Breaking the 200 Barrier - Page 2 of 4

Nieuwhof says that most churches fail to break 200 because “they organize, behave, lead and manage like a small organization” even as complexity increases. They respond by working harder at an approach that has already reached its limit. When this happens, the exhausted pastor isn’t failing because of faithlessness but because the existing approach to leadership isn’t designed to scale.

At this point, church leaders don’t need more grit—they need to restructure their model of ministry leadership. The senior pastor must transition from the primary spiritual caregiver to a catalyst of a distributed leadership model, where others—paid staff and volunteers—are equipped and released to step in to lead in important areas.

When Moses experienced a strain on his leadership capacity, Jethro advised him to shift toward a delegated approach (Exodus 18). In this model, Moses would lead Israel’s leaders while the leaders would lead the people.

This principle is critical for a church to cross the 200 barrier. Both the pastor and the congregation must recognize that the pastor’s highest-leverage work must focus on sharing ministry by developing leaders who can in turn care for and develop others.

This realization is simultaneously liberating and threatening: liberating because it means a way forward exists; threatening because it requires a fundamental change for both pastors and congregations. Pastors must shift their own self-understanding, and congregations must change the fundamental expectations they have of their pastors.

Growing in Leadership

To go from doing ministry to equipping ministers isn’t based on a single proof text from Exodus 18. It’s a theological principle we see throughout Scripture.

Sometimes pastors lead churches under 200 because of an underdeveloped ecclesiology and missiology. They love their people. They love the Lord. But they have inherited (often unconsciously) a model of ministry where the pastor does all the ministry while the congregation receives that ministry. In that model, delegation can seem like neglecting one’s calling instead of maximizing it.

Sometimes pastors also can be drawn to comfort—be it their own, the congregation’s or both—than to the church’s mission. Change is hard, not only for congregations, but for pastors. Being a pastor is challenging. A leadership shift can make numerical growth feel like a threat rather than a fulfillment of calling.

Breaking the 200 barrier means leaning into the equipping role Scripture calls us to embrace. For example, Jesus spent most of his time with his 12 disciples. In Acts the apostles created the function of deacon to better distribute responsibilities, so that they could do the work of prayer and the Word while everyone in the church was properly cared for (Acts 6).

In Ephesians 4:11–12, Paul writes that God gave the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ” (emphasis added). Leaders are equippers. The work of ministry belongs to the whole church, not just the pastors.

I believe the Bible calls pastors to develop a dynamic, missional ecclesiology. We need a biblically shaped understanding of what the church is and what it is for.

Practical Shifts to Make

This theological move toward a biblical, dynamic, missional ecclesiology produces a cascade of practical shifts. First, it produces a pro-growth mindset. Pastors and congregations shift because they believe that reaching more people with the gospel is more important than the status quo. A pro-growth mindset keeps the centrality of Jesus’ heart to see lives transformed by the gospel and bring healing to the nations as the chief priority (cf. Rev. 7:9; 22:2).

Second, pastors must learn to develop and deploy leaders at scale. Consider this math: Growing from 125 to 200 people represents 60% attendance growth. But a church of 200 typically requires roughly twice as many active leaders as a church of 125 does. That means 60% attendance growth demands 100% leadership growth. And that means that leadership development is at the heart of breaking growth barriers.

Ed Stetzer is the editor-in-chief of Outreach magazine, host of the Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast, and a professor and dean at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. He has planted, revitalized, and pastored churches, trained pastors and church planters on six continents, and has written hundreds of articles and a dozen books. He currently serves as teaching pastor at Mariners Church in Irvine, California.

He is also regional director for Lausanne North America, and is frequently cited in, interviewed by and writes for news outlets such as USA Today and CNN. He is the founding editor of The Gospel Project, and his national radio show, Ed Stetzer Live, airs Saturdays on Moody Radio and affiliates.