Church seeks to meet the needs of unbelievers in southwest Washington State
When we broke the 200 mark for the first time—what a victory! We were sure that full-on revival had broken out in the SW corner of Washington State. At times, my wife and I would crash on the couch at the end of a weekend and wonder, “Where did the all these people come from, and why were they coming to our church?”
We did begin to evaluate the “why” people were coming, and how we could keep the momentum going. The key, I was convinced, as the lead pastor was for me to do just that: lead. Andy Stanley’s podcasts in those days helped our thinking so much, when he said that churches didn’t need better pastors, but they needed better leaders. Andy is right—we need to lead better to help our churches grow.
Leading well will help you go beyond the invisible 200 barrier. Here are three things we learned about leading well.
First, people are judging what we do as much or more than what we preach. Are we kind to our spouse? Do we keep our cool with our kids? Are we inviting people to our church? Do we seem passionate in our devotional life? What we do in life as a leader, our people will do in their life. We set the culture, the tone, and the example in our church communities.
One day at a pastors’ luncheon, early in our planting journey, another church planter friend asked me, “How do you get your people to invite people?! I can’t get mine to do it!” I was taken back and said “I’m not sure.” It caused me to reflect about his question, however. I found an answer: it was that I was inviting people to our church. The power of example will cause your church to grow in numbers, more than anything else. Lead by example to grow your church.
Second, we …
