Perhaps the reason that growth is slow or difficult in churches is that we're so consumed with keeping people happy and satisfied, that we never have enough dissatisfaction to tip the scales for growth to happen.  Guarded as I am of "formulas," I know this one to be true.  The formula for growth is simply this: Dissatisfaction plus Vision plus First Steps has to be greater than Resistance to change, or in clever symbolism: D + V + F > R.  Why do you care?
 
How disappointing it is when you put all this work into a project, only to have it fall flat, or cease as soon as you're not giving your full energies to it.  We get tired of trying to implement a cultural change in our church, only to find resentment or pushback awaiting us.  We tell our people all the right, new, inspired plans and ideas we have, only to see their uninspired response: "oh."  We go to "the conference to end all conferences" and hear these great ideas and are personally inspired, wanting desperately to share the experience [and its effect] with our team, but...I guess they had to be there...
 
But...[click here to get the whole bag of fertilizer]