Some of you may be in churches that over the past few years have experienced a great deal of growth. In 2020, faithful churches, many of them, including the one that I serve in, we experienced explosive growth. And so it's easy to say, oh, look what God is doing, but forget that there's still one primary function of the leaders of a church, and that is to shepherd the flock of God.

And so I would always caution when people are coming into your doors week by week, new people here and there, the responsibility to shepherd them just goes up exponentially because now it becomes more difficult. When a little bitty church has one new family a year, that's a blessing because you can get to know them and you can shepherd them and you can slowly inculcate them into the body. When your church is getting 10 new members every week, you've got to elevate your ability to shepherd them individually in their lives. You can't just make this a mass cattle drive of pushing people across the finish line to heaven.

You still have to shepherd them, which means you need to develop leaders. It means you need to find ways, make systems to make sure every single person in the church has the opportunity to be shepherded as an individual.