Podcast

085 – Position the Church for Growth

Posted on November 11, 2020December 4, 2023 by Ryan Sparks

What’s in this Episode?

Have you ever wondered if you are doing the right things to position the church for growth? Well, there’s a lot of things you can do, but there’s certain things that are the best things to do. In today’s episode, we’re going to share with you the number one tip to position the church for growth.

Read the Transcript

Jonathan Hardy 0:19
So, the pastor I know who was leaving a ministry, and as I watched the ministry, and what was happening there, you know, it was kind of getting a little bit stagnant, a little stuck. And one of the things that I observed of this pastor, was he was trying to do a lot of different things to get it going, maybe some tips and tactics and some of the stuff that, you know, not the latest fads, but just some of the things that you see other churches doing. You know, but it didn’t really work. And nothing was really sticking. And, you know, as I watched it, I was like, you know, I think he was missing something, though, that needed to happen in order to get the ministry in the church he was leading up and going further and reaching more people. And so, that’s what we want to talk to you about today. Because there are some key ingredients. And specifically, we’re going to talk about one thing that I think is the key ingredient that positions the church for growth.

Dick Hardy 1:17
And that’s exactly what we want to hear out of this guy. So we’re gonna position him up as the expert on that number one thing.

Jonathan Hardy 1:25
So today, it’s my tip. You’ll have your tips, I’m sure at some point.

Dick Hardy 1:29
Well, no, the next episode is going to be my number one tip. But honestly, I’m interested to know, Jonathan, with that story you told, I mean, what was that number one thing that you believe he was missing?

Jonathan’s #1 Tip to Grow the Church

Jonathan Hardy 1:40
Strong leadership. I think that in that particular situation, this pastor was not leading, like he should have.

Dick Hardy 1:49
Okay.

Components of Strong Leadership

Jonathan Hardy 1:49
And there’s really a couple of components of strong leadership that I think we’re missing. First, him personally, his own. And then building the team of leaders that he really needed to be able to move the ministry forward. And that’s why I think leadership is such a key ingredient to church growth and the ability for you to be positioned for growth. Because if you don’t have the leadership team in place, then you’re not equipped with the ability to handle the people that God wants to bring to the ministry and to the church. So now, and I’m not, I don’t understand the ways of God. I’m thinking of it from my human logical perspective. So just hear me out on this.

Dick Hardy 1:49
Okay.

Jonathan Hardy 1:49
But as I, as I process this logically, if I were in the position of God, which obviously I’m not, but if I were in that position, and I look at a church for example. And I say, well, this church, they don’t have the leadership and the systems and the stuff in place to handle the people that I want to bring to them. Well, why would He want to send them over, to bring them? Yeah, you know, and I know that’s probably a dumbed down human version of, you know, trying to understand the mind of God. But we all know people fall through the cracks. And so, you have to have strong leadership that has built out systems that are going to be able to handle the growth that God wants to bring. And when you don’t have people leading well, whether it’s the lead pastor, or whether it’s the team of leaders, then you’re shortchanging I feel like this, really, maybe not even being the best steward that you can be of the people that God is wanting to bring. And so therefore, you get stuck. Yeah. A lot of churches tried tips and tactics. They tried the fads. Oh, what’s this church down there? Oh, if they’re doing that, and that’s where they seem to be going, then that’s what we were gonna do. It just doesn’t work that way. Yeah. Now it can work. But you look at the churches that are growing, what do they have? They have strong leaders.

Dick Hardy 3:47
Strong leaders, yeah.

Jonathan Hardy 3:48
They have a leader who is an individual who’s strong, but they also have a team. And I think that’s a missing component for a lot of people. A pastor might be a good leader, but they’re just trying to do too much on their own. And they don’t get the team around them, who can help them to carry out the ministry. And so they’re not positioned for that.

Dick Hardy 4:08
You know, and I remember you had told me about this guy earlier. He’s a smart guy. He’s no dummy. And yet, he seemed to miss this thing right under his nose. And so, a pastor watching this right now might say, “So okay, I’m looking for that magic wand.” Yeah, I mean, they’re not gonna say it that way. But I’m looking for that thing. And if I’m hearing you right, you’re saying zero in on your own leadership first.

Jonathan Hardy 4:36
Yeah.

Dick Hardy 4:36
And then build the systems around you, for the team of leaders that you’ve got around you. And that, by the way, is not just if you’re in a big church? Well, exactly. I mean, yeah, if it’s a very small church, you have people around you, and you got to be building out those leaders.

