A couple of nights ago, I had a strange dream. (I'm not calling it a dream from God, but I have not forgotten it.) I dreamt that our church was filled to capacity, with some strange attendees including Courtney Cox & Jennifer Aniston (and no I had not been watching Friends.) I had no clue where all these people came from but I was in shock. During this dream, I felt a message in my spirit, "Prepare for growth." I've been pondering this and ask you, "How do you prepare in advance for church growth?" I've got some ideas, but I'd love to hear yours.
Well for me I start by praying, "God what in ME needs to change personally to prepare for this growth?"
Usually God speaks to me things I need to change about myself personally or my leadership style in order to be ready for the next level.
Of course we practically prepare for things like improving the building or printing more bulletins (if you're expecting more prepare for more), but I think nothing prepares you like preparing the pastoral couple...
Preparing for growth means we better have things in order now and not try to get in order when we start growing. If you are trying to get things in order after the church has grown you may lose people. You have to be prepared such as what PD said about printing more bulletins...even if you start small lets say increments of 10 or more if you feel that would be better. In our previous church we had no children under the age of 3 but we made sure to have someone that was ready at a given notice to cover the nursery if we had a visiting family, this actually helped and we had two families start coming regularly solely because we had someone willing to take nursery on Sunday mornings and nights as well. I heard once in a conference I went to "you can't minister to the 100s if your mindset is on the 10s". Preparing the building, making sure you have the leadership in place are important. Also I think it's important to write down how you might do things differently if your attendance doubled and start implementing those changes now, slowly, and get your leadership on board with your decisions.
