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Structuring Your Church to Grow and Not Plateau

How do you structure a church so it just keeps on growing and doesn’t plateau? I believe there are 10 essentials you must focus on as you structure your church.

You must develop an unshakable conviction about growth.

First and foremost, you need to settle on the idea that God wants his church to grow. And he doesn’t want it to stop growing!

You don’t ever need to apologize for wanting your church to grow. God wants his church to grow; it’s his will and his command. The reason churches must grow is because people are going to hell without Jesus Christ. As long as there is one person within driving distance of your church that does not know Jesus Christ, you must keep growing.

You must change the primary role of the pastor from minister to leader.

You can grow a church to 300 with pastoral skills or ministry skills, but growing beyond 300 will require leadership skills. As a leader, you must learn to communicate your vision in very personal and practical ways. You must also learn to motivate your church through your messages, and understand that it’s easier to motivate a group than it is to motivate individuals.

A leader also equips others for ministry. Otherwise, you’ll burn out and the church won’t grow. An expanding ministry also demands you learn how to raise money. Those who write the agenda must underwrite the agenda, and you must learn to manage your time. Effective leaders know where their time goes.

You must organize around the gifts of your people.

The team God gives you will show you how to structure. Organizing around the gifts of your people will allow the church to focus on ministry, not maintenance. A gifts-based ministry encourages teamwork. It also makes better use of the talent around you (and why do you think God brought this talent into your church?).

Building your structure on the gifts and talents within the church promotes creativity and allows for spontaneous growth. Ministries bubble up rather than waiting on a board meeting to dissect every possibility. And decision-making becomes more efficient while the structure grows more stable.

You must budget according to your purposes and priorities.

Obviously the budget of the church shows the priorities and the direction of the church. I’d suggest you take the budget items and ask of each item, “Which purpose does this fit under?” This will help your people visualize what you’re trying to do and what you’re doing with God’s money.