Video

19 Minutes To Master Sales Tax in QuickBooks Online [VIDEO]

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qbo sales tax setup video featured

Video transcript

00:00 sales tax and QuickBooks Online how to
00:02 manage the quick answers our first to go
00:09 to taxes and then add or edit tax rates
00:13 and agencies or edit sales tax settings
00:15 where you can edit what you’ve already
00:18 entered and that’s like I said in taxes
00:21 and then the add edit tax rates and
00:25 agencies click new to add a new sales
00:28 tax rate or if you want to enter what
00:33 you’ve sorry edit which you’ve
00:35 previously entered click on edit sales
00:37 tax settings if you want a view
00:41 reporting on your sales tax liability
00:46 you go to taxes again view sales tax
00:48 liability report that is here here you
00:55 can specify the reporting period or put
00:59 in custom dates and you can select which
01:02 tax agency you want to see reporting on
01:05 just change those settings at run report
01:07 and finally any other sales tax setting
01:11 you might want to edit is the sales tax
01:15 category for products and services to do
01:17 that you go to sales products and
01:21 services and you get here you’ll see a
01:26 listing of your products and services
01:28 just click the one you want to edit
01:30 click Edit under the action column and
01:39 towards the bottom of the product
01:41 service information screen you should
01:45 see sales tax category okay so that’s
01:50 quick answers now we’ll get into a
01:52 little more detail about all that so
01:58 before I get into it I want to start off
02:02 with a caveat did recently QuickBooks
02:07 Online has made some changes to the user
02:11 experience and
02:13 I’m getting conflicting information
02:15 between what I see in the sample company
02:17 which is what I use for my examples
02:20 obviously I use that for purposes of
02:22 privacy so I’m seeing a difference
02:24 between that and what I’m seeing
02:28 elsewhere so what I chose to do in order
02:35 to get this video out not sit on it
02:38 forever is to basically cover both ways
02:41 so I guess whatever QuickBooks has got
02:46 going on in terms of that you new user
02:48 interface if it’s affecting you yet
02:52 then you should still be able to use
02:54 this video if it’s not you should also
02:56 still be able to use this video so with
02:58 all that said we’ll get into it here
03:03 capabilities of QuickBooks Online it’s
03:05 supposed to have a sales tax engine it
03:07 makes calculations that basically kind
03:09 of a wizard for figuring out sales tax
03:12 what it does do though once you enter
03:14 information automatically calculates
03:15 every time that you enter an invoice or
03:18 a sales receipt okay so it’s based on
03:21 the location of the sale and the type of
03:24 product and basically everything you
03:26 entered during setup there supposed to
03:29 be a sales tax enter where you can view
03:31 upcoming tax payments see liability
03:33 reports change settings and all that you
03:36 can as I covered in a quick answer still
03:38 do most of that but again
03:40 things have changed somewhat so I can’t
03:44 walk you through an example of the old
03:47 basic setup or any of the old examples
03:50 because again the sample company has
03:53 changed is different than they used to
03:56 be but here’s how the old way used to do
04:00 basic setup and you go to left menu
04:03 taxes and in setup sales tax there would
04:06 be a button there you would confirm your
04:08 address your place of business and it
04:12 would ask you if you needed to collect
04:14 sales tax outside of where your address
04:17 was and you’d click typically no they’re
04:25 in close the window then
04:27 he would also select a filing frequency
04:28 and you’d be giving guidance on that
04:30 based on your locality and the
04:35 anticipated amount of receipts you had
04:37 how often you should file unfortunately
04:40 seems for the time being all that’s gone
04:42 you’re now left to kind of sort it
04:47 figure it all out yourself I would
04:50 assume that’s a functionality that
04:52 they’ll bring back but yeah I don’t know
04:55 like I said things are a little weird
04:56 now as of the recording of this video so
05:00 the new way though you know that I’m
05:02 still go to taxes on the left menu then
05:04 like I said add edit tax rates and
05:06 agencies let that load up and your first
05:14 time you’re probably going to when
05:16 you’re setting it up you’re gonna want
05:17 to click new and you’re gonna choose
05:22 whether you do a single or combined tax
05:26 rate and if you’re not familiar a single
05:31 tax rates pretty straight forward that
05:34 would be like a state sales tax
05:35 now obviously sometimes counties and/or
05:40 cities or you know other other
05:46 governments will implement an additional
05:49 sales tax you know to pay for schools to
05:53 pay for new arenas to pay for whatever
05:57 it is so when they do that when you
06:00 start stacking sales tax rates that’s
06:03 when you’ve got a combined rate okay
06:06 what I would suggest doing until they
06:08 get to a little wizard back up and
06:10 running if they do is to go to this
06:14 address right here sales tax states calm
06:17 and that’s an easy way to look up what
06:21 the sales tax rate is in a specific area
06:23 but I would definitely double check that
06:25 against the appropriate State Department
06:29 of Revenue website just to confirm it
06:35 so once you have it entered if you want
06:39 to edit mention go to edit sales tax
06:46 settings here and this isn’t editing
06:50 being sales tax for one of the
06:54 government entities attended earlier
06:57 this is more general settings you know
07:00 as you can see do you charge sales tax
07:02 where your default sales tax is and
07:05 whether you want to make all new
07:08 customers taxable or and/or all new
07:11 products and services taxable so there’s
07:13 more general settings not the specific
07:16 settings those would be edited here of
07:18 course where you would click on the
07:21 relevant government entity and click
07:24 Edit there you can change the rate
07:37 oops what did you do there I don’t know
07:42 what happened get back on track here
07:59 a little bit more about those general
08:06 options that you can edit you know it
08:09 asked do you charge sales tax if you
08:13 sell physical goods typically the answer
08:15 is gonna be yes again the old with the
08:20 old way it used to walk you through
08:22 where you could kind of I don’t know it
08:28 gave me more guidance on what was
08:31 taxable and how much based off your
08:32 locality and everything it just doesn’t
08:34 seem to do that now but so typically the
08:37 answer is gonna be yes but it’s
08:39 complicated topic so make sure you do
08:40 your research you pick a default sales
08:44 tax that’s a drop-down like I showed you
08:47 from previously entered agencies and
08:49 then make all new customer product
08:52 services taxable depends on the nature
08:54 of your business
08:55 but I would imagine that would typically
08:56 be checked also okay so a little bit
09:02 more about tax categories for products
09:04 and services again that sales products
09:06 and services then you want to add it for
09:08 a specific product or service
