by Carey Nieuwhof: So…you want your church to grow, right?

When I ask ministry leaders whether they want to see growth, almost every leader I’ve ever talked to says yes.

Sure…there are some house church movements that want to stay small. And some long time or xenophobic churches have lost their appetite for growth. And there are always a few people who think big = evil.

But most leaders want their churches to grow…and for good reasons most of the time. They want to reach people with the life-changing love and forgiveness of Christ.

That is awesome.

But most churches don’t grow.

And most churches that start small stay small.

Why?

 Almost Nobody Starts Big

Well, first of all, almost no church starts big. There are a few exceptions, like North Point.

But that’s the rare exception—almost all churches start small. Even mega churches most often start with 5 people meeting in a living room and grow from there.

Big doesn’t have to be the destination for everyone.

But clearly, if you want to reach your community, growth is a natural by-product of a mission being fulfilled.

I Don’t Want to Start Another Debate

Before we get to the main point, a qualifier. The last thing I want to do with this post is to start a debate on small church v. large church. We’ve had them before on other posts and keyboards have been set on fire on other blogs over this issue. No more, okay?

So, for the record:

There are lots of great small churches.

There are lots of great large churches.

There are some bad small churches.

There are some bad big churches.

There is no perfect or biblical number for church size.

No one can claim moral high ground in this discussion.

Can we agree on that? And even if you have different views, can we please not be disagreeable?

Once and for all, size doesn’t determine how significant your ministry is.

Rather, size becomes relevant only for those who are attempting to reach their community.

If you’re going to reach your community, you’re going to grow.

And if you’re going to grow, you have to figure out why certain things make a church grow and why certain things curtail growth.

Size doesn’t determine how significant your ministry is.Click To Tweet

5 Reasons Churches That Start Small Stay Small

For sure there are more than 5 reasons (I outline 8 related but different reasons why churches never grow past 200 here).

But just know there is no silver bullet.

Doing these 5 things is no guarantee your church will grow.

But the opposite is true.

If you don’t pay attention to these 5 factors, there is a very good chance your church won’t grow. At least not substantially or sustainably.

1. Big Hopes…But Small Strategy

There isn’t a single leader who’s planted a church (or started anything) who hasn’t had big hopes.

The challenge is that often those hopes have no strategy to back them up.

Or if they have a strategy, it’s a strategy that isn’t designed to take the community past 100 or 200 people.

You can’t operate as though you were a church of 500 when there are 50 in the room, but you have to plan for the day when there will be 500, not 50, in the room.

Some questions:

What’s your strategy to reach your community?

What’s your organizational chart look like at 50 people, 100, 200, 500, 1000?

How will your role change as your church grows?

How will your team change and develop as you grow?

What will you NOT do as you get bigger?

How will your structure change and adapt?

What will you DO as you get bigger?

Those are all strategy questions. And many leaders haven’t sat down with their team to answer them.

As a result, you start small and often stay small.

It doesn’t matter how big your dreams are.

Strategy trumps intention. And hope is not a strategy.

If you want to read more on the relationship between mission, vision, and strategy, read this.

It doesn’t matter how big your dreams are. Strategy trumps intention. And hope is not a strategy.Click To Tweet

2. Underfunding

I understand poorly funded ministries.

One of the churches I started at had a $4,000 annual budget. And no, I’m not making that up.

I also completely understand that vision always precedes resources and people. That’s a great thing. You should always have more vision than you have money and people.

But here’s what’s true: I’ve seen well-funded church plants flop and shoe-string plants thrive.

You can start on a shoestring, but often churches never make it past that.

Ultimately, if your church is going to thrive, it’s going to need the resources to accomplish all it can.

And that’s where most ministries languish.

You need to figure out how to raise money that goes beyond just paying the light bill.

I’ll share the single resource that has helped us the most.

If you want to develop a strategy to raise more money for everyday ministry, you might want to check out The Giving Rocket program. We’ve used it at Connexus we saw a 25% growth in regular giving in one year.

If you struggle with the idea that ministry should be adequately funded, take 18 minutes and watch this Ted talk by Dan Pallotta if you haven’t already. Although Dan doesn’t come at it from a Christian perspective, his angle is a huge paradigm shift for just about everyone. So good.

Regardless of how you tackle it, adequately funding your mission is critical for long-term health.

You can start a church on a shoe-string budget, but you’ll never thrive if you stay there.Click To Tweet

3. Pastors who do everything

For three years, I was the only staff member at our church.

Then we brought on two very part-time people, and I still ran nearly solo for 4 more years (7 in total) until we hired our first other full-time staff member.

