Every church has a mission and vision. For some churches it’s to reach lost people in the community. For some it’s reaching lost people all over the world through online church. For some it’s to grow the believers that are already in the church. Sure there are other things that your church is doing, but for most churches there is one overarching vision that your pastor and leadership team talks about often. That mission and vision is what drives your strategy. If your vision is to reach people all over the world then your strategy probably involves some time of technology and focus on live streaming. (especially after Covid-19)

Once you have your vision then you can get to work on your strategy. And every few years or so your strategy may shift. Maybe your church has done a mid week service for years, but recently decided to focus on small groups so you’ve decided to cut the mid week service to encourage people to join groups. Whatever your new strategy is then you need to create a new structure for that strategy. It has to go in that order. Strategy first. Structure second. If not it’s like putting a round peg in a square hole.

The mission and vision does not change.

The strategy is updated.

But, the structure must always be changing.

In fact, the structure in our churches and most businesses probably needs to shift more than we’re comfortable with.

Most experts would tell you that in fast growing churches or organizations a structure shift needs to happen every 12-18 months. What got you here won’t get you there. My nephew is 5 years old and it’s amazing every time I see him how much bigger he gets. As he is growing his bones and muscles and joints all have to grow with him. Our churches and organizations are the same thing. Our structure has to grow as our church grows.

Structure should follow strategy.

Form should follow function.

Often times in churches we pray for growth and put in new initiatives believing that God will move and make things happen. And then it happens and we try and use our old structure in the new vision. That’s like putting new wine in old wine skins. It doesn’t work.

If your strategy is shifting, your structure has to shift. After Covid so many churches came out with a new vision to reach people online, but kept the same structure of staffing.

If your church is 20 years old and you have the same org chart or you have staff members who are doing the same things they were doing 20 years ago then either:

Your church hasn’t grown. Or you haven’t changed your structure.

You have to invest new resources to get new results. You have to spend money to make money.

If your strategy involves any kind of technology or digital media (which it definitely should in 2022) then you have to spend money to hire the right people in a new structure. Here’s a tip. Hire young people for these roles. Experience doesn’t matter. Young people are smarter than us and they’ll figure it out. That’s their superpower.

Instead of looking at the people you have on your staff and trying to fit them into your current structure to do this new strategy you need to create a new structure and then evaluate your staff and figure out who can fit where.

And unfortunately that means we will have to cut somewhere else to spend on the new thing. These are tough decisions but they have to happen. Growing, healthy churches have to make hard decisions.

These changes will be hard for leaders and staff as well. If you’re the director of one of the ministries or perhaps the pastor then you have to change your structure too. I remember first starting as the Creative Director at Times Square Church and I only had one staff member so of course he reported to me and we did everything. Over the next two years we added ten new staff members in that department. Unfortunately, we couldn’t keep the same structure of all of them reporting to me. People who I hired and who used to report to me needed to report to someone else because we restructured. But that’s better for everyone. Most leaders can only manage five to seven direct reports. Anything beyond that the proper amount of care and guidance can’t be given. Especially in a church setting where the leader is normally wearing multiple hats and leading those five to seven people is not the only thing they are doing.

Once you make the hard decision to change your church or organizations structure don’t stop there. Making sure that change is successful is a full time job and requires buy in from everyone in the organization. Remember to always share the WHY behind what you’re doing. Remind people about the overarching vision and mission of the church. People don’t buy into an org chart they buy into a vision bigger than themselves. Our job as leaders is to cast that vision.

Sometimes it’s hard to see within our churches and organizations where we need to change the structure because we’re too close to it. That’s why many churches and businesses bring in outside consultants. You can find out more about how I can help your church or business with this on my website.