All to Him I Owe

A little boy walked into our church foyer and I overheard a man say, “are you expecting a flood?” I looked and noticed what he was referring to. The little boy evidently had hit a growth spurt and his legs were longer than his pant legs. You could clearly see the top of his shoes, all of his socks and the bottom of his cute little legs. His growth spurt had created a noticeable gap between the bottom of his pant leg and the top of his shoe.

Growth often creates gaps. When a ministry experiences growth, gaps can be created that are often overlooked by those in leadership but often felt from those within the ministry. A wise leader will fervently try to stay aware of the gaps in his ministries growth and carefully manage the ministry in light of those gaps.

Let me give you just a little of our current context and the background for this article. Our church has nearly doubled in size in the last two years. We have quickly grown in the last two years and we have become very aware of the gaps that have been created by this growth. We are in the midst of addressing these gaps and much of what I am doing as a pastor is helping lead our people through these gaps. Much of our initial problem is trying to figure out where the gaps are. The assessment was and has been much harder than I anticipated. So, to begin let me give this recommendation. Ministry evaluations should be done regularly and honestly. Our leadership has had to conscientiously sit down and look hard at our ministry. That has required us to make time for it and to put some issues to the side in an effort to give this some thought. As we looked it has been hard to admit that we had “gaps.” This has required us to say “yes, that is an issue” more than trying to defend or justify our gaps.

As we have evaluated we have used the following 10 questions as our guide in the evaluation:

1. Does our growth appear to be short term or is their longevity to the growth we have seen?
2. Are we focusing on the new growth to the expense of those who we had before the growth?
3. What processes do we have that have not adjusted to keep up with the growth?
4. Can we adjust our facility to better accommodate our growth?
5. Do we have the right policies in place to adjust to this new growth?
6. Who is struggling most with the new growth we have experienced?
7. Are we properly helping our new people understand our mission and philosophy? (or, are we just putting people into positions to help us keep up with the growth?)
8. Have we outgrown our abilities?
9. Are there things we need to say no to in order for us do ministry better?
10. Is our spiritual growth keeping up with our numeric growth?

Answering these questions takes time, but the time we are taking is helping us navigate our way through this growth. We still have gaps, and probably will continue to have them. However, the assessment process is helping us manage the gaps better than we were.