Alright, so it’s obvious this is not my church!!! The reality is that we would barely fill a section in this large room even if all our people were there. But, that’s the coolest part to me! We have room to grow and somewhere to go. I can’t wait to look back in a few years and see how far God has brought us. I am looking for God to continue growing us.
I started seeing a trend a few months back at Grace, that thinkfully has continued. We began seeing new faces weekly. We began seeing our seats fill. Our Kidz ministry started having to make more snacks and juice each week. We had fewer bulletins left over. Our coffee cafe had to make twice as much coffee to keep up. We never had enough hot chocolate or marshmallows either. Now we seem to have run out of parking spaces that are not always muddy; so you have to arrive early to get a good spot! These are all great problems to have!
My focus is to make sure these are the only problems we have as we move forward. We have been working hard to build Godly, strong and reliable leadership to help us carry the load of a great church. The leadership team, has been hard at work each week to add to our numbers and ensure our programs are ready for the growth. Right now our primary objective is to strengthen each of our ministry teams, such as Kidz, youth, worship, small groups, greeters, parking, facilities, cafe, food ministry, missions and more. Along with this, we are working hard to secure a new building to call home. A place where we can grow and expand our ministry and feel as though we are at home.
The key to being prepared for growth is thinking ahead. Right now we have the challenge of deciding how many staff to add this year, how many square feet we need in a new building and how much money we have to have in order to function and grow. We are trying to plan events for more people than we have right now. The challenge is knowing how many we we will have next week, next month and next year. God has been very good to Grace these last few months. We have seen an average of a 15% increase each week for over 2 months now. If that growth continues, we have a huge challenge of thinking ahead!
If you have been in this spot, what has been your keys to success? Share….
How did you determine the number of staff needed?
How did you determine the size of a building?
How did you plan your budget?
How did you prepare technology for the growth?
I am a husband, father and pastor in that order. My heart is to give what I have, all of what I have, to see people fall in love with Jesus. My heart is for God's church, missions and adoption. I wanna see followers of Jesus leave a lasting mark on the culture we live in. 
Sal Sberna on February 3, 2009
Hi Michael,
My thoughts briefly regarding your questions if I can help further let me know.
If you cannot easily park them and efficiently take care of their children your growth will stop
Hire high Leadership capacity staff that build teams of volunteers it cuts down the number of staff you really need. Use a good head hunter to find them it will save you lots of time and money. Team hire: I use my lead team to interview prospective staff this helps to determine chemistry and prevents a “panic” hire.
If you are not careful the buildings you build will determine your philosophy and programing. I focus on worship venue pre-school and children and most important a place for the community that is not attending your church as a connection point (soccer fields, rec areas ect…) When building a worship center I plan on multiple services so the building never feels like “bb’s in a shoe box”
I plan budget based on vision “what do we want to accomplish this year”
Technology is determined by your Vision/growth plan. How do you plan to grow? Worship venue, small groups off campus (online delivery systems, social networking, multiple sites, TV, commercials, et cetera.
Dave Anderson (moviepastor) on February 5, 2009
I wish I had these answers. we grew almost 300% in 11 months. and werent prepared at all – but looking back it was because we structured for the growth we knew we had. For me the top priorities are
structure – whats the staff and volunteer structure need to look like
process/systems – what processes and systems do we have to have in place to support that structure
Then comes how do we finance it and how can we keep adding people. We have no idea about the latter two!
I hope to learn from U on this – I sure do envy Joel’s video and lighting right now – forget the big venue – if I could do the one I had right i’d be happy!