How can I grow my organization when there are limited resources? "Scaling up" is a way to break through limitations to growth within your organization. In this article, we show you that it's possible to think outside the box and creatively use the resources you already have to help propel you forward.
What metrics are you using? Tracking the right metrics in the church will help you make the right course corrections and seek the right help as you move forward.
Connie Jakab talks about being a brave leader but has noticed people who usually don’t see themselves as leaders: people like parents (even though you’re only raising the next generation), teachers (who only have influenced everyone you see today), and entrepreneurs (who bring new ideas to solve problems and lead change in our world). Here’s how she moved past fear.
What changes are you planning in the future? Don’t stay where you are. Keep moving forward. Make sure that as you change, you navigate through some of these challenges in a healthy way. Whenever we implement change, we can either underestimate or overestimate how complicated it can be.
How can you reach more families with young children? Many churches struggle with this question as they find that they are an older congregation or they think they don’t have the volunteer capacity to reach out to families. Here are some simple ways you can reach families with young children that won’t cost you a lot of money and utilize a lot of volunteers.
Is your church stuck? Do you find yourself in the tension of organizational structure and relational equity? Once you decide to focus on these seven things, you can begin to work and develop them as you go forward. The blend of organization and organism embedded in each of these areas will keep you growing in numbers while also growing in depth of relationship and commitment to Christ.
Medium-Sized Communities (MSC) are where you belong before you believe. They are safe step before a person chooses to become a part of a small group. MSCs are an environment where the unengaged get engaged in biblical community, the lost come to know Jesus, leaders are developed, lives are restored, care and prayer happens both in and outside of the groups, and both introverts and extroverts find community. It’s the “one anothers” being lived out.
A “Discipleship pathway” is the intentional route, steps, and paths in your church to develop missionary disciples for Kingdom impact. It is the engine for the effectiveness of your mission. The goal for a discipleship pathway is never to get someone through it; the goal is to get individuals to own it. As long as the church owns the pathway, the only possible response for an individual is consumption. When something is ours, a shift happens inside of us, and we tend to approach it in a fundamentally different way.
Our world desperately needs disciples who not only call themselves Christians, but who reflect Jesus. The accountability factor is what takes a micro-shift from the individual level to the church-wide level and where you can begin seeing discipleship as a system from a thirty-thousand-foot level. When a micro-shift is made at this level, your church will embark on a new trajectory to both spiritual and numerical growth.
25 years ago Starbucks made a shift. If Starbucks had only focused on the what, without making an intentional shift to the where and when, they would not have experienced the widespread success that they have. After all, people do not just go to Starbucks for the coffee; they also go to relax, read, work, and have conversations. This micro-shift led to a macro-change in the coffee-drinking culture. What if you could make a similar micro-shift as a church leader that would result in a macro-change in your disciple making culture? What if this micro-shift would set your church on a trajectory to both spiritual and numerical growth? Would you consider it?
Social distancing, quarantine, self-isolation, all of these terms are new to us and on the surface fly in the face of the very idea of community. But now more than ever, it’s the very thing that our communities need! It’s time for our small groups to fill the void that is needed. Here are 5 things to remember when you are leading small groups online.