09:27 so the sales tax category like I said
09:31 it’s a drop-down you can choose either
09:33 taxable standard rate non-taxable or
09:36 choose a special category if you’re
09:38 unsure you might take a look at special
09:40 categories to make sure this particular
09:43 product or service doesn’t fall under
09:45 one of those let’s take a look at that
09:48 here and this is what I was talking
09:55 about how it’ll kind of walk you through
09:57 a little bit as far as different
10:00 products and services are concerned so
10:02 if you were in the business of
10:05 professional services
10:06 you know you might click that look and
10:10 see it’ll narrow it down if your
10:13 services say photographer fall under
10:18 this category you know again you keep
10:22 narrowing it down and check the button
10:26 click the button and hit done and it’ll
10:31 apply the appropriate sales tax given
10:36 your locality like I said and a
10:40 particular product or service if you
10:45 can’t find that particular product or
10:49 service in that special category list
10:52 then just go ahead and click taxable
10:55 standard rate unless you’re certain it’s
10:58 non-taxable I used to be able to check
11:05 the sales tax calculation by looking at
11:10 sales receipt and invoices again as far
11:13 as I can tell that’s no longer an option
11:17 like if we go to all sales here sales
11:21 all sales select receipt or invoice
11:23 click on the sales tax link it used to
11:26 be where sales tax was calculated you
11:30 know it was clickable kind of hyperlink
11:33 in the bottom right and then you could
11:35 viewer edit the sales tax calculation
11:37 from
11:38 there now if we look at for instance an
11:55 open invoice that depends in part what’s
12:03 on the invoice course it’s all
12:06 non-taxable services then if something’s
12:12 not quite right
12:13 no kiddin I see we can click on another
12:17 one here I’m good
12:31 and this one doesn’t have sales tax that
12:37 was a payment though we tried one more
12:40 invoice yeah all right so anyhow like I
12:51 said it used to
12:53 obviously the functionalities gotten a
12:55 lot worse yeah that’s the way it used to
13:00 work it could be that they bring that
13:01 functionality back but the time being as
13:05 far as I can tell it’s gone the sales
13:09 tax enter the old way again and the left
13:12 menu you go to taxes and then sales tax
13:17 in some instances if you do payroll you
13:22 might see payroll taxes as a tab or a
13:30 sub option there but in this case the
13:34 sample companies and set up that way and
13:37 if it were I’m not sure if it would be
13:40 there the way the way things have gone
13:44 with these changes anyhow it did there
13:51 were a bunch of they call them cards or
13:55 whatever across the screen there where
13:57 you know they were kind of graphical and
14:01 easy to navigate like sales tax to was
14:04 their tax break down it showed you that
14:08 you know what you keep an eye on what
14:11 the sales tax do what you had accrued to
14:15 be owing all the agencies in terms of
14:19 set in terms of sales tax and tax break
14:21 down which was kind of the main area of
14:24 the screen it had sales tax amounts and
14:27 what was due this month what was
14:28 upcoming was overdue a lot of great
14:29 information then you had a opportunity
14:37 to view your return which was again
14:39 based on what it hadn’t already been
14:40 entered into QuickBooks Online when it
14:43 was time to pay
14:44 typically that was done on the say
14:47 States website where you would file that
14:49 return but you know it was all prepared
14:53 for him and it would also then record
14:56 the payment quickbooks online when you
14:57 click the record payment button finally
15:00 ur is history in the sales tax settings
15:02 sales tax settings that they do still
15:05 have where you can view at it mentor
15:06 agencies history that’s that the
15:11 comparable thing now is the the sales
15:15 tax liability report and you can view
15:19 previously paid or filed returns so the
15:23 old sales tax center had a lot of great
15:24 information now not as much I mean some
15:29 should does show what you oh here on the
15:31 main screen depending on breaks it down
15:36 by agency and that but it seemed to me a
15:41 lot more user-friendly previously there
15:47 were also the reports in the upper right
15:48 and sales tax liability report which
15:50 still has and taxable customer report
15:53 which might exist in reports now I feel
15:58 like it does let’s take a look here and
16:05 there were also shortcuts in a sales tax
16:07 center on the right side that navigate
16:10 to all the areas that fed into sales tax
16:12 calculation so you could jump straight
16:14 to him from there which was also handy
16:17 now you basically got I can mention the
16:22 sales tax owed that’s the main screen in
16:25 the sales tax center and the sales tax
16:29 liability report kind of your two
16:31 options and still-living talked a little
16:39 bit about the sales tax liability report
16:41 earlier and you select the appropriate
16:42 report period in tax agency and click
16:46 the run report button still loading
16:54 so that basically covers everything look
16:59 I know that was kind of a not the best
17:03 video ever I would love to give you more
17:10 up-to-date information but like I said
17:12 it seems like it’s in kind of in flux
17:14 for the time being so that is what it is
17:17 and I can always record a new video if I
17:20 have to in the future but so I don’t
17:25 know if you run into similar
17:26 circumstances then I did you saw me
17:28 struggling here and everything’s changed
17:30 where it’s located frankly it’s not as
17:33 not as robust as it used to be you know
17:38 and it can be a pain in the butt to deal
17:41 with so you know you’ve got a business
17:44 to run you’ve got sales that need to be
17:46 made and if you don’t have time to DIY
17:49 your bookkeeping you should check out
17:51 bots keeper what it is is a in essence
17:55 it’s a AI based bookkeeping but with a
17:58 human element to kind of qualifying
18:02 things you might say so a lot of the
18:05 tasks that you had to do are automated
18:07 and again you can work more on your
18:09 business you can work on bringing in
18:10 more sales and worry less about data
18:13 entry and worry less about slow internet
18:16 connections and fumbling around with
18:20 backwards changes they’ve made to
18:22 QuickBooks so there’s a link for that
18:25 down in the description if you want to
18:27 check that out and that’s all there is
18:30 so you know I still tried to make even
18:34 though things were a little wacky tried
18:36 to make this video quick into the point
18:38 upfront to get your answers and then if
18:41 you wanted to get into more detail you
18:43 know I tried to do that to try to give
18:45 you as much information as possible give
18:47 you this slides to reference and if that
18:50 worked for him
18:51 I would appreciate a like and if you
18:54 find yourself looking up topics on
18:57 QuickBooks Online fairly frequently and
19:00 want to skip searchbar in the future and
19:04 just check out my channel I
19:07 have posted and will continue to post
19:09 more videos if you subscribe you can do
19:13 that and yeah thanks for watching
19:15 take care

