Barriers to growth start at the top, with the Pastor and his attitude to what the church is and what it should be. I tend not to advocate one style of church over another, I don't particularly care if your church is emergent, emerging, traditional, contemporary, is in a factory, a clown college or an old monastery. What I do care about is that it is a community of people expressing Kingdom qualities to it's greater community. A group of people reaching out to the marginalized for and with the love of Christ.

When we look at the question of the pastor as a barrier to growth, we need to look at the size of the church and how he runs it.

Consider these 4 categories:

• The Family Church(< 50 active members)
• The Pastoral Church (50 to 150 active members)
• The Program Church (150 to 350 active members)
• The Corporate Church (> 350 active members)

These create 4 natural barriers in the life of a church that must be confronted and dealt with proactively when your church is going through a phase of growth or contraction. The size impacts the effectiveness of the pastor as well as the manner of their leadership.

A pastor who leads a church of a particular size as if they were another size is most likely setting themselves up for failure. For example, suppose you are a leading a thriving Pastoral sized congregation and find yourself called to a new congregation already in a Program-size. That leader will need to make a significant shift in thinking if they desire to be effective in their new congregation. They move from the primary leader in the church to either the team leader or a team member or a larger leadership group.

It may be that the new church has called you to grow a specialized area such as small groups or outreach. You are now no longer responsible for the entire congregation, but a sub-set of them. Your will for the direction of the church becomes part of a greater whole which can lead to frustration if you do not accept this.

Conversely, if you have been brought in as the team leader you need to accept that you are setting overall direction for the church and the execution of individual components of this is not within your control. There are just two many parts for you to micro manage.

Over the next 4 posts I am going to unpack what these church sizes mean for the pastor. What their responsibility is to the congregation, leadership styles that work for it's size as well as the pitfalls of working with a church of that size.