in nine church locations.
Burke, a pastor ordained in the Pentecostal Assemblies of God, started his church with more than faith. He sold a thrift store in Pensacola, Fla., and raised other funds, including $30,000 from the Association of Related Churches, a franchise-style church network known as ARC.
ARC functions as a startup accelerator, providing money and mentoring in exchange for a continuing cut of church revenues that it invests in opening new churches.
Similar entrepreneurial networks are sprouting new, largely nondenominational places of worship at a time when many traditional church congregations are shrinking. The new churches are opening across the U.S., from urban centers to suburbs, red states and blue, as well as abroad. The “church-planting” networks, established as nonprofit organizations, deploy marketing, branding and social-media strategies akin to other franchise businesses. …
ARC has started 1,114 churches in the U.S. and abroad since 2001, including 40 last year. Average attendance on launch day was about 500 people in the first quarter this year, the organization said. Another church-startup network, Acts 29, currently has 644 churches, mostly in the U.S., as well as in Italy, Mexico and Thailand.
Officials at the church-startup networks say traditional Christian evangelism could use a boost. “Church planting is pioneering something new, for the sake of communicating these unchanging truths of the good news of Jesus,” said Adam Flynt, vice president of church planting at Acts 29.
Catholic, evangelical and mainline Protestant churches in the U.S. are losing membership, in part because more young people shun religious affiliation, studies show. Two decades ago, 42% of American adults attended religious services every week or nearly every week, Gallup polling found. Now, it is 30%. As a result, thousands of churches close each year.
The networks take a fresh approach. “It’s almost like a Silicon Valley venture capitalist model of church growth,” said Ryan Burge, an associate professor at Eastern Illinois University who specializes in religion and politics.
That anti-institutional character of these new congregations fits the current mood in much of the U.S., Burge said: “By every measure, it has been incredibly successful.” …
Radiant took in nearly $18 million last year in tithes and special offerings. It paid $248,000 to ARC and individual church startups. Radiant spent $3.4 million for its expansion, $6.2 million on operations and $5.7 million for personnel. …
Churches like Radiant were what ARC’s founders had in mind when they formed their organization 23 years ago. Executive director Dino Rizzo said they started slowly. By 2009, they were launching an average of 50 new churches a year. The network, based in Birmingham, Ala., invested more than $7 million in opening new churches last year.
As religious nonprofits, the networks are exempt from requirements to file annual returns to the Internal Revenue Service. ARC said it had $16.8 million in revenue during 2022, the most recent year it has released figures; $3.1 million of that went to administrative costs and $13.6 million paid for program expenses, including conferences and training.
ARC provides church founders with as much as $100,000 in matching funds as a no-interest loan. The arrangement calls for the church, if it succeeds, to pay a portion of its annual revenue to ARC. About 90% of its new churches are still operating after five years, network officials said.
Those aspiring to open new churches with network help are generally married couples, according to ARC, which provides training. At a recent two-day session in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., speakers advised the audience to brace for an arduous challenge. …
At Acts 29, based in Mission Viejo, Calif., pastors interested in starting their own churches first submit an inquiry online. The formal application requires sermon samples and theological reflections. Next is a two-day retreat, where applicants are assessed by experienced church founders.
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