How To Set Up Bank Feeds in QuickBooks Online Step by Step [VIDEO]

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qbo bank feed featured

Video transcript

00:01 getting bank transactions into
00:03 QuickBooks Online there are two basic
00:08 ways to do this and the first is to set
00:11 up a bank feed which is connecting your
00:14 bank with QuickBooks Online so that
00:17 transactions automatically come in and
00:21 you do that by going to banking on the
00:25 left hand menu the banking tab and then
00:28 Add Account you’ll search for your bank
00:33 or credit card here and once you find it
00:38 you follow the steps signing into your
00:41 with your bank information and do that
00:46 to could finish the connection and
00:49 that’ll bring in depending on your bank
00:53 anywhere from like 30 to 90 days maybe
00:57 more transactions the other way to do it
01:02 is to manually upload transactions and
01:05 that’s done by going to the same area
01:08 banking banking and then on the Update
01:12 button here the drop down menu click
01:15 that and do file upload so that’s a
01:21 quick answer we can get into a little
01:23 more detail here bank feeds are links
01:28 like I said between your bank and credit
01:30 card accounts and the transactions are
01:34 fed into QuickBooks Online Banking
01:36 Center and that makes it easier to match
01:41 transactions to reconcile your accounts
01:44 in essence between what happens at your
01:46 bank and what you have entered into
01:48 QuickBooks Online so to connect bank
01:53 feeds like I said left-hand menu
01:55 banking Center if this is your first
01:58 time if you haven’t connected any
02:01 accounts yet you’ll select a button that
02:03 says connect otherwise like in a sample
02:07 cup in here they’ve already connected
02:09 accounts so
02:11 in this case we click Add Account as I
02:14 mentioned and like I can’t afford that
02:17 lien you walk you through every single
02:19 step because of the nature of what we’re
02:24 doing here I can’t really connect the
02:26 bank account with this sample account
02:27 company and obviously making accounts a
02:31 little sensitive and not the sort of
02:33 thing you want to accidentally put
02:37 something out there that would you know
02:39 compromise like my bank account on
02:44 YouTube so I wish I could provide a
02:47 little more step-by-step detail but I’ve
02:50 tried to do as much as I can here so as
02:54 I mentioned when you click Add Account
02:57 you’ll select find your bank you’ll in
03:03 most cases you should be able to find
03:05 your bank and should be able to make a
03:06 connection it should be rare that you’re
03:09 not able to and once you enter your
03:13 login information for the bank or credit
03:15 card then you’re gonna choose the
03:17 appropriate account that you want to
03:21 link it to in quickbooks online choose
03:26 the appropriate account rather from your
03:27 bank or credit card and then you’re
03:30 going to choose the account and
03:32 quickbooks online to link it to you’re
03:34 gonna give the account a name and you’ll
03:37 click save’ and that’s how you set up
03:39 the bank feed so as i mentioned also you
03:45 know it depends how much history is
03:47 gonna be brought in from your bank or
03:49 credit card company could be as little
03:51 as 30 days could be up to around two
03:53 years obviously it’s zero days if your
03:57 bank or credit card won’t connect
03:59 quickbooks online so if you want more
04:02 history than that and particularly if
04:04 your bank or credit card won’t connect
04:06 what do you do you have to manually
04:09 upload transactions so when you do that
04:16 there a couple things to keep in mind
04:17 you’re gonna want to first settle on a
04:19 date range because you don’t want to
04:21 import upload transactions rather
04:24 that are already in QuickBooks Online
04:27 because then you’re gonna have duplicate
04:28 transactions so first thing you want to
04:32 do is go to chart of accounts and then
04:35 view register let’s back out of this and
04:41 do just that
04:42 that’s accounting and then chart of
04:43 accounts accounting in the left hand
04:46 menu and if you come down to try to
04:57 accounts you see your checking savings
04:59 whatever account it is you want to
05:01 import transactions into you come over
05:03 to the right hand side here the action
05:05 column and click on view register scroll
05:20 to the bottom of this information and
05:26 you can see the first date for that you
05:32 have the opening balance ok so typically
05:35 what you’re going to want to do is
05:36 upload transactions that occurred before
05:41 before that date of your opening balance
05:43 if you want more of a history in
05:46 QuickBooks Online and so now that you’ve
05:51 got an idea of the date range that you
05:52 need you’re gonna go to your bank or
05:55 credit card online log in and download
05:59 transactions that’s of course going to
06:01 be different for every bank or credit
06:05 card company out there though typically
06:09 the you know it’ll be roughly roughly
06:14 the same it shouldn’t be too hard to
06:15 find you want to make sure that the file
06:18 is in the correct format when you
06:19 download it and particularly so it’s in
06:22 the Clark correct format to upload into
06:26 quickbooks online preferred formats are
06:30 CSV click QBO that’s d preferred
06:36 format qfx and the file size can’t
06:40 exceed 350 kilobytes which shouldn’t be
06:44 a problem
06:45 that would be quite a bit of history
06:48 then you’re going to navigate to the
06:51 appropriate link as I mentioned that’s
06:54 back in banking and file upload or I’m
07:18 sorry I got a little ahead of myself
07:18 there you want to make sure you choose
07:22 the account that you want to upload to
07:26 so by clicking these like Co it’s got to
07:30 go back here now checking savings
07:34 account and that so you would select the
07:37 appropriate account first then you would
07:40 do file upload here’s a couple
07:50 screenshots from my bank you know to
07:54 kind of give you an idea of what you
07:55 might look for when you’re downloading
07:57 transactions from from your bank you
08:01 know in this case it’s under accounts on
08:05 a menu and there’s a specific place
08:07 they’re designated to download
08:09 transactions you know you pick the
08:12 account you want to download from you
08:14 select your date range and you select
08:16 your final type and then you’ll get
08:22 something like this that’ll you can view
08:25 in Excel and you know then it should be
08:30 ready to be uploaded so it’s beginning
08:36 upload you’re gonna come to
08:40 the screen that was that earlier and
08:44 again I can’t walk you through this
08:46 completely but you’re gonna get the
08:49 browse for the file to upload and in
08:58 this case yeah it won’t let me don’t
09:01 have a final it won’t let me do it but
09:03 you’ll select that file and it’ll walk
09:06 you through the steps they’re basically
09:11 two to getting that information uploaded
09:14 into quickbooks online so you select the
09:19 account that you want to upload to
09:21 double check that and you want to it’ll
09:27 match it’ll make sure everything’s
09:28 mapped correctly that it’s putting you
09:31 know credits into credit call and debits
09:32 in the debit column etc and you want to
09:38 match those columns make sure the same
09:41 and they’ll give you one last chance to
09:42 edit the information that you’re
09:44 uploading and then you’ll select let’s
09:46 go and so once you get those uploaded
09:49 into quickbooks online you’ll want to
09:52 categorize the transactions and that’s
09:57 basically will be down here in this
10:00 column and the savings isn’t a good
10:03 example look at the checking here see
10:09 some of them are uncharacterized income
10:13 you’ll want to make sure every single
10:15 one of those transactions is in the
10:19 correct category quickbooks online i
10:23 don’t know specifically what they mean
10:25 by this but they say until you do this
10:26 the transactions will not quote unquote
10:28 fully be in your account then once
10:32 everything is categorized you might want
10:36 to reconcile the transactions it’s not
10:39 completely necessary but QuickBooks
10:42 advises that you do that and you may
10:44 need to edit your opening balance if
10:46 you’re uploading transactions that took
10:48 place before the eyes update
10:53 so the simplest thing to do course is to
10:57 connect that bank feed but there might
11:01 be circumstances where you want more
11:03 information than can be provided in that
11:05 bank feed so you know you you’ll upload
11:10 transactions if you don’t have time to
11:14 do it yourself with bookkeeping isn’t
11:17 your thing
11:17 check out bot keeper I’ll have a link
11:20 down in the description of this video
11:22 and basically what ba keeper does is
11:26 mixes a I you know automation with a
11:31 human element to do your bookkeeping for
11:33 you and allows you to work more on your
11:36 business particularly work more on sales
11:39 and then bookkeeping itself and as I
11:43 mentioned there’s a link to that down in
11:44 description so that’s all I got for
11:47 getting bank transactions into
11:50 QuickBooks Online if you thought this
11:53 video was you know like a quick answer
11:56 to shorten to the point answer but also
11:58 the detail that I went into and that let
12:02 me know by giving me a like please and
12:05 if you have another they find yourself
12:08 looking up information about QuickBooks
12:10 Online frequently and I think you might
12:13 need to find out find more how-to videos
12:16 in the future or subscribe

