Church Consultation – Strategic Planning
Does your church have a strategic plan? And if it does, have you recently reviewed it to ensure that it reflects your response to the challenges presented by the post-pandemic 21st century?
The Center for Healthy Churches is here to help you build a strategic vision and plan that reflects your church’s mission and hopes for the future. This isn’t just an outline of where you want to be as a church, but how you are going to get there.
What Is a Strategic Vision Plan for Churches?
One of the most frequently asked questions our church consultation team gets is “Why do I need a strategic vision plan?” And often, strategic plans are confused or used synonymously with terms like “Mission Statement” and “Church Values”. But a strategic plan is more than that.
A strategic plan is your church’s guiding document, developed by the church leadership which contains the detailed plan for accomplishing your church’s mission. Your strategic plan should be evergreen, meaning it does not expire. And it should reflect the current vision and goals of your congregation, staff, and leadership for the next three years.
We suggest that our clients revisit their strategic plan annually as a staff and revise it as necessary.
Your strategic plan should include:
- Mission statement – what your church is trying to accomplish
- Vision statement – how the church will accomplish the mission
- Core values – non-negotiable beliefs and fundamental principles
- Critical strategies – your highest level objectives as a church
- Key objectives – the detailed actions/tactics for each critical strategy
- Key performance measures – how you measure results (attendance, volunteers, donors, etc.)
No matter where your church is in its strategic visioning process, your CHC consultant can help you clarify and solidify your message and ensure that you have an actionable, accessible plan geared towards the results you want to see.
Common Critical Strategies and Key Objectives
Still a little fuzzy on what a strategic vision plan looks like for your church? Here are some common examples from our clients around the country. The critical strategies are bolded, and the key objectives are listed underneath.
Please note that this is a stripped-down version of a generic strategic plan. Often, these sections will be much more fleshed out with your church’s details and plans. Not all of these examples will apply to your church.
1.
Attendance Growth
- Establish metrics that measure impact as well as count attendance
- Establish viable off-campus community groups for those who cannot or will not attend events at the church facility
- Invite the congregation to participate in engagement events with non-believers.
- Seek out affinity groups in your community who are in need (ethnic groups, groups united by common challenges: recovery, special needs children, etc.)
- Plant a second campus by 2025
- Initiate an online campus by 2023
- Commit to improving your entrance to exit experience to encourage utilization of your space seven-days-a-week.
- Creatively engage the online in small group gatherings in addition to streaming worship experiences
- Deliberately seek to engage with children in the community who are not biological offspring of church members.
- Dictate that 20% of each staff members’ time will be spent in ministry off-campus with non-church members.
2.
Discipleship
- Improve small group ministry by diving into discipleship-focused teaching
- Help new believers and church-comers understand what it means to follow Christ in an accessible way
- Establish online community life groups based on availability and interest
- Increase bible study and group opportunities for all ages to encourage fellowship and individual study
3.
Organizational Effectiveness
- Establish leadership development and personal growth plans for the staff
- Improve the church’s ability to grow by establishing, strengthening and supporting growth objectives in every ministry area
- Invest in the development and upgrading of the church’s IT infrastructure and digital media presence
- Streamline organizational structure to be more nimble and responsive to opportunities
- Improve bookkeeping and documentation processes
If this list of objectives is inspiring or overwhelming you, contact The Center for Healthy Churches so we can connect you with one of our church consultation experts.
