Own Your Role in Breaking the Growth Barrier (Part 2)
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“I’ve never led a church this size before…”
If you are a senior pastor, executive pastor, or board member, you’re not alone in thinking this. We hear church leaders say it all the time—and wonder how they’re going to break through the next growth barrier.
We’re continuing our series on breaking common growth barriers, and specifically helping church leaders in different key seats to own their roles in getting the church over that next hurdle. In this episode, Sean and I talk about one of the hardest barriers to break through: the 1000 barrier. If you feel stuck around the 700 or 800 attendance mark and are ready for healthy, sustained growth, this episode is for you.
It's the primary role of the senior pastor to ensure that the weekend is a high-quality experience. There needs to be increasing intentionality around planning, preparation and execution. [episode 413] #unstuckchurch Share on X Have a framework to say no to good opportunities that don't align with the church's core focus. [episode 413] #unstuckchurch Share on X Church staff needs to equip God's people to do the work of God. [episode 413] #unstuckchurch Share on X Breaking the thousand barrier isn’t just about systems and structures. It’s about leadership transformation. [episode 413] #unstuckchurch Share on X
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More Episode In This Series
Own Your Role: Breaking the MultiStuck Barrier – Episode 415
Own Your Role: Breaking the 2000 Barrier – Episode 414
Own Your Role: Breaking the 200 and 500 Barriers – Episode 412
Transcript
Sean:
Hey, podcast listeners, before this week’s episode, I want to say thanks to our podcast sponsor Planning Center. Planning Center is an all-in-one church management software that solves your administrative challenges. You can effortlessly track first time guests, manage volunteer schedules, and create easy ways for your congregation to get involved all from one single platform. If you need a check-in system, event signups or an online giving solution, Planning Center helps you nurture your community and keep people connected. Visit planningcenter.com to get started for free.
Well, welcome to the Unstuck Church Podcast. I’m Sean, your host here with my teammate, the one and only. Well, actually, I don’t know if you’re the only, but you’re one of the—
Amy:
I am not the only Amy Anderson out there by far.
Sean:
There are so many Amy Andersons. But you are the only Amy Anderson most likely that’s been on the road quite a bit, doing a lot of consulting work recently. So, I wondered if you’d share with our listeners just one or two highlights from the past few weeks.
Amy:
Yeah. Well, I went to Texas, so that made me appreciate the cool Minnesota weather. It’s hot in Texas. I worked with a great church down there, great team, trying to move things forward. And then of course, I just got back from the multi-site cohorts. Man, I think those are some of my favorite things to do. We had 14, 15 pastors around the table from I think 10 churches, and we had a mix this time. We had churches that are single sites right now getting ready to go multi-site. We had a good cluster of churches that are three or four locations, and then one church from Hawaii that’s got nine locations both in Hawaii and internationally.
Sean:
Wow, yeah.
Amy:
So, it was a fun group because, you know, we tee up the same concepts, but it’s different when you’re looking to go into multi-site and when you’re already multi-site. So they were able to help one another, you know, share, like, yeah, avoid that misstep. We did that and now we’re trying to undo it. Lots of questions about acquisitions or mergers because that just seems to be out there and man, yeah, we definitely have a perspective, you know, on that. But yeah, just really fun, especially fun for the teams that brought two people to the cohort. Just a way to process it all. So, I don’t know; I always love getting to see the church across the country and yeah, it’s just a beautiful thing and the people in our tribe are so humble and so eager to be on mission, so very, very fun. By the way, Sean, my sister-in-law’s name is also Amy Anderson.
Sean:
Oh my gosh. That’s confusing.
Amy:
It does get confusing.
Sean:
Well, we’ve had the last few cohorts, just such great groups of people, great churches that have engaged in those and a part of those and great feedback from those churches on what, not just what they’re learning from us, but the experience of being there—like you just mentioned with this last cohort—with another leader from their church where they can process and learn and plan together. That’s just a really good thing. So we’re doing more of that in 2026, and we’ll have more about that in the next couple of weeks here.
Amy:
Which I’m excited about because these ones filled up so quick and so we’ve got waiting lists for next year. I think those dates are going to be out there if they aren’t now very soon for 2026.
