Leaders and pastors live with a tension that everyone experiences in life, but is different on an organizational level.

It is the tension of the in between. Leaders lead and live in the now of the organization, but also with what could be, their vision for the future and where things are going or where they’d like them to be.

This is hard.

A leader knows what is coming, the changes that are going to be made, the momentum that can be had because of those steps, but often has to wait. It might be waiting on a new hire, waiting for things to settle down at a church or for the summer season to end so you can get started.

As a leader, right now you are stuck with this tension. And it won’t go away. It will simply shift to something new. Six months from now, you will be waiting on something different to happen.

Here are 5 ways to survive this tension:

1. Enjoy where you are. This is hard for leaders because we are wired to keep moving, but you are in a certain season. Your church is a certain size, enjoy it. I’ve enjoyed all the sizes of Revolution for different reasons and sometimes have looked back on how easy something was when we were smaller. But I didn’t enjoy it like I could.
2. Make sure things are in place for what is next. Many pastors by nature are not strong planners. They often fly by their seat, spend a lot of time focused on people and find themselves behind the curve on something. This is why it is so important to make time to work on your church, not just in it. If you are growing, do you have enough groups for people? Are you prepared to add classes for kids? What about parking spaces?
3. Start looking past what is next. At some point, you need to start preparing for what comes after what is next. Meaning, you just grew your church plant to 100 and people and are on your way to 200, you need to begin thinking about what your church will be like at 400. Why? There’s a good chance you will do something at 200 to keep you from growing to 400.
4. Listen to the fears that people have. As you are making plans and getting key leaders on board for what is next, you will run into someone who is not excited about what is next and may even hold you back. This person is not the enemy, although you will think they are. They may be crucial to slowing you down (which might be good), they might be God’s way of helping you grow as a leader, you might be God’s way of helping them grow through their fears, or they may be divisive and need to move on. Each person and situation is different, but don’t disregard someone who is not as excited as you are about what is next. You should always be more excited than everyone else, you’re the leader.
5. Plan for what is next. All growth means change. If your church gets larger, changes are coming. You will hand things off to people, leaders that worked well in a church of 100 won’t be the leaders you need at 200. Your schedule will be busier, which will make sermon prep, meeting with people and strategizing harder because you will need to plan better. Everything is different at each stage of your church. Many leaders blindly walk into the next season, get busier and burn out because they haven’t planned for what is next.