Everything rises and falls on leadership.

It was at the very start of a conference I was attending when a well-known author and teacher posed a question to the audience of about 1000 pastors and leaders: How many small groups can one church potentially have? The question stumped most of us. Our instructor asked us to form small circles around where we sat and arrive at a group answer.

The “spirituals” went straight to their Bibles to find a verse. The “academics” played with all kinds of complex formulas. The “visionaries” made it a faith issue and reached for a gigantic number. The “traditionalists” were stuck in deep suspicion thinking this was a trick question. Our instructor enlightened us with an obvious answer:  A church can have as many small groups as there are leaders. It made sense. It also suggested to me that leadership can easily be the critical and necessary factor that escapes us in any venture. It’s certainly the case with church leaders, as was proven that day.

At the end of the day, a church can only effectively grow to the extent of the number of leaders available to lead. In fact, every ministry’s growth in the church operates under the same growth law. Growth has to be sustained, not just experienced. Yet, leadership seems to be one of those vital ingredients that we simply take for granted. Like oxygen, we rarely consider it until we are gasping for air, suffering from severe shortness of breath, or experiencing a blockage of some sort. Then we panic. This usually occurs in ministry when a church outgrows their volunteer leadership reservoir or the volunteer leaders are not employed correctly. Churches seem to wait until they are choking and gasping for air before they pay attention to expanding and solidifying leadership.

Every church wanting to be intentional about growth can’t wait until they are short of breath to reveal the need for leaders. They must create a leadership culture that is inclusive of the gifted, intelligent, and effective volunteers that God has given them at their church. This starts with unifying volunteers under a common vision and direction. Recently, all the volunteer participants in our Children’s Ministry gathered together to hear our Children’s Director, Kristen Terrette, cast vision and direction. She knows that our Children’s Ministry will only grow to the extent of the number of leaders who lead it. Such a team gathering is the start to inclusively bring the team under a common vision, empower volunteer leaders to rise, take ownership, find their place, and lead.

This school year one of our targets is to create a leadership culture at BridgePointe. Be looking for other ministries to have their own team huddles and to find yourself as a volunteer more tightly connected to a team.  On July 24, I will address all our volunteer leaders in a church-wide gathering called PULSE. Everything rises and falls on leadership. It’s a simple, yet profound growth law we are going to be intentional about this year.

So here’s the question: How much can BridgePointe grow? You know the answer.