Leadership Journal

In that long ago, far away book The Peter Principle lies the doctrine of my insecurity. The book states that climbers on the ladder of life are promoted rung by rung until they eventually reach a level they're not equipped to handle. Thus, by doing well, a person arrives at a plateau beyond his real capabilities and successfully "out succeeds" himself. I have often been haunted by the fear that my church will one day outgrow my ability.

Only one word can prohibit this imagined debacle: adjustment. Not my adjustment to the crisis moments of ministry. Such moments belong to every pastor. Not my adjustment to wrenching business meetings or to those lonely nights that follow the hectic days when it seems that, for all my acquaintances, I haven't got a friend in the world.

No, the adjustment required is the ability to relate in different ways to the congregation as the membership expands. This difficult adjustment, I believe, is the reason many church planters cannot grow a church from inception to super congregation. How does one relate to church members at the difficult plateaus of growth?

One church growth expert said that because of personal inclinations, there are some "fifty-member pastors," some "two-hundred-member pastors," some "five-hundred-member pastors," and some "two-thousand-member pastors." I'm not sure his statement is altogether true. But if it is, I find myself wondering which is my own magic number of competency. I only know that congregational vitality is somehow related to my ability to lead, and I don't want my church to lose its vitality as it grows.

The whole subject makes me paranoid. Year after year, I cannot escape the dread feeling that I'm not growing as fast as the church. How do I keep adjusting-to keep from stifling my church's growth and yet keep my church from outgrowing me?

I find certain questions accompany my fears:

Why do I react when someone accuses me of not knowing what's going on in church administration?

Do I sometimes lash out when anyone implies I have taken too much time for myself?

Was the anger on my face obvious to the committee when I confessed to forgetting one appointment on a day I had fifteen scheduled?

Why do I sometimes feel I have created a busy church that's all legs and no heart?

Why do I feel bad when there are sixteen people in hospitals and I've visited only fourteen of them?

Why do I spend the first six days of every ten-day vacation feeling guilty that I'm living in caprice while hundreds of problems remain unsolved back home?

Was I always plagued by such self-recrimination? Yes. For years I have lived in the double bind of wanting my church to grow, but fearing my competency would not suffice if it did.

I want to avoid statistical arrogance, but the truth is our church has grown in the past two decades. Twenty-one years ago, I arrived in Omaha and, with five other families, began the work. My wife and I became members eleven and twelve of what was little more than a Bible study. Now the church has a ...