QuickBooks Online Vendor Setup | Save Time & Track Expenses

by
qbo add vendor video featured

Video transcript

00:00 adding vendors and QuickBooks Online the
00:05 quick way or the quick explanation is to
00:08 simply go to expenses and quickbooks
00:11 online and click on benders and click
00:15 the new vendor button the green one on
00:18 the upper right enter as much
00:20 information as possible about the vendor
00:23 save and the new vendor should appear a
00:28 new list below if you need to enter a
00:30 lot of new vendors and then you’ll
00:32 probably want to import their
00:34 information you do that by clicking the
00:35 little drop down arrow behind new
00:37 vendors and click import vendors you’ll
00:43 be taken to this screen where you can
00:47 browse for your list your Excel document
00:54 with the vendors and click Next
00:58 map your fields and make sure what your
01:01 fields are match what QuickBooks expects
01:05 them to be or needs them to be click
01:07 Next give it one last chance to edit
01:10 everything all the different fields and
01:12 click import and that’s the quick answer
01:19 so now we can talk about adding vendors
01:22 a little more in-depth okay so there’s
01:24 two basic reasons that you would want to
01:28 add vendors to quickbooks online and the
01:32 first is because you want to save time
01:34 entering the information about vendors
01:36 on purchase forms if you have vendors
01:40 saved and then you can just choose them
01:42 from a drop-down menu all the
01:43 information you entered on that vendor
01:45 information screen will automatically
01:47 populate things like address terms those
01:51 sorts of things so it’ll save you time
01:53 second of all it gives you an
01:56 opportunity to run reports about your
01:58 vendors and for instance how much you
02:00 spent on each individual vendor so I’m
02:06 going little more in depth in that
02:07 adding vendors here and we’ll start on
02:10 adding individual vendors and like I
02:15 said and the first step is course to
02:17 navigate to the a vendor screen which is
02:21 lucking menu expenses vendors and then
02:23 click new bedroom like i said when the
02:27 new vendors added a little show up from
02:29 the list below so as I said expenses
02:34 vendors click that new vendor you’ll get
02:40 the vendor information screen here and
02:45 watching far ok so most of these fields
02:50 are pretty self-explanatory yeah first
02:54 fields company
02:55 now if the year leonard is an individual
02:57 not a company can understand last name
03:00 here these fields here or more if you
03:04 had like a contact maybe a sales person
03:09 or something at the vendor company but
03:14 if it’s just an individual their first
03:16 and last name camera display name as
03:19 this is where you can change if you the
03:24 way it’s displayed if you wanted to
03:25 display do something different from the
03:27 company you can specify that there the
03:31 print uncheck as option allows you to
03:35 change how the name will be displayed
03:41 the vendors name on the checks issued to
03:45 them for payment if you want that to be
03:48 something different besides the company
03:49 name specify that here address obviously
03:54 pretty self explanatory notes ok this is
04:00 information that you can enter about the
04:02 vendor that will only be seen by people
04:03 in your company so the vendor won’t see
04:08 this and you know you can enter any
04:12 anything that you feel is appropriate or
04:15 that somebody who’s working with your
04:18 books might need to know or need a
04:21 reference about this
04:22 vendor attachment says is where you can
04:27 attach files is such as maybe you know a
04:32 PDF of a w-9 or contracts or anything
04:35 else that’s specifically this vendor and
04:39 so you want to be able to readily find
04:46 let’s see information and an email phone
04:54 number fax number
04:55 oh that website self-explanatory
04:59 then we got a couple of fields here on
05:01 this screen you only see billing rate in
05:05 other instances you might see cost great
05:07 information about DS was a little tough
05:12 to come by but here’s my interpretation
05:16 first of all the billing rate this is
05:19 that the vendor provides a service so an
05:21 example might be a lawyer okay in that
05:26 case you know they build my day an hour
05:27 so you would enter whatever that rate
05:29 may be $100 $200 $300 05:33 whatever the cost rate will only appear
05:40 I think if you have activated projects
05:45 for your company okay and then if the
05:49 vendor is a contractor
05:52 so again information is a little hard to
05:56 find on that but you know it’s only a
06:00 field that will be used under certain
06:03 circumstances terms it’s pretty
06:08 straightforward
06:08 these are the default payment terms the
06:11 defender has you can always change these
06:14 you know when you enter on the purchase
06:19 form to what the actual terms are but if
06:24 they’re gonna consistently give you the
06:26 same terms then you can you know have
06:31 this information populate automatically
06:34 opening balance
06:36 in the answer of date for that opening
06:37 balance they’re usually gonna be left
06:40 blank QuickBooks recommends that you
06:43 leave it blank because there will be no
06:47 details about the balance captured no
06:50 transactions that will add up to equal
06:54 that balance if you do enter them out
06:56 here it’s going to increase your
06:58 accounts payable and decrease your
07:03 opening balance equity okay so keep that
07:08 in mind if the you’re bringing in an
07:11 opening balance QuickBooks recommends
07:13 you know entering the transactions and
07:18 creating a balance that way we can
07:23 outnumber ok so this is the lenders
07:26 number for your business and apostrophe
07:31 in their vendors number for your
07:34 business I know show up as a memo on the
07:37 check so this isn’t your number for the
07:40 vendors the vendors number for you ok
07:44 business ID numbers of being the
07:47 employment identification number or
07:50 social security number and that is used
07:52 when you create a 1099 for this vendor
07:55 if you create a 1099 if you do plan on
07:58 creating a 1099 you’ll want to check
08:01 this track payments for 1099 bucks ok
08:05 because that will make sure those
08:09 vendors included when you run the 1099 08:11 wizard as a rule of thumb if you know
08:15 maybe you know intuitively this is a ten
08:18 and a nine vendor maybe now I’m new to
08:20 this and the rule of thumb for issuing a
08:24 1099 is when you’re purchasing services
08:27 from this particular vendor and if
08:31 they’re unincorporated okay if they meet
08:35 both those check both those boxes then
08:38 you’re probably going to be issuing a
08:39 1099 08:42 so let’s look at the second method of
08:48 creating new vendors and it’s importing
08:50 a vendor list and again to do that it’s
08:57 this new tender button except you’re
08:59 gonna click the little drop down arrow
09:01 you can select the import vendors okay
09:07 what I recommend you do before you make
09:12 up this list and Excel of your vendors
09:16 and all their information is to download
09:17 this sample file click here and then
09:20 you’re gonna get a sample file that
09:22 looks something like this and the reason
09:24 I recommend that is because all of your
09:27 fields are going to be laid out for you
09:29 here okay it’s basically a template for
09:32 your upload and that’ll just make the
09:35 process of uploading this information
09:38 that much easier so you’ll get a file
09:40 that looks like this you want to go
09:42 through select all this dummy
09:46 information so to speak and delete it
09:51 okay and then re-enter the information
09:55 about your particular vendors once
10:01 you’ve done that and save it you can
10:03 browse for that file select it and click
10:12 next thing so then it’s gonna come to
10:16 this map data step and you know you’re
10:21 gonna compare your fields to the
10:24 quickbooks online fields make sure the
10:26 same in most cases usually quickbooks
10:29 online smart enough to know what’s what
10:32 but just make sure you don’t have a fax
10:34 number going to a phone number
10:37 you know something else you know the
10:41 field one of your fields going to the
10:44 wrong field in quickbooks online if you
10:47 okay with all of that click Next then
10:51 you better the import step this is one
10:53 last chance to edit
10:54 any of this information for all your
10:57 different vendors see for instance down
10:59 here we’ve got this note that was
11:04 included as a vendor okay so we would
11:06 just check that to not include it and in
11:11 this case we should be good to go click
11:16 import it’ll tell you how many total
11:21 were successfully imported and you’ll
11:24 see them all down here in your then the
11:27 list thing so that is it those are the
11:36 two main ways to and offenders the
11:39 quickbooks online and if you don’t have
11:45 time to DIY your bookkeeping you know
11:49 and maybe you don’t enjoy the
11:52 bookkeeping aspect a lot of people don’t
11:54 maybe you’d like to work more on your
11:56 business more than data entry work on
12:01 increasing sales you know helping your
12:05 business grow and less time on
12:09 bookkeeping and then take a look at ba
12:12 keeper that ba keeper this company i
12:16 found apparently to google back start up
12:19 and day what it does is uses AI they had
12:27 a lot of the bookkeeping and then uses
12:31 your people to kind of where necessary i
12:36 guess is the way they put it you know
12:41 with my understanding is you can take as
12:43 much control or as little as you won
12:45 over it
12:45 because what you have ba keeper do for
12:48 you and i know that it also ties in with
12:51 quickbooks online so if you like to
12:53 quickbooks online interface and i want
12:56 to be able to run reports or are used to
12:58 it or that
12:59 you know again you can use Bakke burn to
13:03 handle some of the things that can be
13:06 easily automated the the menial
13:09 transactions so to speak so there is a
13:13 link for that down in the description to
13:17 learn more from what I looked up about
13:20 the company it’s really well reviewed on
13:22 kaptara and other sites so if your book
13:26 he was driving you crazy you might check
13:28 that out anyhow if you thought this
13:32 video was a fairly short and to the
13:34 point but detail enough to give you
13:36 information that you needed give it a
13:38 like and if you’d like to not worry
13:44 about searching around on other
13:47 quickbooks online topics and like save
13:50 time you can subscribe click on my
13:52 channel I’ll have other QuickBooks
13:55 Online videos up and hopefully

Church Budget Example – Use This Template! [VIDEO]

