From One to Many: What We Learned About Church Communications as We Multiplied Campuses
Going from one campus to two felt like jumping into the deep end.
Adding a third? That’s when it hit us—we couldn’t “wing it” anymore.
Communication in a single-campus church already has its own complexity. But once you multiply, it’s not just a scaling problem—it’s a systems problem. What worked when everything lived under one roof starts to break down fast. Things get dropped. Stories get siloed. Social media becomes a guessing game. And the central team? They start to feel like the 911 dispatcher for everything.
We learned a lot as we moved from one to many, and honestly—some of it the hard way. Here’s what we wish we knew earlier, and what’s working now that might help you too.
1. Decide What’s Central and What’s Campus-Owned (Early)
The biggest mistake we made? Not defining this clearly from the start.
When everything was still fresh, we assumed everyone just knew who was responsible for what. Spoiler: they didn’t. And we don’t blame them—we hadn’t done the work to spell it out.
So we drew a line in the sand:
What lives with the central communications team?
- Church-wide announcements
- Series branding and artwork
- Social media strategy and account management
- Website content
What can campuses own?
- Campus-specific events
- Sunday slides (with templates)
- Local community outreach promotions
- Stories and testimonies collection
This clear division gave us structure and empowered campus leaders to communicate confidently, knowing where their lane was.
2. Build Your Infrastructure Before You Multiply
If you’re planning to launch another campus—don’t wait to create the tools. Do it now.
We built:
- A brand guide that covered more than just fonts and colors. It included tone of voice, language we use (and don’t), and visual examples.
- Templates for slides, social posts, emails, and campus event promotion.
- A set of training docs and videos to onboard new campus staff or volunteers.
And maybe the most valuable piece? We got serious about our church communications software. We needed something that could help us plan, schedule, and share announcements across all campuses—without 37 Slack threads and missed emails.
3. Don’t Let the Gold Fall Through the Cracks—Create a Cross-Campus Storytelling System
We were missing so much good stuff.
God was doing incredible things at each campus, but because we didn’t have a consistent way to capture and share those stories, they often died in text threads or casual Monday morning mentions.
So we built a system:
- A shared “wins” form that campus leaders fill out weekly
- A monthly comms call with each campus point person
- A Slack channel just for testimonies and Sunday recaps
Now, our central team can spotlight campus stories across platforms—email, social, video, even stage moments. It’s helping our church see the bigger picture of what God is doing through all of us. It’s also strengthened our storytelling for churches across every touchpoint.
4. Sort Out Social Strategy Before It Gets Messy
Social media can turn into the Wild West if you don’t set some boundaries early on.
Here’s what we had to decide:
Should each campus have its own account?
We debated this a lot.
Pros: Local relevance, community feel
Cons: Brand dilution, harder to manage, potential inconsistency
What we landed on: One central Facebook Page and Instagram account, with private campus Facebook Groups for local engagement.
We also:
- Defined who had access to each platform
- Wrote a basic style guide (do’s and don’ts for tone, hashtags, photo quality, etc.)
- Trained volunteers and point people on how to use Stories, schedule posts, and engage well online
5. Build a System for Sharing and Storing Content
If you have people taking great photos at campuses—but no place to store or find them—it’s basically useless.
We made this mistake. Weekend photos would get taken and… vanish.
So we created a shared cloud drive and a simple tagging system:
- Each campus has a folder for photos, graphics, and event assets
- We have “Series Art” and “Event Promo” folders that all campuses can pull from
- Point people and key volunteers have access and clear instructions on how to upload and download
This system supports our larger church media strategy and helps maintain quality across all campuses.
6. One Central Team, Local Point People, and Empowered Volunteers
You can’t build a mini comms team at every campus. But you can empower someone to own what’s theirs—and use volunteers to multiply your reach.
Our model:
- A strong central communications team that creates strategy, manages platforms, and oversees quality
- One point person per campus (even if it’s not their full-time job) to handle things like submitting announcements, collecting stories, and managing slides
- Volunteer teams for photos, social content, and video capture
We trained our point people like they were part of the comms team—even if their title was “Kids Director” or “Associate Pastor.” And we recruited volunteers who were already taking photos on their phones every Sunday, and gave them vision and tools to serve with intention.
7. Communication Is Ministry
This isn’t just about logistics. It’s about culture.
When we nailed our communication structure, it didn’t just make things run smoother—it created alignment. Our campuses felt more connected. Our staff felt less stressed. And our people got a clearer, more unified view of who we are as a church.
One voice, many expressions.
If you’re stepping into multi-campus life, my advice? Don’t just plan your logistics. Plan your communication. Use tools for organizing church announcements and create systems that empower both central and campus teams.
Want a Simpler Way to Manage Communications Across Campuses?
That’s exactly why we use Communicate—a purpose-built tool for churches navigating the complexity of announcements, calendars, and cross-campus coordination.
You can:
- Centralize your church communications calendar
- Assign announcement items to campuses or global
- Share assets in one click
- Reduce the “Who’s doing what?” chaos
If you’re tired of things falling through the cracks, Communicate is the tool we wish we had before we multiplied.