Jonathan Hardy 4:52
Yes, absolutely. I mean, this goes back to the whole Jethro principle, which we know if you’ve been in Scripture for any length of time at all, you know. You know that he came and said, Hey Moses, what you’re doing is not good. Moses was the one making all the decisions. And so, then he basically encouraged him to build this team of people, you know, using the 21st century version. But it’s building a team of people to come alongside and help carry out, make the decisions and the judgments for the people. And that’s what we need in today’s church, the church world. We need these leaders. And people constantly need to be developing more leaders. So, you as the lead pastor need to be developing some leaders. And then they need to be developing some leaders. So there always needs to be these lieutenants that are ready to go at any given notice. I mean, speaking of Moses, another example would be Joshua. Joshua was with Moses, and like, wherever he went. You know, even when he’s up on the mountain.

Dick Hardy 5:50
He was training them all the time.

Jonathan Hardy 5:51
He’s at the tabernacle, he’s there all the time. And consequently, look at what he got to do. I mean, he’s the one who actually lead people into the promised land. He’s the one who carried the baton from Moses, and as a church, once the pastor leaves, so often, churches struggle. Because it’s based just on that one person. And that’s why building this team is so important, because you want to be able to hand that baton, you know, if the Lord leads you on, or if you know you get to that age of retirement, or whatever the case may be. So that way, God’s Church continues to advance and it happens when there is strong leadership.

Dick Hardy 6:32
Yeah. No, that is good. We want you to know, as a viewer, or listener here of the Church Tips Podcast, you know, I hope by now that we don’t give any sorts of formulas. There’s no as I said, magic wand.

Jonathan Hardy 6:45
Yeah.

Dick Hardy 6:46
The Lord is the one who builds the church. It is our role as believers to be good stewards of that which we have. And I pay attention to this number one tip from Jonathan. He’s, yes, he’s my son, but he’s got good wisdom in this area. So Jonathan, give us a wrap up. You know, there’s kind of one final piece you’d like a listener or viewer to hear today. What would that be?

Action Steps

Jonathan Hardy 7:11
The action steps would be as follows. I think, first of all, you personally, as you’re listening, what can you do to get better? Now, this isn’t a sales pitch for leaders.church. But this is an opportunity to join leaders.church. Because this is actually honestly why we started leaders.church. Because we know that pastors need to constantly get better as leaders. And that’s a key aspect. So, but it doesn’t have to be that. Whatever you do, you need to come up with some kind of action plan that you are going to take personally, so that you get on the journey to get better as a leader. Start there. Number two. You know, you put a quarter in me, and I’ll preach. But I’ll stop with this at this one.

Dick Hardy 7:52
Okay.

Jonathan Hardy 7:52
The second thing is, get the pipeline created for leadership development. So that might mean first, you just start investing in a couple of people, identifying a couple of people. We talk about that in different episodes. We talked about that a lot inside the leaders.church membership. And we have a whole video series on building a team. If you are a member, you need to take advantage of that, go look at that. I think it’s module three, building a healthy ministry team. Take a look at that. The point is, you’ve got to start by identifying couple people and start working toward investing in them, and then get them to start doing the same thing to a couple of other people. And so, you start getting this investment happening, where then all of a sudden you’re building a stronger foundation of leadership. And that’s going to position you just for amazing days.

Dick Hardy 8:39
Well, you do that and you’re going to begin to build a bench, to use a sports metaphor, of people that are ready to go when an opportunity presents itself. So, we really encourage you to do that. Thank you, Jonathan. That that’s been very, very helpful today. You know, I want to mention to you too, another thing that you could do to take advantage of this is to jump into the Four Secrets Masterclass. Jonathan created this here a few months ago, and we’ve had great reviews from people who’ve gone through this, saying, “Oh my goodness, it’s just opened my eyes to so many things.” It’s just just shy of an hour masterclass for you to go through, and really help develop you as a better leader. So, I would strongly encourage you to do that. We certainly would ask you to follow us on social media. We’d love to have you on whatever platforms you enjoy spending your time and then jump into subscribe to whatever podcasts that you you listen to, and certainly rate and review us. We’ve got a guy, Pastor John did a review for us. He said, “Life changing.” Jonathan and Dick are strategic, practical and always inspiring. Our team in New York City is stronger because of their investment in us.” Thank you, Pastor John. Very kind of you. And certainly if you rate and review us we might, if you’re really lucky, maybe be able to read your review sometime. But thanks very much for hanging with us on this podcast. We certainly enjoyed putting together for you. Make it a great one today and be blessed.

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Podcast

085 – Position the Church for Growth

What’s in this Episode?