Sean:
That’s right. Well, today we’re continuing our series on breaking common growth barriers and specifically helping church leaders in different key seats to kind of own their roles in getting the church over the next hurdle.
Amy:
Yeah, that’s right. You know, Sean, we hear pastors say it all the time, at least in our tribe, I’ve never led a church this size before.
Sean:
Right.
Amy:
And they’re wondering what it’s going to take to break through that next barrier. And then added to that, I think the board is often impacted by this too. I mean, church board members have often held leadership roles in businesses, in the community, but not necessarily in the church. So they need to understand as well their role in helping the church break through this next barrier.
Sean:
That’s right, Amy. Well, let’s jump right into it, because today we’re talking about what it takes to break the 1000 barrier in church attendance and many mid-size churches get stuck around 700 or 800 and can get really frustrating. So, Amy, why do you think this particular barrier is so challenging? What are some of the key tensions that emerge?
Amy:
Yeah, Sean, I think this is a really hard barrier. I actually think it might be one of the hardest ones because when you’re at seven or 800 people in attendance, that’s just a lot of people, right? And like I said a minute ago, it’s probably the biggest church the pastor’s ever led. And the biggest organization that they’ve ever led. So when you get to this size a pastor’s leadership style, it really needs to change that lead pastor. It needs to go to the next level. And this is true for the other leaders on the team as well. Every leader needs to elevate how they operate in their role when a church gets to this size. When a church reaches 800, I can guarantee you that the organizational complexity has increased dramatically from when the church was smaller.
Sean:
Yeah. Of course.
Amy:
There’s programs; there’s more staff. There’s more complexity. And so one of the reasons this barrier is particularly challenging is because people have to change how they lead and behave. And my hunch is that up to this point, most ministry team members have been doing ministry. But with growth, they aren’t able to keep up. And this is the time, Sean, when most staff are saying the church needs more staff. We need more staff. And as we learned in last week’s podcast, the data supports this. In the run to a thousand, this is where churches become significantly overstaffed. I think the number was 45 to one in our latest unstuck church report. So one full-time equivalent for every 45 people. So they probably don’t need more staff. They likely need to raise the bar on their leadership and begin doubling down and building up the body to do more ministry.
And again, when a church is smaller, doing is easier. And as the church grows, this underdeveloped muscle of giving the ministry away to the body kind of gets exposed. So one of the key tensions in this stage is pace. Everyone feels really busy. And in that busyness, along with the new complexities that come with being a church at that size, is that there doesn’t seem like there’s time to get out of the whirlwind and work on ministry. And I say all this because if you are a lead pastor and this is the size you’re in, again, I think this is the toughest barrier to push through.
Sean:
Yeah. So when you think about that tension of, you called it being caught up in the whirlwind and not able to do the work on the ministry, what gets missed in that? In other words, what should the leaders at the church be working on that they might be missing?
Amy:
So of course when I say the whirlwind, that’s a term from The 4 Disciplines of Execution. And that’s the language we use.
Sean:
Great book.
Amy:
The whirlwind is when we’re caught up in the ministry and honestly as leaders in the church, we have to work on it as well. And so let me start with the senior pastor. So I think quality is something that starts to get missed at this stage. Sometimes senior pastors can take their eye off the quality of the weekend experience. And this is important because as the church grows, so do the expectations of the people that are coming. So for good or bad, as the size of the environment grows, so do the quality expectations. And I’ve said this before, but it’s so easy for us to habituate to our environments and when this happens, we don’t see what new people to our church see and experience.
And I believe it’s the primary role of the senior pastor to ensure that the weekend is a high-quality experience. To increase the quality, which is obviously ongoing, there needs to be increasing intentionality around planning, preparation and execution. And that’s not only the teaching, it’s the whole weekend experience. And at the end of the day, the senior pastor has to hold that bar, hold that line for the quality level of the weekend service. And when they get really busy and caught up in the whirlwind, I think this can slip. And the weekend is the primary place I’m talking about quality, but the same principle really applies in all the environments in children’s ministry, student, guest experience, and on and on. But because the lead pastor lives in that space, they’re just the ones who have to hold that line. So that’s the first thing I think of when you say what might be missing.
