Study: 1,800 multisite churches now run campuses across nearly every state

The church down the street may share a pastor — via video screen — with congregations across the country. A new study has found that roughly 1,800 multisite churches operate campuses nationwide, present in nearly every state.

The study offers a recent count of a model that has become a staple of American Protestant life. Many new locations are launched not by planting a congregation from zero, but by merging with an existing — often struggling — church. The absorbing congregation brings its brand, leadership structure, and typically a central preaching model, while the acquired church provides a building and a remnant community.

The multisite model — one congregation meeting at multiple physical locations, often with centralized preaching delivered by video and shared leadership — traces its origins to a handful of large evangelical churches in the 1990s. What began as a workaround for megachurches that had outgrown their buildings has since become a mainstream and scalable growth strategy, according to reporting by churchplants.com.

The numbers position multisite not as a niche experiment but as a dominant organizational form among growing and large Protestant congregations. Some broader estimates cited in earlier research have suggested even higher totals than the 1,800 figure, though the new study represents a recent available count.

The franchise comparison is deliberate: a central hub sets doctrine, style, and often supplies the preaching face on screen, while individual campuses handle local pastoral care and community. Critics of the model have questioned whether a video-streamed sermon can substitute for an embedded local pastor; proponents argue it lets proven teaching reach far more people than a single building ever could.

Why it matters — With 6,000 campuses in nearly every state and 5 million attendees, the multisite model has fundamentally changed how millions of Americans experience church — and how congregations grow, merge, and survive.

Reported by religionnews.com, churchplants.com, theunstuckgroup.com