{"id":79228,"date":"2023-12-04T15:24:49","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T21:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/?p=79228"},"modified":"2023-12-04T15:24:49","modified_gmt":"2023-12-04T21:24:49","slug":"7-big-barriers-to-church-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/7-big-barriers-to-church-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Big Barriers to Church Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">7 Big Barriers to Church Growth<\/span><\/h1>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">By\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mesoamericaregion.us4.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=03e55b045b4b2d81fc3a5a85b&amp;id=be221f3206&amp;e=1e0613ef18\">Dan Reiland<\/a><\/h4>\n<p>One of the top issues in the local church over the last 30 plus years addresses the question, \u201cHow do I grow my church?\u201d How can we break through to reach more people for Jesus?<\/p>\n<p>The words change, but the issue remains the same. Years ago, we called them growth barriers, and now the question sounds more like \u201cHow do I get unstuck? How can we get unstuck to reach more people?<\/p>\n<p>There was about a decade when we switched from\u00a0<em>church growth<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0<em>church health<\/em>, and that\u2019s good, but it always comes back to growth. Jesus instructed us to reach the world.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How do we disciple our congregations in the development of their faith so that the church becomes stronger? And in that strength, reach more people.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>How do we become the salt and light we need and want to be?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There is nothing new under the sun, right? But it\u2019s up to us to remain fresh, relevant and innovate our way forward for the sake of the Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>With that as context, here are some practical thoughts for today.<\/p>\n<h2>Seven Big Barriers:<\/h2>\n<p><em><strong>(with insights for growth)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<h3>1) Diminished faith<\/h3>\n<p>It\u2019s possible for church leaders to stop believing. I\u2019m not referring to faith in Jesus, but the potential for a pastor, staff member or key leader to lose faith that their church will ever work. How does that happen?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s all too common that a leader can lose heart and slide into discouragement. This is the enemy\u2019s strategy!\u00a0Discouragement is the breeding ground for complacency and maintenance. As a leader, it\u2019s possible to remain faithful, but without any fire.<\/p>\n<p>Vision is then lost. Whether the senior pastor, a children\u2019s staff member, or a small group leader, etc., when the leader loses vision, it\u2019s not long before growth slows or stops.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re discouraged, fight for your faith. Fight to believe again. Get some time with someone who believes in you. Borrow their faith in you. Reflect back on when you believed in yourself, and remember that God is with you.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s His Church, it\u2019s His idea, and what you\u2019re doing matters.<\/p>\n<h3>2) Ministry over Strategy<\/h3>\n<p>Those of us who lead in the local church are in it to see life change for the people we serve. Therefore, serving people for their spiritual growth is a priority, it\u2019s what we do. But doing ministry for the sake of ministry can be a colossal waste of time if it\u2019s not strategic.<\/p>\n<p>The goal of ministry is not to be busy; it\u2019s to realize a Kingdom productivity that results in changed lives for eternity. For too many years I\u2019ve watched church pastors, staff and volunteer leaders exhaust themselves with little results.<\/p>\n<p>The selection of your ministries must be strategic, not random. Your ministries should be lean and on purpose, not merely at the whim of anyone\u2019s ideas. Alignment as a team is essential.<\/p>\n<p>Ministry is your heart and passion, but a strategy is what makes your dream come true. (And we know strategy without God\u2019s power doesn\u2019t work.)<\/p>\n<h3>\n3) Inward focused<\/h3>\n<p>Inward focus is like a subtle bear trap. Of course, there is nothing subtle about a bear trap, except that it\u2019s hidden. It\u2019s not obvious. But when you realize you are caught in one, you then know you\u2019re in big trouble.<\/p>\n<p>No church starts out inward focused. A church turns inward from a good thing gone bad. Community, love, care, discipleship, family, etc., these are all great things and part of the healthy and functioning body of Christ. Until essentially, they become the sole focus of the church.<\/p>\n<p>The result is evangelism drops off, programming becomes all about what the Christians want for themselves, and the worship service begins to cater only to those in the body of Christ.