Like athletes, churches and church leaders can face performance barriers that seem insurmountable. The dynamics that relate to this barrier are mostly predicable, and, from the leadership perspective, mark the quantitative divide between small churches and large churches.

Each church size has a different DNA and size constraint. In my observation, there are several fundamentals that will help you and your church break through ministry growth barriers. Let's look at two:

Clarity of vision

Growing churches have a heart for reaching people for Jesus Christ. If your vision is to care for the contented, then you will not produce passion in your people to reach those outside the boundaries of the church family. Clarity of vision must answer the question, "For whom does my church exist?"

One of the exciting dynamics of having a clear vision is recognizing the need to be present in the community. Rather than waiting for the community to show up on the church's doorstep, churches that break growth barriers are present in the normal network of society, present in the ministry to physical needs of people, and present in the spiritual battle for people's souls.

Leaders of growing churches know who they are, why they are, and where they are. They have learned to operate out of their strengths and to mitigate against their weaknesses. They know what their key role is and how to parlay that role into motivated ministry. Finally, leaders in growing churches know where they are going and where they are now. They build bridges to the future while they are walking there.

Unity of leadership

Larry Osborne, pastor of North Coast Community Church in the San Diego area, has written a great book entitled "The Unity Factor." While it is a small book, it has a powerful message: Get the key influencers in your church to share a common vision. Sacrifice today for the promise of tomorrow in these people's lives.

Without leadership unity, there will be no lasting ministry growth that breaks through barriers.

Don Nelson, a committed leader in a local church, said congregations should not underestimate the importance of leadership unity.

"At our church, my wife and I are giving time we don't have and tons of money because it's important. Do you think we are going to let sick people kill that work and investment? Heavens no! It's costing us way too much!

"For every sick, agenda laden, divisive, contentious person in our church we aren't willing to confront (out of fear we say ‘oh that's just the way they are,' or ‘I don't think God wants us to treat people like that'), there are 10, 20, 100, 1,000 people out there to be won to Christ that won't be because they sniff out the contentiousness and will go somewhere else,” he said.

He continued: "Do we want to stand before God and say we did the math wrong, or that we didn't have the guts to make way for hundreds more to come to Christ by not tackling these problems decisively?"

Where are you and your church with these two fundamentals? Is the vision clear? How about unity of leadership? God wants you to break through growth barriers. Take the steps necessary to see those growth barriers removed from your local church ministry.

Dr. John Jackson is president of VisionQuest Ministries and senior pastor of Carson Valley Christian Center. Learn more about this ministry by visiting the VisionQuest Ministries Web site at www.vqresources.com.

This article is copyrighted to Dr. John Jackson © 2004, and was reprinted on ChurchCentral.com, with his permission.