The second thing that I think can be missing is just direction for the church. I think senior pastors and when they’re in the whirlwind can miss providing for the team and the church providing clarity and direction on where the church is going and why we exist. Right? People need to be reminded of the church’s primary purpose and they need a vision to rally around. Connected to that, once you start reaching hundreds and hundreds of people, it gets easy to keep saying yes to ideas and yes to additional programming.
Sean:
Yes.
Amy:
And honestly, before you know it, things become very complex with multiple ministries competing for volunteers, leaders, space, money, promotion. So, beyond that vision and mission and vision, clarity, the team needs clarity really on their goals. Clarity on the mission field we’re trying to reach so that as a team, you know, what to say yes to and what to say no to. Without that clarity, I think we end up saying yes to many things and then we find ourselves in this position where we have to stay in the whirlwind because there’s so much more we’re doing.
And let me just add one last one, Sean. I think what also could be missing is just personal development. For senior pastors, I think they can miss investing in their own development, you know, their preaching and personal leadership skills. They’ve been enough to get to the church at this point. But they’re going to want to invest in their own growth and development to go further to get ready for that next size church.
Sean:
That’s a good point, Amy. I think a lot of senior pastors at this point are trying to invest in their team and help their team increase capacity, which is great, but sometimes they haven’t thought about themselves. And of course, as the church grows and scales, their role is going to look different and they need to continue to grow too. That’s well said. Alright. What about executive pastors? If a mid-size church has someone in the dedicated executive pastor seat, what tensions are they specifically dealing with before they reach that thousand barrier?
Amy:
Yeah. Well, the executive pastor role, it typically comes into play when a church is about a thousand in size. So, but if this role already exists on the team, when you’re seven or 800 people, the primary thing they may be missing is building a staff team that leverages volunteers and volunteer leaders. As I said earlier, this is a stage when it becomes more and more evident if you’ve been staffing with doers instead of leaders.
Sean:
Right.
Amy:
So staff just need regular re-envisioning, and this would be the role the executive pastor, staff need regular re-envisioning around what the win for their role is. And for most ministry leaders, it’s not what they do that should be rewarded but what they give away.
Sean:
Yeah. Amy, it’s interesting, we’ve actually had conversations with two different churches just in the last week. One was a church that broke this thousand barrier and the pastor was just telling me, about a year ago, he hired an executive pastor. First time he’s had that role at his church, hired somebody that he already knew. And it’s been an absolute game changer for him because he’s been able to give away some of the things that he didn’t want to do. And honestly, he just told me, I wasn’t good at them either.
Amy:
Probably not.
Sean:
Probably not. And he feels like this huge weight’s been lifted from him. Flip that, one other church that I talked with, a senior pastor he mentioned to me and they’re at 900 ish right now in attendance trying to break that barrier. And he just mentioned to me he does not have that role on his team and he’s just feeling the heartburn of all of those things that he needs to do that really, ideally he’d be handing off to someone else and delegating those tasks and roles to them. But he just feels like he has to hold on ownership right now because he doesn’t have a high capacity person next to him to do it. And I asked him, why haven’t you hired for that executive role? And of course there are a couple of key reasons why, but he understands that’s one of his primary next steps. So just to kind of reinforce some of what you just described there two very recent conversations.
Amy:
And those roles, they’re very different. So yes, when you get the right executive pastor, it is a new day for the lead pastor. And honestly the whole organization benefits when we can get to that stage.
Sean:
Absolutely. Alright, let’s shift just a little bit. What about board members then as well?
Amy:
I’m glad you asked about that because I think that churches that are stuck before the 1000 mark, sometimes they are governed by large boards and many committees. And it’s at this point that the board really needs to shift towards what I would call true governance and not being involved in the day-to-day operations. As an example, we worked with a mid-size church that had more than 50 people on its board and more than a dozen different committees. And their structure for decision making was so complex that they had a committee honestly, for finding people to serve on committees.
Sean:
Yeah.
Amy:
So we try to help churches shift from only, you know, to only one board that includes six to eight people and you know, you just have to know that trying to make this change can create tension as board members adjust to a different function because we’re not asking them to meet about ministry, we’re actually asking them to think strategically with a lead pastor.
Sean:
Yep. That’s good. Alright, so let’s talk about how each key leader needs to kind of shift their approach, starting with the senior pastor. What’s their primary responsibility in breaking the 1000 barrier?