There is a season in which the pastor does ‘everything.’ But that season will rarely get you past 200 people.

It got us to 300 people, but I almost burned out.  And it’s completely unsustainable.

To get sustainably past 200-300 people, I had to:

Stop most pastoral visitation, except for a small circle of people within my care.

Restrict the number of weddings and funerals I did.

Pull me off of almost every team in the church.

Stop leading Bible studies.

Stop doing much except communication, vision casting, and leading leaders.

Who did all the other ministry? People. Some staff, but mainly volunteers.

Delegating and empowering people around a common mission, vision and strategy releases the ministry to people who are gifted, called and equipped to lead that ministry.

When you release ministry, it’s liberating for everyone. It’s the way the church is designed to run.

And remember this: Pastors who do everything eventually end up leading no one. Why? Because too often they burn out, and they get taken out.

Pastors who do everything eventually end up leading no one.Click To Tweet

4. No plans for anything bigger

Many leaders are currently leading the biggest church they’ve ever attended been a part of, right now.  So how do you plan for anything bigger when you haven’t experienced anything bigger?

That’s true if you’re part of a church of 100 people or 1,000.

Even when I led a church of 6 people, I had not actually led a church that was bigger than that (it was my first assignment as a student).

But just because you haven’t led more doesn’t mean you shouldn’t plan for more.

Here are some keys to crossing the 200, 400 and 800 barriers.

Plan today for what you want to be a part of tomorrow.

Plan today for what you want to be part of tomorrow.Click To Tweet

5. A selfish drift inward

This is actually an issue for a large number of churches, both church plants and existing churches.

Even when you start a church from scratch, it tends to be led, populated and funded by members.

And so it’s completely easy and natural to lose focus on the people you’re trying to reach.

And because self-centeredness is a natural pull for all of us (at least it is for me), unless we have a white-hot searing mission in front of us, church can quickly become about satisfying our needs, our wants, our preferences and our desires.

And that fuels a spiral in which congregational or organizational life can become about satisfying the competing preferences of members.

Some want it this way. Some want it that way. And people threaten to leave.

Let that go unchecked and soon you find yourself focused on the people you’re trying to keep, not the people you’re trying to reach.

The casualty in all of this? The very people you were hoping to reach.

The first casualty in an insider-focused church? The people you’re trying to reach.Click To Tweet

The only way to check this that I know of is to prayerfully keep the unreached front and center in all your discussions and your actions.

In your off time (and maybe in your work hours) hang out with the people you’re trying to reach.

Invite them. Regularly.

Speak for them when they’re not in the room and you’re trying to make a decision.

Budget and staff with them in mind.

Plan every Sunday like it’s someone’s first Sunday, even if right now, it might not be.

If you keep this front and center, you will resist the trap that so many churches and organizations fall into; the selfish drift inward.

Plan every Sunday like it will be someone’s first Sunday.Click To Tweet

Push Past The Plateau

So you would love to reach more people, but how? Your church just can’t seem to sustainably grow past the 200 barrier. And you’re really not sure why.

There’s a brand new online course that can help you called Breaking 200 Without Breaking You.

It’s designed to help senior pastors, their boards and leadership team break through the barrier 85% of churches never move past: the 200 attendance barrier.

So many leaders who try to break it either get stuck at 150-250 in attendance or burned out in the process of trying.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Believe it or not, the reasons most churches never break 200 aren’t spiritual reasons, they’re practical reasons. Strategic reasons.

The course tackles eight key issues that keep churches from passing the 200 barrier and beyond. It includes:

8 videos designed to guide you and your leadership team through all the key growth barriers smaller churches face.
150-page downloadable workbook for you and your team.
12 licenses, so you can take your entire team through it—board, staff, key volunteers—whoever you want (that’s about $20 a person).
A bonus cheat sheet with access to 20 free resources designed to take you further.
A private Breaking 200 Facebook Group access exclusive to the first 1000 purchasers.

So whether your church is 50, 150 or 250 in attendance, the principles will help you gain the insight you need to break the barrier more than 85% of churches can’t break.

Click here to gain instant access.

What About You?

These are some reasons I’ve noticed why some churches that start small stay small, despite intentions that would move them elsewhere.

What have you seen?

Leave a comment!

The post Why Most Churches That Start Small…Stay Small appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: Why Most Churches That Start Small…Stay Small

The post Why Most Churches That Start Small…Stay Small appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Carey Nieuwhof: At some point, almost every church gets stuck. If yours isn’t stuck right now, just wait a while. Every church and organization gets stuck at some point.

