5 Things Pastors Need To Know About Breaking Growth Barriers

Jeff Maness is the Founding and Lead Pastor of Element Church in Cheyenne, WY.  The church, now nine years old, runs 1,500 in weekend attendance.  Jeff is an expert in growing a relevant church.  Recently, he shared a five items all pastors should know about breaking growth barriers.

Change Your Perspective

1. “With every barrier busted it brings a new burden to bear.”
2. “If you’re not prepared for the burdens of growing, it can keep you from going to the next level. One of the reasons churches stop growing is they are not willing to bear those burdens.”
3. “The Relational Burden Of Growing – who is on your team and how will they function on your team as you grow?”
4. “My role as the lead pastor on our team had to change if we were going to grow.”
5. “My team needed to be used to invest in executive leaders and some high-capacity volunteers.”

I would also like to share some additional items about church growth I learned from my mentor John Maxwell.  John used to say, “With every new level comes a new devil.”  He used to teach us that the higher you go in your leadership the less options you have.

In other words, the higher you go in influence and responsibility, the following are things you lose:

• There are some places you can longer go.
• There are some movies you can longer see.
• There are some conversations you can longer have.
• There are certain things you can no longer wear.
• There are some people you can no longer meet with.
• There are some weddings you can no longer do.
• There are things you sometimes have to give up – like having a meal at a restaurant with your family and not having people wanting to talk to you.

This is not about legalism or becoming a people pleaser.  This is about stewarding the precious gift called influence.

If you are a leader, you know the value of influence.  It is a sacred thing and should be handled with the greatest of care.  It is not something to be flippantly thrown around.  Because when you lose influence, you many never get it back to the level it once was.

On Thursday October 13th, INJOY Stewardship Solutions is hosting an online event entitled, “How To Overcome The Challenges Of Leading A Growing Church”.  You will able to learn church growth lessons from experience pastors like Shawn Lovejoy, Marty Schmidt, Josh Pennington, Mike Linch and Jeff Maness himself.  Click HERE or on the images provided to sign up.