by John A. Gross
If the greatest deterrent to growth in a church is leadership, then a close second is structure. As a church begins to grow, most are structured to choke out the growth. When the body grows the structure must grow as well, or it will stunt the growth. What works for a church of 100 will not work for a church of 500. Most churches have used the same organizational structure for the life of the church, and they struggle to grow.1 The testimony of Sean Sears of Boston gives credence to this principle. He writes:
As a pastor, I’ve been blessed by the investment of many highly gifted and generous leaders. We believe that where we are now is a result of where others, by God’s grace, have pointed and pushed us. We also feel a responsibility to pass what we’re learning on to others.
Our family moved to Boston in August of 2001 to run the youth program at Boston Baptist College. It was too expensive to live in the city, so we bought a home in Stoughton, on the south side, and began involving ourselves in the community through the school system, sports little leagues, etc. Our neighbors knew we were Christians and asked us to talk to a distraught friend about God. That led to a Bible study which continued to grow until Ben Feldott and Cape Cod Church sent us out to launch Grace Church in November 2005.
The first four years were the hardest, as we had no “launch team” and no coaching. We did have two things going for us: a network of 54 BBFI churches praying for us and paying our way, and we were already friends with the people we were trying to reach. God blessed, and at the end of year four, we finally hit that magic number every planter chases — 100 people attending.
At the beginning of our fifth year, we found a few mentors who taught us to look for obstacles to disciple-making and who showed us how to remove many of those barriers. We started keeping stats, looking for spiritual trends, investing our resources more strategically, leveraging our connections intentionally, and streamlining our discipleship process and leadership pipeline.
God has allowed us to plant three other churches near us, we have moved into two consecutively larger facilities, and we have baptized hundreds of our friends. Today we help an average of 1,100 neighbors, friends, and family draw closer to God each week in four identical services. But we can’t stop or slow down. We are still in New England, where all six states are in the top ten least religious states of our country. Ninety-seven percent of our county is still disconnected from faith, and there are three more towns near us without a single Gospel-centered church.
We’re glad for everyone God has brought to faith in Jesus but we’re more focused on everyone else who still hasn’t even had a chance yet!
1 Thom S. Rainer, One Key Reason Most Churches Do Not Exceed 350 in Average Attendance, www.thomrainer.com, March 25, 2015