Usually, churches get stuck because what was working stopped working,

When that happens, leaders aren’t sure what to do.

While figuring that out is complex (and a frequent subject of many posts on this blog), trying to find a solution is difficult if you’re looking in the wrong place.

It’s easy to think that churches are prone to get stuck in the past. And that’s true. If there’s a trend, it’s almost always toward the past in many churches.

After all, the past has a nostalgia the future never does.

And yet, some churches also get stuck in the present, and in the future (as strange as that sounds). That may be exactly where your church is stuck, without you realizing it.

Here are three dynamics that all leaders have to wrestle down when their church (or any organization for that matter) is stuck.

The past has a nostalgia the future never does.Click To Tweet

1. Stuck in the Past

The older your church is, or the more successful your church was at some point, the more likely it is some of your leaders will get stuck in the past.

When a church gets stuck in the past, you hear voice after voice saying let’s go back to the way it was.

The problem, of course, is that you can’t go back to the way it was. The past died long ago.

What worked then worked because the conditions were right then. And those conditions changed some time ago.

This isn’t just a traditional church thing. Church plants that have hit a plateau or decline will long for the good old days too. Remember 2016, when everything was up and to the right?

There’s a world of difference between learning from the past and living in the past.

There’s a world of difference between learning from the past and living in the past.Click To Tweet

It’s great to isolate the principles from the past that worked and try to apply them (or abandon them) in light of today’s conditions.

But it’s foolish to keep trying to re-create the past. It’s gone.

If God wanted you to keep ministering in 1995 or 2016, he would have left you there.

But he didn’t. So move on.

Churches that live in the past never have much of a future.

Churches that live in the past never have much of a future.Click To Tweet

2. Signs You’re Stuck in the Future

Stuck in the future? I know, that doesn’t even sound possible, but it is.

Here’s how it happens.

You get stuck in the future when a visionary leader tries to move forward without any clear, coherent or cogent plan.

It happens innocently enough.

Many leaders get excited about what could be. Maybe he read five new books. Or she listens to podcasts about organizations that have crushed their goals. Or he’s been to so many conferences he’s lost count.

The talk is always about what could be, what should be and what might be, but there’s zero plan to get anyone there.

A vision without a plan isn’t a dream. It’s a nightmare.

A vision without a plan isn’t a dream. It’s a nightmare.Click To Tweet

The vision eventually dangles in front of people so often that no one believes it anymore.

As a leader, you eventually become the parent who constantly promises the kids a trip to Disney but never takes them.

Focusing on the future becomes a way to avoid dealing with the present. Which is why many leaders love to live in the future; then they don’t have to deal with anything.

Focusing on the future becomes a way to avoid dealing with the present.Click To Tweet

3. Stuck in the Present

Just like you can get stuck in the past and in the future, you can also get stuck in the present.

How does that happen?

It’s not that difficult.

Leaders who get stuck in the present usually have no learnings from the past or vision for the future.

One sure sign you’re stuck in the present is that there are no next steps to move you forward.

You’re not trying anything, not experimenting. You’re probably not even diagnosing.

You just are.

As a result, week after week you do the same thing only to discover diminishing returns.

And you don’t even take the time to discuss why it’s not working anymore, why the mission is dying on your watch.

That’s how you get stuck in the present.

Leaders who get stuck in the present have no learnings from the past or vision for the future.Click To Tweet

Next Steps

So how do you get past stuck?

Learn from the past. Imagine a better future. And create a plan.

It’s easier to say than to do, but almost all effective leadership hinges on doing those three well.

Most organizations will tilt toward being stuck in the past or living in the future, but on their own, neither is healthy.

So glean lessons from the past, envision a better future, and make a plan to get there.

That will help you get past stuck.

Get Past Stuck

If you want some deeper insight into how to help your church grow and move into the future, my book Lasting Impact: 7 Powerful Conversations That Will Help Your Church Grow may help.

I also created a Lasting Impact Team Edition video series to help pastors and their teams walk through the issues that are keeping a lot of churches from healthy growth. It’s a companion to the book, and I walk your team through all the key concepts in the book in eight 25 minute sessions. The book and Team Edition come complete with discussion questions. It’s a done-for-you-resource.

You can get the Team Edition here, and the book here.

What Do You See?

How have you experienced being stuck? Which form best describes your situation?

Scroll down and leave a comment!

The post 3 Ways Almost Every Church Gets Stuck appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: 3 Ways Almost Every Church Gets Stuck

The post 3 Ways Almost Every Church Gets Stuck appeared first on Passion for Planting.