Amy:
Yeah, I think for the senior pastor, if I had to pick one, it would be clarity of purpose becomes absolutely essential. They need to identify, define their mission, their vision and strategies to be in a better position, to focus their resources on the areas of ministry that define who they are as a church. Again, we need to just have, develop that muscle to focus in and bring clarity to the whole team. This is who we’re trying to reach, these are our core ministry strategies. And again, when that’s defined, we know what to say yes and no to. And I think it can be a huge filter to allow leaders to say no more often.
Again, this filter and this focus, it will actually increase ministry effectiveness because of the focus it provides for the team. We know this, right? Church people have lots of ideas around what ministries and programs the church should be doing, and in this case of seven to 800 people coming up with ministry ideas that can be, you know, a lot of nos. So this filter and focus will provide a good framework to say no to good opportunities that don’t align with the church’s core focus.
Sean:
That’s good. Alright. What about the executive pastor? How does their role need to evolve?
Amy:
It depends on each church’s current structure and governance, but here are a few common areas where they might need to evolve. First, if any staff are reporting to a board member that needs to be re-engineered and get that staff person focused on leading ministry teams.
Sean:
Right.
Amy:
I worked with a great Presbyterian church in Pittsburgh several years ago. We’re still good friends. If you’re familiar with the governance requirements for Presbyterian churches, you know that there are several committees that are required to govern the church, but guess what they did? They stayed within the requirements of their denomination, but they made a huge pivot to empower staff leaders to lead ministry teams. The committee members took this posture that the staff person was a leader, not someone they were leading. And once that shift happens, you know, the next goal, then they can focus on building volunteer teams with volunteer leaders to do the ministry.
Again, staff need to equip God’s people to do the work of God. And this shift, it can be hard, you know, if you don’t have staff with a leadership capacity to do this. You’re just going to have to make some staffing changes. The priority really needs to be on building a team who can build volunteer teams and build healthy ministries. And if you have gaps, executive pastor, you need a plan to find and hire equipping leaders or at least recommunicate what the win for their role is and give them the opportunity to close that gap. In fact, at the multi-site cohort, one of the pastors there went, you know what, at our all staff meetings, we praise people all the time for all the things they do. And he goes, what I hear you saying is we want to praise people for all the things they give away.
Sean:
That’s good.
Amy:
And I want to go ding ding ding. Let me just give you a quick example. Let’s talk about kids’ ministry, right? You need at seven to 800, you need an equipping strategic leader over kids’ ministry. And last year we did a podcast series about reaching the next generation. And it was so fascinating to learn how many millennial parents, even before they have kids, are checking out the kids’ ministry at the churches they’re thinking about attending. So even before they check out the actual weekend service, they’re going online and seeing what the church offers for kids. If churches aren’t giving their best to kids’ ministry, they’re just never going to reach their parents.
Sean:
That’s right.
Amy:
So if a church is more focused on just providing childcare and the best spaces are focused for adults and students, it may be the reason why some churches have this chasm of missing 25 to 35 year olds.
Sean:
Absolutely. That’s right. Alright. Then lastly Amy, let’s talk about the board’s role. How should church governance evolve to break through this barrier?
Amy:
Yeah. Well, if you find yourself with a board that is large and committee based, you need to make a fundamental shift in how they function. They need to move to a streamlined governance model. And by the way, if that’s you, we encourage you to go back to a series we did a few years ago on effective church boards and governance models. I think that’s episodes 269 through 272. It’ll unpack it in much more detail, a little bit more, more handles to hold onto if this is where you need to go.
But the second thing, so get to that streamlined governance model. Second, you need to clarify the role of the board. And by the way, most board members don’t want to be in the weeds if that’s not where they’re supposed to be. In fact, a lot of board members are just like, well, just let me know what their role is. Sometimes you communicate too much what it isn’t. We need to talk about what it is. Yeah. But these are the five that we talk about a lot. One, they need to model spiritual leadership to the congregation. Second, they need to provide encouragement and accountability. Often, we just focus on accountability, but they need to provide encouragement and accountability to the lead pastor. What I mean by that is obviously we have a mission. We’ve defined what success looks like through our mission goals. We’ve chosen our strategies. The board is there to kind of go, are we running towards the right targets, right? Are we running in the right lane? They need to protect the established mission and vision and values of the church. Number four, when making significant financial commitments like annual budget, salary of the lead pastor, land acquisitions, construction contracts. We want to get their voice in the mix. We want to get their wisdom on things like that. And lastly, advising the lead pastor, my caveat there would just be, as requested, advising the lead pastor as requested on strategic decisions, the staff leadership is processing. So those discernment gifts are really important on a board. And also I would say if you do working genius, galvanizing. That the board is a continued mouthpiece for where the church is going.
