Overcoming Barriers to Growth: Proven Strategies for Taking Your Church to the Next Level
Author: Michael Fletcher
Publisher: Bethany House
File Under: Church Growth

Executive Summary: Author Michael Fletcher is the senior pastor of Manna Church in Fayetteville, N.C., and has led the congregation's growth from 400 to 4,000 active members during his 20 years of pastoring the church. So, it is from personal experience that Fletcher speaks to the issue of church growth as he identifies the major barriers to growth and then outlines methods for breaking through them.

According to Fletcher: "On the road to 'mega' there are three key stages of leadership structures or configurations and two major transition points. If pastors and leaders properly anticipate these transitions and adjust appropriately, stress can be reduced and leadership teams can work together to experience growth instead of working against each other."

Fletcher suggests, and cites supporting research, that the two main barriers pastors face in trying to grow their churches numerically are the 100/200 barrier and the 700/800 barrier, with the former representing the transition from a small church to a medium church and the latter representing the transition from a medium church to a large church.

With his stated goal being to help church leaders change internal structures in order to grow, Fletcher offers readers what he considers to be reproducible methods for achieving church growth success. First and foremost on the list is the need for the senior pastor to find God's vision for the church he leads.

Fletcher describes the importance of what he calls "the threefold law of vision:" the Law of Articulation, the Law of Unification and the Law of Mobilization. Unless the pastor can articulate the vision, unify the people around it and then mobilize them to help carry it out, the vision of growth is doomed for failure.

One point on which Fletcher risks alienating readers is his suggestion that pastors must switch from a Shepherd Model to a Rancher Model in order for their churches to grow, which some may feel contradicts the model of Jesus as Chief Shepherd. With that point aside, wherever pastors are located on the church-growth continuum, Overcoming Barriers to Growth can help them take their church to the next level.

Quote: "To move from small to medium or from medium to large, some very important things will have to change! It is important, then, to understand the dynamics involved in a church at the next level in order to take a congregation to that place."

Ideal reader: Pastors, elders and other church leaders desiring to identify and break through the barriers to numerical growth.

Rate the book from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) on these criteria: Practicality (5); Insight (4); Theological Depth (3); Readability (5).

Reviewer: Sean Fowlds