by
church operating budget featured

Video Transcript

00:00 I’m gonna go over how to go about making
00:04 operating budget for your church some of
00:06 my previous videos you know I’ve done a
00:08 little more in depth with the individual
00:10 spreadsheets and how you know what each
00:12 field is about how its calculating
00:14 everything this time I’m going to try
00:16 something different I’m gonna stick to
00:18 kind of summarizing here and I’m gonna
00:19 put a link down in the description where
00:21 you can read the whole in-depth post
00:24 that covers every single aspect you know
00:27 in detail of the operating budget for
00:30 your church and the video here is just
00:32 gonna be kind of a summary so that being
00:34 said let’s get into it
00:36 we’ll start off here with a ordinarily
00:41 with a for-profit company you always
00:44 start with a revenue budget with the
00:45 church you have a little flexibility
00:47 there you start with a revenue budget or
00:48 with your expense budget so for the sake
00:52 of simplicity I’m going to walk through
00:54 this starting with the revenue budget
00:55 but you know it really is a matter of
00:59 private preference do to kind of
01:01 churches unique situations so revenue
01:04 budget is exactly what it sounds like
01:06 it’s a budget in a forecast for all of
01:08 the money you’re gonna bring in for the
01:10 year so in this case we’ve got the
01:13 different sources listed here offerings
01:15 donations facility whose charges trust
01:18 investments and other okay and we reject
01:21 them out for every month for the coming
01:23 year but the first month of our planning
01:25 period here so if you’re planning
01:27 creative begins in July or September or
01:29 whatever some other month with that in
01:32 there it’ll automatically populate it
01:33 out and all the forecasted amounts are
01:38 total by month and total by source also
01:42 point out real quick that all
01:44 spreadsheets for business templates
01:46 which there’ll be a link to the template
01:49 in the link to the post so you get that
01:53 by going to the post but all
01:56 spreadsheets for business workbooks the
02:00 white cells are adjustable okay the
02:02 colored in cells or other formulas or
02:03 their text so unless you really really
02:05 know what you’re doing don’t touch those
02:07 so revenue budget is pretty simple and
02:11 we’ll move on to the expense budgets now
02:16 let me get rid of the fixed cells here
02:21 there’s separate expense budgets for
02:25 each of the four kind of broad
02:26 categories of expenses the inspiration
02:29 for these categories comes from Bree mal
02:31 FERS if you’ve done any searching on
02:33 YouTube or on the web in regards to
02:36 Church strategic planning you’ve come
02:37 across
02:38 Audrey’s work and he’s does a great job
02:42 and you know definitely a good source of
02:47 information I’ve never seen him put
02:48 forth anything like this not to say that
02:50 he hasn’t that I used a lot of his
02:54 inspiration in creating this template
02:57 for budgeting so now he breaks it church
03:02 expenses into four broad categories
03:04 evangelism emissions personnel
03:06 ministries and facilities so as you can
03:09 sing along the bottom here that’s
03:10 exactly what we’ve done
03:12 each of these four budgets is formatted
03:15 in the same manner so for simplicity
03:17 sake we’ll just look at the evangelism
03:21 and missions budget here so what you got
03:26 at the top here is you know basically
03:29 when it would take those broad
03:30 categories expenses and break them down
03:31 into subcategories so do that first and
03:35 foremost for the evangelism missions
03:36 here and direct and Synod support
03:39 Convention Assessment local mission work
03:40 outreach etc of course each broad
03:44 category has its own separate sub
03:48 categories you came and you’ll notice
03:52 also you’ll have to fill those in
03:54 manually and also you’ll notice that
03:56 each bra subcategory of expenses gets
04:03 category wrap categorized as fixed or
04:06 variable and simply put the post goes in
04:11 a little more detail but you know fixed
04:14 is gonna be the same no matter your
04:16 level of revenue a more revenue less
04:19 revenue you would expect this expense to
04:21 stay the same
04:22 variable on the other hand you would
04:24 expect to increase with revenue and
04:25 decrease increase in decrease with
04:28 revenue less revenue less expense more
04:29 revenue more expense okay so you’ll see
04:32 that all these amounts are filled in
04:34 here a lot of them with zeros because
04:36 there’s a room for plenty of
04:38 subcategories well where’s that
04:39 information come it comes from down here
04:41 below this is where you get into the
04:42 detail okay so you’ll notice each sub
04:45 categories listed here and you can
04:47 detail expenses and this is where you
04:48 actually put in the inmense so you know
04:51 you take a broad category of expenses
04:53 break it down to subcategories break it
04:55 down further into details you know
04:58 depending on the sophistication of your
05:00 accounting software or your accountant
05:04 you know this could be these detailed
05:06 expenses here could be individual GL
05:08 accounts or whatever you want them to be
05:11 but as long as you address all expenses
05:14 that’s all that really matters it’s just
05:16 like I said kind of breaking things down
05:18 here into manageable chunks to where you
05:22 can forecast them out for every month in
05:26 the planning period then they’ll total
05:29 here and those totals will carry up here
05:32 okay so you’ll see like I said every
05:36 subcategory of expenses listed here with
05:39 plenty of room to entered detailed
05:42 expenses okay so you do that for
05:45 evangelism and admission you do that for
05:50 personnel do it for ministries it’s all
05:55 them all the same same format do it for
05:58 facilities so okay you better you expect
06:01 the revenue for the year then you
06:03 entered your expected expenses for the
06:07 year don’t forget like in this example
06:09 real quick here you’ll notice this ties
06:13 into the capital budgeting work that we
06:18 did – I like to make my workbooks tie
06:22 into each other so it can paint the
06:24 entire picture for you guys so that’s
06:26 what this means you know most of these
06:28 are Justin Eric detailed expenses but
06:30 this one here talks about snow removal
06:32 and it has to do with the
06:34 creation of a new parking lot that we
06:36 looked at in the capital budget so check
06:38 that video out to check that post out to
06:41 so and yeah once all expenses are
06:46 entered then that’s the biggest part of
06:51 budgeting okay all that’s going to carry
06:54 over here into your pro forma income
06:56 statement where you’ve got your total
06:58 revenue your total for each expense by
07:02 broad category okay and then we threw in
07:05 a percentage amount here
07:08 that’s a percentage of revenue if I
07:11 remember right yes it is okay just just
07:15 kind of paint the picture of what
07:18 categories are contributing most to your
07:20 expenses then we’ve got operating profit
07:23 which is revenue minus expenses one
07:27 other thing you have to fill in I mean
07:28 pro forma income statement here that
07:30 isn’t really covered elsewhere in the
07:31 operating budget is interest income in
07:35 interest expense okay so this is a will
07:39 have to be a forecast you’ll just have
07:41 to look at you know for income if you
07:44 have income earning assets savings you
07:49 know money market accounts something
07:52 that maybe earns a little more than that
07:54 dividends perhaps enter now here
