Breaking Through Your Capacity Lid

If you lead long enough eventually every leader and every organization will hit a leadership lid. You are going to outgrow your leadership skills and your organizational structures at some point. But what do you do when the lid at your church is a capacity lid? Capacity lids show up all over the place.

Facilities: If you build it they won’t always come.

• Too many churches acquiesce to the pressure to build too soon and as a result they don’t maximize their current space. Instead of building try running multiple weekend services, try multiple venues on the same campus, park off campus, or move to a multisite strategy.

Volunteers: Volunteers are more important than the ministries.

• Most churches run short on volunteers because they use volunteers to do the ministry instead of realizing that the volunteers are the ministry. Volunteering is discipleship. Take care of, invest in, and lead your volunteers and they’ll take care of the ministry.

Finances: Financial shortfalls can limit opportunities.

• The two sides to finances in a church setting are building a culture of generosity in your church and then managing those finances so you position yourself to say yes to Jesus when He provides clear vision and opportunity. Immature organizations over extend themselves financially and self impose artificial lids as a result.

Staffing: The team outperforms the individual every time.

• Scouting, attracting, developing and keeping talented team members are essentials to a growing church. But before you think paid staff think volunteer leaders. Paying people to do ministry should be the last resort.

Leadership: Leadership is a spiritual gift, but you can develop your leadership skills.

• Leading a church of 100, 500, 1,000 and 10,000 are not the same thing. The higher you go you move from the science side of leadership to the art side of managing the momentum and emotion of the room. Get outside your tribe and start listening to and learning from successful people and organizations in other industries.

Character: Your talent can take you further than you character can sustain.

• Character is the lowest leadership lid. No level of competency will ever make up for a fatal flaw in character because ministry and leadership run on trust. Character flaws erode trust every time.