I love churches of all sizes. I serve as a teaching pastor at one of the largest churches in the nation. I also regularly visit and preach in small local churches all over the U.S. and all over the world. Many churches of all sizes are growing, but many churches of all sizes have plateaued and gotten stuck.

Students of church growth have identified several logjams where churches tend to get stuck. These sticking points are commonly called “church growth barriers.” When a church reaches a certain size, it struggles to grow beyond that size, whether 75, 200, 400 or beyond. Studying these barriers, we can find built-in dynamics of human relationships and communities that contribute to them. And we can discover helpful and biblical principles for breaking through them.

Specifically, one of the most powerful barriers in church growth is the “200 barrier.” The dynamics, leadership and strategies required beyond 200 people in a church are dramatically different than leading a church under 200 people. So many churches get stuck below 200 and never grow beyond it. Thankfully, we can all grow in our leadership, so that we can prepare to break through barriers and reach people with the good news.

In this series, I want to walk through some best practices and principles for leading your church to grow. This first article will address two of the most powerful barriers that prevent churches from growing beyond 200. That said, the principles apply to churches of all sizes, and they start with church leaders and pastors.

The Purpose Barrier

Perhaps the biggest barrier to church growth is the hearts of leaders and specifically of pastors. Years ago, John Maxwell said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership,” and nowhere is this more true than in evangelism and mission. If a pastor doesn’t lead the way in evangelism and mission, the church will struggle to reach people with the gospel. A pastor who is not actively showing and sharing the love of Jesus shouldn’t be surprised if church members are not actively showing and sharing the love of Jesus, either.

Pastors, we must remember our mission and our purpose. Jesus came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10), and he has sent us as the Father sent him (John 20:21). It’s not wrong for a church to be small. Churches under 200 people aren’t bad churches. Many good, faithful churches — most good and faithful churches — don’t break 200. It isn’t wrong to be a small church, but it is wrong not to care about people. When pastors lose their passion for reaching people with the love of Jesus, they have gone off track.

This misalignment happens to pastors of churches from 20 to 20,000. It’s not a size problem. It’s a purpose problem.

The Personal Barrier

The purpose barrier often connects directly to personal barriers in the life of a pastor or leader. Sometimes hidden sin cools the pastor’s heart toward God and his mission. The pastor’s character doesn’t align with the pastoral calling. In such cases, pastors are hindered by sins of “commission” — sinful activities, thoughts and words.

On the other hand, this lack of character might not stem from a specific, overt pattern of sinfulness. Instead, a lack of character might manifest in sins of “omission” — good things we should do but fail to do. Specifically, too many pastors have not developed a habit of diligence and hard work. Laziness plagues too many pulpits. That said, on the other side of the spectrum, the problem of burnout also presents a danger. Pastors can work hard, not from purpose, but from a need to achieve their own sense of self-worth. Both laziness and burnout can be sins of omission, either failing to do the good works God has prepared for us (Eph. 2:10) or failing to rest in the gospel as the source of our hope.

Breaking Through

Both the purpose barrier and the personal barrier can hinder pastors from leading churches toward growth. Thankfully, the solution for both is the same. The solution is remembering and believing the story we’re called to share. The solution is the gospel. We realign with our purpose and we realign our personal lives as we repent and believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

When we experience afresh the love of Jesus for us, our hearts will be set toward Jesus and his purpose. And his purpose was clear. He sends us out as the Father sent him (John 20:21). He commissions us to make disciples in the neighborhoods and nations in the power of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 1:8). Jesus is the solution for the hindrances in our lives — and in our churches and leadership.

Jesus also gives us wisdom and counsel through his Word and Spirit, and through others and the community around us. Cultivating practical wisdom for leadership is not at odds with personal devotion, repentance, faith and purpose. Instead, these things are all intimately related.

There are “best practices” for leading a growth church that have been developed and deployed over time. We can pursue specific shifts in our leadership approach, like learning how to connect people in our churches to one another rather than just to us as pastors. We can develop strategies for multi-directional care, moving toward a pastoral leadership approach and not just a chaplaincy approach. One great way to pursue this kind of development is through good resources. One of those resources is my Breaking the 200 Barrier seminar at RightNow Pastors+, which develops a lot of these themes with more detail and specific application. Check it out here.

We need to develop both a heart of integrity and skillful hands of faithfulness (Ps. 78:72) to lead our churches toward growth. We’re going to explore these themes in the articles ahead in this series.

As we do, let’s commit to breaking through these barriers. Not just so we can have bigger, more impressive churches or resumes, but so that we can seek the heart of God. His heart beats for his mission, and ours should too.

This post and other writings by Ed Stetzer can be found on Church Leaders.