Vision is clarified. Strategy is developed. Action plans are implemented. Lives are changed. Needs are met. Growth follows. The pattern repeats. And the end never comes. Or does it?

The reality is that growth seasons run in cycles. As sure as there’s a beginning, there’s an end. What kind of ending depends on the church and its leaders.

What happens when the growth cycle ends? Consider three possibilities:

• The church crash lands—the result of a single, fateful event or a long-simmering issue that finally reaches its explosive climax.
• The church enters a holding pattern—the curse of the plateau.
• The church recharges for another growth cycle.

If the church crash lands, then casualties are the result. It might be worn-out leaders or church members who leave for greener pastures. Church finances may suffer and ministries may become hollowed out over time. In the worst case there’s no course correction and the church eventually dies.

Crash landings occur when the leader fails to cast clear vision, multiply disciples and build a solid missional foundation for the inevitable challenges that lie ahead.

If the end of growth happens due an organizational deficiency, then the church is in danger of entering the up and down—but generally flat—trend line called the growth plateau. Most churches can’t break free from this holding pattern without some significant course correction.

In these first two scenarios, growth ends because something went wrong. Several factors can trigger an end to ministry growth:

• Leadership Drift — Leaders lose sight of the church’s unifying mission and vision and spend valuable resources on sideways energy.
• Staff Turnover — Seasons of high team turnover make it difficult to sustain ministry momentum and growth.
• Failure to Execute Effectively — Too little time and resources spent on Christ-centered, nuts-and-bolts ministry execution is a recipe for stalled growth.
• External Factors — If we learned anything from the COVID-19 experience, it’s that we can’t control a wide range of external factors that impact church growth and health.
• Internal Conflict — Lack of vision clarity often leads to conflict among church leaders and members.
• Apathy and Entitlement — Lukewarmness and complacency are the enemy of a growth mindset. If enough of it takes root, then the church loses its spiritual vitality and stops growing.

Even though we face growth challenges, unhappy endings aren’t inevitable. There is hope for leaders and churches ready to recharge for another growth cycle. Tony Morgan offers this aspirational perspective:

Most churches start, grow, thrive, decline and eventually end. But I believe God’s plan for our churches is that they grow in maturity towards a peak of sustained health, and that as methods and traditions and culture change, they continually reevaluate and refresh, finding new ways to lead people towards Jesus.

Healthy churches possess clear vision, effective leadership and able execution. After a short pause at the end of the growth cycle they are able to recharge, refresh and relaunch into a new season of growth.

As church leaders, we are the ones most responsible for positioning our churches to navigate the peaks and valleys of growth. We should prepare well because wherever our church is in the growth cycle, the end is coming.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Avoid organizational pitfalls that lead to crash landings and the curse of the plateau. Instead, build a healthy church ready to navigate the inevitable end of the growth cycle. Then recharge and relaunch into a new season of growth.

Resources

• The Unstuck Church by Tony Morgan
• “Understanding Where Your Church Is on the Congregational Life Cycle” by Thom Rainer
• “Understanding the 7 Phases of a Church’s Life Cycle” by Tony Morgan
• “Growing the Church: The Life Cycle of a Church” by Anthony Hilder
• Recharge: A Ministry Action Plan to Revitalize Your Church
• Growth Engines on MinistryActionPlans.com
• Unstuck Church Assessment
• “3 Ways to Measure Church Health” on Big Ideas Blog
• “Dechurched America” on Big Ideas Blog

Source

“Understanding the 7 Phases of a Church’s Life Cycle” by Tony Morgan, The Unstuck Group (June 21, 2021), https://theunstuckgroup.com/phases-church-life-cycle.