As I said in Part 3, every church goes through different life cycles over time. I don’t know what stage of life your church is in right now, but I can tell you that there is a next stage ahead. Are you ready for it?

Effective leadership means you are preparing today for where your church will be tomorrow. This is even more important for newer, growing churches. Growing through the life cycles of your church can be a slow or fast process, but by and large the earlier stages seem to be quicker than the later stages. If you’re leading a newer church, chances are changes will come more rapidly.

Being prepared for growth means you are setting in place systems and processes that can handle 10, 100, or even 1,000 new guests, members or disciples each week. It means you are setting each of your ministries up for success by providing a framework to handle an increase in attendance. Scaling for growth means you’re ready to accommodate growth in all areas.

Prepare for the Church You Want to Be
It’s often said you should dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Whether you believe that or not, there is a similar axiom for churches. You should be preparing your church now for what it will be one day. Vision is how you see your church changing and growing over time. Effective leaders are able to anticipate how these changes will enable the church to meet their mission today, tomorrow and years ahead.

Vision that works takes setting in place strategies and systems that will become more and more valuable over time. Let me give you an extreme example of what I mean. I know of a church that started out with a core team of less than 100. They inherited a large building with over 40,000 square feet and a huge parking lot. Each week, the members and attenders had no trouble getting in and out of traffic and finding a parking spot.

But the pastor of this new church had great vision. He saw what the church would one day change into and become — a thriving church that would need policemen patrolling the parking lot and directing traffic. So, on day one the pastor paid for two patrol cars to be on hand for traffic.

As you can guess, this met with some push back from the staff and board. But the point the pastor was making was a valid one. First of all, he wanted to put his community on notice that this was the type of church the pastor envisioned for the future. Secondly, the pastor wanted to communicate to his core team that he was prepared for growth, no matter what it looked like. Today, the church is well over 10,000 in membership, so the pastor's plan worked out. I’m not suggesting you do the same, but there’s a valuable lesson to be learned.

Small Doesn’t Mean Narrow
When starting out, the temptation is to keep your vision narrow. Only focus on what is attainable in the short run so that you can see success early on. While this is a great idea for goal-setting, the overall vision of your church doesn’t need to be kept short.

You should be preparing your church now for what it will be one day.

Instead, dream big and wide with your vision. This puts you in the driver’s seat as you begin to pass through the various life cycles along the way. Let your vision be the driving force of how you set up your systems and processes.

Don’t say, “Once our attendance hits this point, then we’ll look into starting life groups.” If life groups are part of your vision, get people involved on the ground floor. Don’t say, “Once we get more young families on board, then we’ll really focus on children’s ministry.” Start out with a clear design for excellent family ministries from the jump. Don’t say, “If our offerings reach this point, then we’ll start giving more to missions.” Make the commitment to be a giving church from day one.

Balancing Expectation and Preparation
Having a wide vision doesn’t mean setting unrealistic expectations. Expectations can be motivational but they can also be crippling. If you set expectations too high, failure to meet them can be demoralizing to your team and yourself. But if the bar is never raised, your team may never rise to the challenge. Take a balanced approach to your expectations and continually evaluate where you are and where you want to go.

The path to fulfillment of a big vision requires shorter goals along the way. It takes knowing what your church’s current life cycle is, which cycle is coming up next and the right steps to get there.

Preparation is the key to balancing your expectations. As you set goals, put in the time it takes for proper preparation. As you meet each goal, celebrate a job well done. But if you come up short, use that motivation to reset expectations and realign your preparation.

So, what stage of life is your church currently in? What do you want to see it grow into? What steps are you taking right now to prepare for that growth? No matter what life cycle you’re currently in, effective leadership means you can navigate forward into your vision as long as it is God-given and God-driven.

This has been the final installment of a four-part series on effective leadership in newer churches. Be sure to read Parts 1, 2, and 3.