<\/p>\n<p>The scary thing is that all churches drift in that direction.\u00a0<strong>All churches drift inward without the intentional effort to keep an outward focus on those who are far from God.\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s not easy, but it is that simple.<\/p>\n<p>The leaders of the church must agree and align with a ministry that intentionally commits time, resources, effort and energy to reach out.<\/p>\n<h3>\n4) Programs over people<\/h3>\n<p>Programs over people can become a reality in a church of any size, but this tends to be a more common barrier in larger and mega-churches. It\u2019s not intentional, in fact, it comes from the natural pressure to bring excellence to programming.<\/p>\n<p>Ministry program excellence is important, but we can\u2019t let it crowd out love and care for individual people.<\/p>\n<p>Program over people shows up in little things that are important things. Such as phone calls not being returned, it becomes difficult to volunteer, and the systems for next steps are complicated.<\/p>\n<p>There is no perfect solution here. It\u2019s impossible for very large churches to give large amounts of time to everyone. The most important thing we can do, however, is to give genuine individualized care to as many as we can. That helps ignite the culture so that this caring attitude has a way of continuing amongst the people.<\/p>\n<h3>\n5) Slipping from relevance<\/h3>\n<p>Change is essential. The message of Jesus never changes but our methods, style, and approach must always adapt to the needs of the current culture.<\/p>\n<p>In more extreme cases, when entering an outdated church environment, it\u2019s like walking into a time warp. It causes those who visit to question if the leadership understands how to navigate current culture.<\/p>\n<p>There has never been a greater time or higher need for innovation in the church. From digital opportunities to new approaches in church planting, the possibilities are huge as we accurately discern current culture.<\/p>\n<p>Talk with people who don\u2019t attend church and brainstorm new ideas. It might be technology, your worship service, or your kid\u2019s ministry, etc. What needs to be done to remain salt and light in your community?<\/p>\n<h3>\n6) Underdeveloped leaders<\/h3>\n<p>Without more and better leaders, your church can\u2019t continue to grow.<\/p>\n<p>If your vision is big and bold, it requires more leaders to help realize that vision. These leaders need to be developed and empowered.<\/p>\n<p>Your leaders need continued training, development and encouragement to keep rising to their potential as well as remain aligned with the vision of the church.<\/p>\n<h3>\n7) Jesus is sidelined in all the busyness<\/h3>\n<p>At a theological level, it\u2019s impossible for Jesus to be sidelined in any way.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em><sup>15\u00a0<\/sup><\/em><\/strong><em>The Son is the image\u00a0of the invisible God,\u00a0the firstborn\u00a0over all creation.\u00a0<strong><sup>16\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>For in him all things were created:\u00a0things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;\u00a0all things have been created through him and for him.\u00a0<strong><sup>17\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>He is before all things,\u00a0and in him all things hold together.\u00a0<strong><sup>18\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And he is the head\u00a0of the body, the church;\u00a0he is the beginning and the firstborn\u00a0from among the dead,\u00a0so that in everything he might have the supremacy.\u00a0Colossians 1:15-18<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And yet, it\u2019s true that a church can become so busy with people, processes, programs, problems, etc. that Jesus is no longer the recognized head of the body and the established supremacy. When this happens, certainly unintentionally, we lose the Holy Spirit\u2019s power that is needed for true spiritual change and subsequent growth.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus must always be lifted up!<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2023 Dan Reiland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>7 Big Barriers to Church Growth By\u00a0Dan Reiland One of the top issues in the local church over the last 30 plus years addresses the question, \u201cHow do I grow my church?\u201d How can we break through to reach more people for Jesus? The words change, but the issue remains the same. Years ago, we <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/7-big-barriers-to-church-growth\/\"> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":79229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3380,4661,276,266],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-leadership-articles","category-resources-ndi","category-sunday-school-and-discipleship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mesonaz.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}