Do you realize that if your weekend attendance totals about 90 people, you’re an above average church (at least in the United States and when measuring by such numbers)?
If you’re wondering what you need to do to grow, here are eight steps that can help you break an attendance barrier:
1. Decide you really, really want to grow.
Believe it or not, the primary barrier to church growth is desire.
Do you really want to grow? If the answer is yes, then you must commit to this goal and be willing to accept changes.
And the people in your congregation must also be willing to accept changes.
The Bible says, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain” (John 12:24, NKJV). In order for a church to grow, some things have to die. Those who had intimacy with the pastor have to learn to share him with new people. They have to be willing to let go of the control they have in certain decisions and in certain areas.
It takes an incredible unselfishness. They must be willing to die to some traditions, to some feelings, to some relationships in order for the kingdom of God to be advanced. That takes a lot of maturity.
2. Your role as pastor must change.
Once you decide you want to grow, you’ll need to analyze your role as pastor. You must be willing to change from minister to leader.
If everything depends on you—if you have to personally minister to every person in your church—then the church cannot grow beyond your own energy level. And that is a barrier! You become a bottleneck, an obstacle to growth.
This is called the Shepherd-Rancher Conflict. As the pastor of a little church, you know everybody, you do all the praying, all the baptizing, all the teaching, you know every family, every kid, every dog and cat, and you shepherd everybody personally. But there’s a limit to how many people you can personally shepherd.
As the church grows, you must change roles from Shepherd to Rancher. The Rancher helps oversee the under-Shepherds. Practically everybody on my staff does more weddings and counseling than I do (in fact, I do very few now because I don’t want to show favoritism among our 20,000 members).
You must be willing to let other people share the ministry.
Ask yourself, “Would I be happy being a Rancher?” If you answer no, then I suggest you take on a goal that your church will sponsor new churches—so you’re still growing, but in a different way.