07:57 interest expense it’s gonna depend in
07:58 large part on the amount you need to
08:00 borrow a lot of that will be covered in
08:02 the financial budget okay but you know
08:05 you can go ahead and do your financial
08:08 budget which I’ll cover in a later video
08:09 and a post that’s coming soon and circle
08:13 back around enter that information here
08:14 too okay you’re not gonna be graded on
08:18 your accuracy in terms of forecasting
08:20 this can be a living document come back
08:21 and change it as you need to
08:23 all right so operating profit minus
08:25 these interest expenses churches don’t
08:27 pay taxes so there’s net profit okay
08:32 there’s a couple of simple ratios left
08:34 in here that are applicable for churches
08:38 okay got profit margin which is pretty
08:39 self-explanatory you know your net
08:42 profit compared to you net sales times
08:44 interest earned looks at those
08:46 looks at interest expense and operating
08:50 profit how it relates to it degree of
08:53 financial leverage again the post will
08:54 get into more detail in degree of
08:56 operating leverage we’ll get more detail
08:58 on that too those are two interesting
09:00 concepts that basically tell you what
09:07 the based on degree of financial
09:10 leverage based on the amount of money
09:14 you borrow what effect increasing and
09:20 decreasing
09:21 operating profit would have on that or
09:25 the rather the effect you’ll have to
09:29 read the posts to get a detail because
09:30 if I start talking about it I’ll go on
09:32 for an hour here and like I said and try
09:34 to make this summary so basically the
09:39 effect of degree of financial leverage
09:41 is the effect of interest expense on
09:45 profit degree of operating leverage is
09:47 the effect of fixed expenses fixed costs
09:52 on profit okay and that’s why I asked
09:56 you guys to specify whether costs are
09:59 fixed or variable here okay so that’s
10:01 what that was for read more about that
10:03 like I said you’ve got the chart down
10:06 here pretty straightforward just an
10:08 illustration of what happens month by
10:10 month based off of your forecast you’ve
10:12 got the Green Line is revenue and then
10:15 you’ve got your different categories of
10:16 expenses here you can see how they rise
10:18 and fall in total and by categories so
10:22 one little extra bonus that I like to
10:26 add to my industry specific spreadsheets
10:29 is this likely best case worst case
10:33 scenario okay I think this is super
10:36 valuable you know and it’s it is another
10:39 step and the whole strategic planning
10:43 thing which is time-consuming in that
10:44 bed really is just the like I said the
10:50 plus one however you want to put it to
10:53 to the operating budget this is where
10:56 you know you’ve done you’ve been in put
10:58 your
10:59 expected revenue cost profit etc now you
11:02 get to toy with what the worst case
11:04 would be in the best case would be and
11:06 this just like most of strategic
11:08 planning
11:09 just get your mind working in that
11:10 direction so you’re you’re completely
11:14 comprehensively prepared for the
11:15 upcoming year okay so it starts off here
11:19 with the pro forma income statement
11:26 that’s what this is sure if it Proform
11:28 in there but yeah it’s a pro forma
11:31 income statement or rather this yeah
11:35 sorry okay so this is revenue up here
11:37 where you can toy with best cased amount
11:40 for each revenue source
11:45 worst case amount or you can just use a
11:48 generic multiplier okay so basically
11:52 what that means it’s like if I change
11:53 this worst case is gonna be negative in
11:55 the case of revenue the 15% you’re gonna
11:59 see these worst case amounts decrease
12:03 okay because I made the worst excuse me
12:08 in the worst case that much worse
12:10 okay but you have so you can change that
12:15 there it will affect everything in that
12:17 section but you also have the ability to
12:20 override it okay so see if we delete
12:25 this worst case would be 38,000 versus
12:31 42,000 for trust investments in the
12:34 quest but you know say you think no no
12:38 worst case could be worse than that or
12:40 worst case wouldn’t be quite as bad well
12:43 then you just override that amount okay
12:46 everything else is based off of this
12:48 multiplier but now you’ve overwritten it
12:51 with an amount so same same principle in
12:55 the best case I’d come down here to
12:58 expenses we have our abroad expense
13:00 categories again use a multiplier this
13:04 is just a ballpark figure the multiplier
13:06 basically if you know best-case in the
13:10 Fuhrer expects is going to be the
13:11 decrease
13:12 worst case for expenses gonna be the day
13:15 increase and I keep doing it
13:17 so keep that in mind and you can
13:20 override you don’t like what you see so
13:22 yeah just toy with it you know that’s
13:25 the whole point of this exercise just
13:28 toy with it see what playing with
13:32 different scenarios gives you what it
13:35 makes you think about what you might do
13:37 to plan to avoid a worst case what you
13:39 what planning you might do to take
13:41 advantage of the best case okay so just
13:44 like the pro forma income statement on
13:45 this executive summary
13:47 you got your operating profit here you
13:50 can see negative under worst case this
13:54 will match what’s on the executive
13:55 summary the ten thousand twenty eight
13:58 operating profit and best case
14:05 considerably better six times the
14:07 operating profit so that’s pretty good
14:10 it brings in interest income and expense
14:14 here also and then that profit always
14:20 calculated the exact same as it is on
14:21 the executive summary so then of course
14:25 the you know the whole purpose of ratios
14:26 is to kind of put amounts into
14:31 perspective from your financial
14:34 statements and the same thing takes
14:36 place here you know profit margin can
14:38 range from negative seventeen point
14:41 eight to twenty seven positive twenty
14:43 seven point two times interest earned
14:45 degree of financial leverage is going to
14:48 change all that it’s gonna going to
14:50 change based off of what you enter in
14:52 the best case in worst case fields above
14:57 some anyhow that’s quick rundown of the
15:01 church operating budget template you
15:04 know go get your own copy to toy with I
15:06 get his follow the link and there’ll be
15:10 a links on there follow a link to the
15:13 post there’ll be links on there to
15:14 download your own copy of it and then
15:16 you know you if you’re dealing with
15:18 concepts you’re not familiar with just
15:20 check out the post I’ve got more or less
15:22 every single field on here
15:24 addressed in there and you know if you
15:28 get stuck on something just check that
15:30 out and it’ll help you make sense what
15:33 you’re looking at so appreciate you
15:35 guys’s time appreciate you watching this
15:39 video if you have until this point the
15:41 very end YouTube it is a popularity
15:45 contest just like anything on the
15:47 Internet and if you like this video if
15:50 you think this seems like something
15:51 useful to you best way to let me know is
15:55 to either leave a comment down below or
16:00 better yet maybe I don’t know depends on
16:03 the YouTube algorithm comments are good
16:06 likes or good subscriptions are good I
16:08 know
16:10 alerts are good any of that stuff you
16:13 know I’ll feedbacks good I’ll crank out
16:16 more content there’s also a lot of stuff
16:19 to check out not just for churches but
16:22 for small businesses in general on
16:23 spreadsheets for business comm thanks
16:26 you guys take care

