Does multi-siting dilute the church?

It's all the rage...multi-site churches. You have a main campus with satellite campuses spread around the city, state or even the country. Many, many churches are doing it. The latest campus of the Oklahoma-based Life Church is Albany, NY. Also Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX recently launched a new campus in Miami, FL. One could say this trend is the equivalent of franchising a successful church or is it?

I was reading an article about Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor, MI and the decisions they made to make them the coolest small company in America. They made intentional decisions to avoid the lucrative model of franchising, instead choosing to pioneer a new vision for small businesses...a community of businesses. They had a vision in 1994 to have 12 to 15 separate businesses by 2009. Each would have the badge Zingerman's but would have its own niche and identity. Each company would have a manager/owner and they didn't even have to be limited to the food-service industry.

"We wanted the passion. We wanted people who had visions of their own. Otherwise, whatever we did would be mediocre, and the whole idea was to elevate the quality of each element of the company." - Ari Weinzweig

The article goes on to talk about the incredible success of their vision. Moving from 1 business in 1994 to 8 currently. They average one new business every 18 months. They went from employing 125 to over 545 now as well as moving profit from $6 million to over $30 million. And now Zingerman is looking again to the future...

OK...How does this all have anything to do with the church and its multi-siting rage? I see the Zingerman's vision for their company as inspirational to the church. How can we expand our influence and scope without sacrificing the uniqueness that attracted people in our community the first time? Are we creating mediocre _______ (place your church name here) clones instead of creating pioneering places with dynamic visions? Or are we creating a community of churches sharing vision but having their own niche and identity? No tidy answer here for now but a provoking example for us to use as food for thought (pun intended).

“Our goal in 2020 is to leave our world better than it was when we came here,”Weinzweig said.

(Thanks Brand Autopsy for the catalyst)