Our theme verse for our Dominate campaign at Elevation beginning later in the Fall is Isaiah 54:2:

Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes.

There are two verbs in this verse:
Lengthen
Strengthen

Both bring growth.

Sometimes at Elevation, life mostly revolves around lengthening our cords… spreading out:
Adding services, adding campuses, adding new technology, etc.

Other times, we’re more focused on strengthening our stakes…
digging down.
Deeper leadership development, staffing up, shoring up systems, etc.

I’m not talking about the old evangelism vs. discipleship continuum.
Hopefully you know by now that these are two sides of the same coin.
I’m talking about two separate but equal, distinctive yet concurrent phases of growth.

If you’re always spreading out and never digging down, the wind will blow your work away.
If you’re always digging down and never spreading out, what’s the point?

Effective churches learn to walk and chew gum (lengthen and strengthen) at the same time. But it still seems like you will primarily aim at one or the other in different seasons of growth.

That’s what we’re learning… Hope it helps somebody!