Sean:
That’s good.
Amy:
Lastly, I would just add, this isn’t the role as much, but I’ll say it again. Limit the board to six to eight members. You know, the goal is to get everyone else serving on a ministry team rather than sitting in meetings, committee meetings, board meetings, et cetera.
Sean:
That’s good. And that number’s so important too, Amy, because if you’re really going to have people contributing robust process and thought in a meeting, it’s really hard to do that when you have more than eight people sitting around a table. It just feels like someone’s not going to have their voice included. So being very careful and intentional about the number of people on that team is critical.
Amy, I wonder if you could give us kind of a quick recap of the swing thoughts concept that you have and give a swing thought for senior pastors, for executive pastors, and for board members around this.
Amy:
Yeah. If this is the first time you’re hearing the podcast swing thought is probably foreign, but it’s just a golfing analogy. You know, when a golf coach gives you something to think about, they give you one thing to think about when you’re trying to develop a new muscle. They don’t give you five swing thoughts. Because then the whole shot goes to pot. So in the form of swing thoughts here.
Alright. First for senior pastors, here’s your swing thought. Focus the team, focus the church. So make the primary purpose of your church clear and resist the temptation to add programming that dilutes that focus. So swing thought, focus the team, focus the church to the executive pastor. Your swing thought is find more leaders. Find more leaders, identify people with greater capacity and map out where you have clear gaps that need to be filled with high capacity leaders in the next 24 months. And I say that because executive pastors, you need your eyes above the water line. You have to be thinking future oriented. You need to play the movie forward and understand, boy, in 24 months, this is really what we need. And then you can back it up to some shorter term goals. For the board, your swing thought, governance, not operations, governance, not operations. Focus on policy protection and purpose, not the day-to-day operations or staff management.
Sean:
That’s good. Amy. Those are excellent swing thoughts. I’m not any good at golf. I probably need some golfing swing thoughts myself.
Amy:
Jason can coach you. My husband’s a great coach.
Sean:
That’s good. It’s probably because I haven’t golfed in probably five or six years, too, but.
Amy:
That’s because you had five kids. That’s your golf time.
Sean:
True. That’s true. You’re right. Okay. I feel better about myself. All right. Before we wrap up Amy, any final thoughts?
Amy:
Yeah. You know, breaking the thousand barrier, it isn’t just about systems and structures, it’s about leadership transformation. When senior pastors focus on clear purpose, when executive pastors build leadership capacity and board shift to true governance, this is where churches can experience sustainable, healthy growth beyond this critical threshold. But it requires each leader to truly own their unique role in this journey.
Sean:
Absolutely. Alright, well listeners, thank you for joining us for this episode on the breaking 1000 barrier. If you’d like to dive deeper into this whole topic, join us on September 18th at 1:00 PM Eastern for a free live webinar on breaking big church growth barriers. In this 60-minute webinar, we’re going to cover things like how to recognize when you’re hitting that 1000 or 2000 attendance ceiling, some of the key practices of churches who have broken through these barriers, and then the vital signs to monitor as you continue to grow. So we’re going to save the last 15 minutes at the end for live Q and A. Amy and I will be on there to answer some of your questions, specifically that come from the webinar. And we really think that you’re going to leave this webinar with just a greater sense of clarity of how to break through these barriers. So if you’d like to be a part of that, you can sign up to participate at theunstuckgroup.com/webinar.
And if you’re a church leader facing these growth barriers, we’d love to help. Our team has worked with hundreds of churches of all sizes to help them find alignment and to get unstuck and really make a greater kingdom impact. So you can visit theunstuckgroup.com to learn more and then tune in next week as we continue this series with the next episode of breaking church growth barriers. We’ll see you then.
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