Leading means making changes. They're twin concepts. If nothing needs to change, you don't need a leader. In church ministry, however, most pastors find themselves having to lead the way to change, and sometimes those changes have unexpected costs. Here are the stories of five such change makers.

Create a "try it and see" attitude in a multi-site congregation

Our church was growing and we needed a larger auditorium, but our town denied us permission to expand at our present location. We were forced to look creatively for ways to grow and decided to try multiple sites.

We started with a low-risk test, a quarter mile away. We didn't say, "This is our future." We just tried to get some people to try it, and once they came, there was a little bit of a buzz. Then we tried it at a location quite a distance from our campus, with live worship music and the sermon on video. It went really well, and from there the concept has kind of taken on a life of its own.

We realized this is more than a temporary ...