Over the next few days, I will be blogging on the essentials to breaking the following worship barriers- 200, 500, 1000, 1500, and 3000. Today I will begin by listing the essentials for breaking 200.
Breaking the 200 in Worship Barrier
- A full time worship leader who functions also as a pastor to those in the music ministry.
- A parking space for every two people on the property at the peak hour during the peak part of the year.
- Nothing is cut back in the summer.
- The pastor personally contacts every new guest within 24 hours.
- The pastor spends 70-80% of the time bringing new people to Christ and/or the church.
- The focus is more on fulfilling the Great Commission than growing the church.
- The Board is small enough to make major decisions in rapid fashion.
- Complainers are shown the door rather than putting up with them.
- The pastor can visualize what needs to be done and not done if the church were twice its size.
Breaking worship Barriers is not as easy as it sounds.
500 Barrier
Over the weekend I posted the essentials for breaking the 200 for worship barrier. Today I'm listing the essentials for breaking the 500 worship barrier. Keep in mind these barrier numbers are just that- numbers. These barriers aren't broken the moment you average higher than they are. For example: you really don't break the 200 barrier until you pass the 500 barrier and so on. It takes that long for the culture of under 200 in worship to go away. That's why the faster a church grows the easier it is to blow past the barriers because the culture created by that size church doesn't have time to take effect. So you see, barriers are sort of messy.
Now keep in mind that the essentials listed below to break 500 in worship are built upon the essentials for breaking the 200 worship barrier. So you add them to the following list.
To Break 500 in worship you need the following:
- The pastoral/program staff equals one to one hundred people in worship including children.
- The pastor and staff hand off most ministry and act more as coaches and scouts than players (Baseball analogy).
- The children's ministry is sterling and not in a classroom design.
- The Nursery is one of the nicest and cleanest rooms in the house.
- The Pastor focuses more attention on the growth of the staff than that of the church.
- The staff is an extension of the DNA of the pastor and fill in all of his/her weaknesses.
- Everyone on staff is able to picture and articulate the needs of the church if it were twice its size.
- The pastor hones his or her hiring and firing skills.
- The pastor does all the hiring and firing.
- All staff are learning to hand-off ministry and reproduce leaders.