Church Strategic Planning and Strategy Formulation Walk-through [VIDEO]

by
Church Strategy video featured

Video transcript

00:00 hello again small business professionals
00:03 small business owners and church
00:06 management professionals that’s what I
00:08 meant to say hey now I’ve got another
00:11 video I hear about strategic planning
00:14 for churches this will be the last one
00:19 of the soft skills as I put it other
00:24 ones in the soft skills category of
00:27 being mission statement and SWOT
00:28 analysis check out my channel to see
00:31 those let me also point out real quick
00:34 that there will be a link to my post on
00:37 the subject in the description and I
00:40 also like to put shortcuts you know in
00:43 the description because I can tend to go
00:46 on for a while and you know if you want
00:51 to jump to a specific part and then
00:53 gives you the ability to do that so hey
00:57 now let’s get into it so this video is
01:04 on strategy formulation in specifically
01:11 in strategic planning in general I kind
01:14 of molded them together because the way
01:17 I look at is strategy formulation is
01:18 like a piece of strategic planning
01:22 strategic planning to me includes the
01:26 videos I’ve made previously on like
01:30 mission statement and SWOT analysis but
01:34 in addition to that also capital
01:36 budgeting operational budgeting and
01:39 financial budgeting I’d also include in
01:43 their capacity planning but you know I
01:48 don’t have any content on that so the
01:54 time being that you’re on your own and
01:55 there you’ll I’m sure there’s somebody
01:58 somewhere that did address this capacity
02:00 planning for churches so we’ll start out
02:05 talking a little bit here about
02:06 strategic planning and then getting it
02:10 more into that actually
02:11 actual strategy formulation part of
02:14 things and a little later on so let’s
02:24 just start off here by thinking about
02:28 two different strategic plans
02:31 sorry I’m not enunciated agreat tonight
02:36 let me back up for a second and
02:40 apologize again and I know that’s not
02:43 you know really selling it when you
02:45 apologize for you on video but you know
02:49 for these soft skill videos mission
02:51 statements SWOT analysis strategy
02:53 formulation I don’t have a ton of like
03:00 you know visual material to accompany it
03:04 I could do it may someday do a
03:07 PowerPoint on those subjects but I don’t
03:12 know that that’s gonna really grab your
03:15 attention all that much more I mean
03:17 we’re all a little tired of powerpoints
03:19 aren’t we and you see my outlines up
03:21 there on the screen
03:22 so at least you kind of know what’s
03:25 coming up and if you see something bitch
03:27 thank you my board be more interested in
03:29 than the section that I’m talking about
03:31 a given time and go down in the
03:32 description click on shortcut jump
03:35 around you know as you see fit you know
03:37 there’s plenty of other people writing
03:42 on the subject of church strategic
03:44 planning and some very skilled and
03:48 experienced people so you know I I’ll
03:52 say you know this is not a definitive
03:57 look at church strategic planning or
04:00 strategy formulation it’s merely a
04:05 something to give you a couple ideas on
04:08 where to start
04:08 and how to go about addressing those
04:11 subjects so combine it with the other
04:13 great information that you get take the
04:15 best part of it take the best part of
04:17 something else combine it you know you
04:19 should be alright some
04:21 I am let me get back to my outline here
04:24 let’s consider two different strategic
04:26 plans okay so let’s say two churches
04:34 next door to each other okay
04:37 two different strategic plans first one
04:41 says they’re gonna put a handrail on the
04:44 steps for the elderly members of the
04:48 congregation that’s it
04:50 it’s our only plan for the upcoming year
04:52 there’s no budget
04:53 there’s no it doesn’t tie into any sort
04:57 of mission statement no SWOT analysis
04:59 anything like that they’re just gonna
05:02 put up a handrail because they think
05:04 that’s what’s needed okay and they do
05:06 that all right because it’s simplistic
05:11 and easy enough and they have a couple
05:13 volunteers over one weekend to get that
05:15 hammering put up that’s look at the
05:17 other church next to it this you know
05:20 they make a big production out of it
05:24 that’s not necessarily bad you know it’s
05:26 it’s planning it’s thinking about the
05:28 future of your church but they bring in
05:30 the pastor the elders consultants
05:32 members of the congregation and spend
05:35 six weeks poring over every step of the
05:38 strategic plan from mission statement
05:41 through SWOT analysis through strategy
05:43 formulation capital budgeting
05:45 operational budgeting financial
05:48 budgeting okay so they they give
05:49 everything it’s due time or anything
05:52 they think things through thoroughly and
05:54 have an outstanding plan when all said
05:57 and done but once the six weeks is up
06:03 and the new year comes it’s never
06:07 referred to again okay so which of those
06:11 two is the superior strategic plan well
06:17 I would say it is the first one because
06:19 it’s the one that got acted upon okay
06:22 all the thought in the world doesn’t
06:25 mean anything without action and this is
06:29 coming from a guy who is a proponent
06:32 of you know bringing in people to to
06:38 give differing opinions on strategic
06:41 planning giving it time giving it its
06:44 thought excuse me you know particularly
06:50 I’m a proponent of doing the capital
06:53 budgeting doing the operational building
06:55 that’s all great should be done but
06:58 again it’s all useless if no actions
07:02 taken because of it it’s it’s a waste of
07:06 time you know it it’s old it’s only as
07:11 good as the the actions that it leads to
07:13 okay so keep that in mind in terms of
07:20 the strategic planning going forward
07:22 when you watch my other videos when you
07:24 look up information from anybody else in
07:27 terms of I mean on anything you know
07:31 when it comes to reading a book you know
07:33 I’m I I used to think well just reading
07:36 a lot is great and it is potentially but
07:40 ultimately reading and learning a lot is
07:43 only as useful as the amount of variable
07:46 to apply okay I mean how much have you
07:48 read how much have I read that is a
07:51 distant memory it’s gone it’s you know
07:53 it’s it might be somewhere in there deep
07:56 down inside of my brain but you know I I
07:59 didn’t I never applied it to anything
08:01 you know so that’s something I’m working
08:02 on personally now is when I read
08:04 something you know I try to do my
08:06 homework and make sure it’s worthwhile
08:08 and make sure that I apply it one way or
08:12 another you know that may or may not be
08:15 completely practical all the time but I
08:17 don’t apply it because I want to learn I
08:19 want to commit it to memory I want to
08:20 commit it to habit you know I want if I
08:24 find something that’s worthwhile to read
08:26 that’s good to read I want I want to
08:28 absorb it okay so I would say the same
08:32 is true about strategic planning you
08:35 know if you make the commitment to go
08:37 forth with it and I believe you should
08:39 as I said before then you know I mean
08:44 throw yourself into it
08:46 okay absorb it lip take action upon it
08:49 right learn your lessons get your
08:51 feedback make your mistakes all those
08:54 sorts of things all right so you know
08:58 like I said I’ve given you a couple of
09:00 videos already and I have posts on all
09:03 of these except the financial budget for
09:05 churches which is coming soon I promise
09:07 as soon as I finish up the latest
09:12 spreadsheet template on activity-based
09:14 costing and going back I’m going to
09:16 write that darn financial budgeting for
09:20 churches Post I’m gonna get a video out
09:23 on it and I’m gonna have something the
09:28 post in a video for every aspect of
09:31 church strategic planning coming soon I
09:34 promise I am so you you know I’ve got
09:40 videos and all this you know I’ve got my
09:42 steps you know I’ve got my opinions on
09:45 how to approach things and you know just
09:50 as a reminder I touched on earlier you
09:52 know that starts with creating a
09:54 reviewing your church’s mission
09:55 statement performing a swot which
09:57 strengths weaknesses opportunities and
09:59 threats analysis of your church
10:01 formulating a strategy in particular
10:05 laying out goals to be med in for the
10:12 coming year for the coming years for
10:16 your church looking at any large-scale
10:19 projects your church might take on with
10:21 the capital budget again there’s the
10:24 analyzing your organization’s capacity I
10:26 don’t have closer videos on that
10:28 particular one but it’s worth worth
10:32 considering because you know your
10:35 capacity is the peak amount of demand
10:38 that you can handle you can’t have more
10:39 members than you have capacity for you
10:42 know maybe in this day and age with
10:44 virtual this and that and that might not
10:47 be entirely true but that’s that’s kind
10:50 of the good rule of thumb anyways beyond
10:52 that we’ve got the operating budget
10:53 which is a forecast of income and
10:55 expenses and then a financial budget
10:57 kasa the timing of cash flows that’s to
11:00 me comprehensive steps in strategic
11:04 planning okay now does that mean follow
11:10 those steps no question you know that’s
11:15 the only way to go about it no not
11:18 necessarily but I would say those steps
11:20 will give you if you legitimately go
11:22 through them legitimately commit thought
11:24 to them will give you a super
11:29 comprehensive review of your church its
11:34 goals your environment the reality of
11:39 money coming in and money coming out and
11:43 a number of other things it’s just a an
11:46 intense self reflective sort of thing
11:51 that might be uncomfortable at times but
11:53 will ultimately lead to your benefit it
11:58 just you know it’s it’s hard to picture
12:03 a situation where going through that you
12:05 would come out worse off than you went
12:08 in you know we need also say these these
12:15 steps are originally generated conceived
12:20 of in the for-profit realm you know the
12:23 the regular business realm or would we
12:25 call it not necessarily the not for
12:26 profit but they translate over just fine
12:29 you know that was something that I I
12:33 wondered as I got into writing these
12:35 posts making these videos you know what
12:39 how different would it be to and part of
12:42 the reason I chose to address churches
12:44 as kind of the first industry as I was
12:46 getting my website off the ground as I
12:49 was curious about how the how it would
12:57 all translate to the not-for-profit
12:59 realm in it translates just fine you
13:01 know there are a couple other things to
13:03 consider in frankly more so when we get
13:05 into the budgeting aspect of things but
13:09 a couple of things to consider they are
13:11 a little different than for a for-profit
13:14 business but you know really it’s very
13:20 very similar okay
13:23 so covered yeah I got the other videos
