4. Growing churches ruthlessly stop doing unproductive ministries.
When is the last time you brought about a necessary ending to an unproductive ministry? When is the last time you killed a golden calf?
Rao notes, “If you are getting big, before you add a new meeting, figure out which meeting you can kill. Before you put in a new rule, see which rule you can kill.” This is simply good stewardship. Rao goes on, “Subtraction is very important because in an overloaded organization, when you subtract, it is giving a gift.”
Give your church a gift this week. Go ahead and kill a ministry that needs to die.
5. Growing churches identify, spotlight and leverage their top producers.
Cascading is a term that is used when someone in your church is already doing something right. Effective church leaders identify and release staff and volunteers who cascade and create positive catalytic activity.
These “catalysts” will grow your ministry and make your life easier. They free you up to focus on only what you can do as a senior leader. Kaaren Hanson, vice president of software design company Intuit, sums it up well when she says, ”The way you know you’ve succeeded is to ask yourself, ‘If I stopped putting energy into this, would it continue to go well?’”
6. Growing churches not only embrace but foster change.
Warren said in his Ted Talk, “When the speed of change around an organization is faster than the speed of change within the organization, the organization becomes irrelevant.” Fast-growing churches understand change is their constant companion. Rao concludes, ”With fast growth, the rate of change is phenomenal.”
7. Growing churches celebrate.
Sutton asks a final question, “In the end you have to ask: ‘Are we happy living in the world we’ve built?”‘
Pastors and church leaders, I leave you with two final questions: While you may have grown numerically, is Jesus happy with the church that has been built?
If not, what changes do you need to make?