13:28 there okay so I’ll qualify this video
13:41 since I did the same for my mission
13:45 statement video and my capacity planning
13:48 video capacity planning no I didn’t do
13:53 that
13:53 sorry brain got scrambled there SWOT
13:56 analysis video so I don’t know this is a
13:58 mission statement video and I do this to
14:01 be completely upfront to be authentic to
14:03 let you know that I’m not trying to I’m
14:06 not trying to sell you anything I’m not
14:08 trying to pretend to be something I’m
14:10 not
14:11 I’m you know like I said just a guy who
14:15 is better skilled in the hard skills as
14:22 I put on the spreadsheets the budgeting
14:25 the numbers the quantifiable stuff okay
14:27 admittedly that’s my thing but created
14:32 these videos on the softer skills to
14:34 round out the whole the whole street
14:40 church strategic planning series I
14:43 wanted to cover more or less all of
14:45 those steps not just the the hard skills
14:47 because I thought it had something to
14:49 offer an effect and then on those issues
14:52 on those steps and I never pertained to
14:56 say no this is the way to do it
14:58 absolutely unequivocably you know I’m
15:02 right if you think different you’re
15:04 wrong I’ve never come off that way okay
15:08 these are after giving a lot of thought
15:11 the steps I would take to address these
15:18 qualifiable everyone to put in steps
15:21 mission statements swatter
15:23 says strategy formulation that you’re
15:26 doing right now so depending on I want
15:29 to get that out there I’m also not I
15:36 guess what I’m getting at with all this
15:38 and I might not have mentioned earlier
15:39 is I’m not a churchgoer per se I’ve been
15:42 to church I’m familiar with churches my
15:45 the remainder of my family goes to
15:47 church I’m been around people who are
15:50 regular churchgoers for many decades now
15:54 and I respect it now but you know I’m
15:58 not I’m not in the pews every Sunday so
16:01 if that bothers you and if you think
16:04 that I have absolutely no value to add
16:06 because of that then you know what to do
16:09 you might have done it already
16:11 you know check out another video or
16:15 whatever but you know I do think I have
16:18 something to offer I do think what I’m
16:20 saying is authentic and how I would
16:21 address it and I encourage you to hear
16:24 me out and take the ginn take the good
16:28 parts of what you hear I’m sure I have
16:30 something to offer so you know take the
16:33 take the best of what I have to offer
16:35 them and add it to the great stuff that
16:39 you’re already doing and you’ll be RI so
16:42 yeah that’s a little background about
16:47 where I stay in dead let me add to you
16:52 know for whatever it’s worth I’m not a I
16:56 have a pretty decent amount of education
16:59 but I’m not a big proponent of formal
17:04 education having been through it and
17:07 maybe just I don’t know I’ve learned
17:13 more on my own than I ever have from a
17:16 from a professor but I have you know an
17:20 MBA I am certified management accountant
17:24 okay and most people don’t know what
17:26 that is so if you’re wondering you think
17:28 I made that up but it may
17:29 but you don’t know what it is don’t
17:31 don’t beat yourself up about that most
17:33 people don’t but you know I can say this
17:39 about myself okay so if you are in
17:43 church management and you probably know
17:46 that a person can’t really understand
17:48 religious texts until they’ve read it
17:50 many times until they pondered them
17:51 thought about them debated about them
17:54 you know just reading it doesn’t do
17:56 anything and that’s that’s part of my
17:58 problem with a formal education you know
18:00 if you go and just sit through class
18:03 you’ll probably be alright most people
18:05 are gonna graduate just doing that some
18:07 people have to work harder than others
18:08 some people have to work less hard you
18:09 know we’re all a little different that
18:11 respect but if you just go and give it
18:13 the time you’re probably gonna be
18:15 alright that’s hell it’s not half the
18:17 battle it’s 80% of the battle just going
18:19 you know but to really learn something
18:22 like you probably have when it comes to
18:25 these religious texts you know to really
18:28 be able to speak knowledgeably about it
18:31 and to really you know just wrap your
18:35 head around it you have to immerse
18:37 yourself into it you have to you know
18:43 just dive deep get really down in there
18:47 and and challenge things and think about
18:51 them and decide how you feel about
18:52 certain things and maybe test things out
18:55 and all that and that’s what I’ve done
18:56 with a lot of this stuff particularly
19:01 the quantitative aspects the the hard
19:03 skills as I put them of strategic
19:06 planning I’m I’ve taken a time and
19:09 conceived of these hypothetical
19:12 companies and in situations and I’ve
19:15 tested and I have you know just ran my
19:21 head against the wall just several times
19:23 you know with the things I couldn’t
19:25 figure out I couldn’t make add up I
19:27 couldn’t make equal out together and you
19:31 know so I
19:34 I you know I give myself a hard time
19:38 about the soft skills but you know and I
19:40 think you know I do think I have some to
19:42 offer there but when it comes to the
19:43 hard skills I’m you know I know my stuff
19:48 I’m confident in that and I can help you
19:50 out in those so those hard skill videos
19:53 are coming like I said it’s operational
19:56 budget capital budget financial budget
19:59 okay so we take your intimate knowledge
20:02 of your church and add it with my
20:05 intimate knowledge of finances and the
20:09 quantitative side of things I’m sure
20:12 that I can help you in your church
20:16 address any problems that might fall
20:18 under that umbrella okay so you know
20:25 let’s get into the actual that’s a
20:29 little bit about strategic planning
20:32 let’s get into actual strategy
20:35 formulation okay so what is strategy
20:43 formulation how’s it how’s it different
20:46 from strategic planning and I’ll go back
20:49 to the analogy I made I know I made it
20:53 in a mission statement video I think I
20:54 made it in the SWOT analysis video and I
21:01 said the mission statement gives you
21:05 direction you know do you think about
21:09 north south east west north west south
21:11 west south east north west medicine team
21:15 twice but whatever you know a mission
21:18 statement helps point you in the right
21:19 direction you think about the 360
21:21 degrees there that make it an entire
21:23 circle helps you narrow down the
21:27 direction you want to go five degrees 45
21:30 degrees 180 degrees you know whatever
21:34 okay the SWOT analysis I would draw the
21:39 analogy then Maps the terrain for you
21:42 okay here’s the rivers
21:45 here’s the hills here’s the impassable
21:48 cliffs here’s an ocean
21:51 here’s freezing weather or the you know
21:56 the frozen tundra here’s the desert
21:58 those sort of things
21:59 that’s the terrain okay so then I would
22:03 say the strategy formulation is mapping
22:07 your route okay just like when you put
22:09 in your GPS and that blue line
22:13 highlights the roads you’re going to
22:14 take from where you are to where you
22:16 want to go that strategy formulation
22:18 each step of the strategic planning
22:28 makes clear the map okay and your your
22:34 direction you’re going and how you’re
22:35 gonna get there okay so you know what is
22:40 a requisite to planning a route dub well
22:50 you have to know where you’re going okay
22:52 I mean right now I live in Kansas and if
22:57 I just type in northwest Kansas into
23:00 Google Maps or Apple Maps or whatever it
23:04 may be I don’t know that I’m gonna get a
23:07 result because that’s it’s just not
23:11 specific enough okay I mean I can put in
23:13 a city and it’ll tell me you just take
23:15 me you know to the dead center of the
23:18 city but you know you think you have to
23:22 have you know a pretty clear idea of
23:25 where you want to go before you can plan
23:27 a route to get there okay so planning
23:31 the route in terms of strategic planning
23:34 is and strategy formulation is to
23:39 crystallize your vision of your church
23:42 okay this is the close your eyes let
23:46 your mind wander and what do you see
23:48 where is your church
23:52 you know what just what did look like
23:56 you know just what a what do you want to
23:59 see if it if if you had the opportunity
24:04 you know to wiggle your nose in your
24:10 church all of its problems would be
24:13 solved
24:14 it’d be operating exactly as you would
24:18 like what you know what would that look
24:21 like it’s your vision you know in five
24:23 years or so excuse me
24:30 so that’s destination and then we want
24:37 to talk about the landmarks that you’ll
24:40 pass on the way there those are the
24:42 goals that need to be met to get you
24:44 from where you are to your destination
24:48 okay you know I’m a big proponent of
24:52 keeping things simple or as simplistic
24:56 as possible complication has well
25:01 complication always tries to push itself
25:05 into anything we do okay where we’re
25:09 thinking creatures okay and we I mean I
25:16 know I do we think you just start to my
25:23 mind runs away with all these variables
25:25 things that go wrong and that and it
25:26 ends you know it’s great to plan and ifs
25:30 and buts and all that sort of thing but
25:32 you know especially if you’re just
25:34 starting out okay don’t want to get
25:38 overwhelmed don’t want to you know don’t
25:43 want to get burnout don’t want to say to
25:46 heck with it and you know and and first
25:49 of all not do any strategy formulation
25:50 but then if you do feel overwhelmed and
25:53 not take action on it talked about that
25:55 earlier
25:57 plans no good if you don’t take action
26:00 on it okay so there are within strategy
26:09 formulation three different strategies
26:12 that need to be considered three
26:15 different but complementary strategies
26:17 that you need to think about you might
26:19 be thinking you to sell three strategies
26:22 you know man one was gonna be enough of
26:25 a problem why do I have to make three of
26:28 them and that’s a perfectly logical
26:33 thing to think but stay with me or it’ll
26:37 kind of make sense here to understand
26:41 what these three strategies are and how
26:42 they all fit together so the first
26:45 energy is the one I’ve kind of talked
26:47 about so far that’s the overall strategy
26:48 Kay the this is known as the corporate
26:51 strategy in the business world it’s for
26:53 the entire company
26:54 okay the goals that your church as a
26:57 whole has to achieve to get from where
27:01 you are to where you want to be where
27:03 that vision is okay where that
27:05 destination is now a subset of that is
27:09 the competitive strategy okay and maybe
27:13 you think to yourself now well I’m a
27:16 church we don’t have competition I would
27:21 if that is what you’re thinking I would
27:24 urge you to rethink that okay because
27:26 from what I can see is an outsider
27:28 looking in there are two drastically
27:32 different views in terms of how a church
27:39 might address competition okay there’s
27:42 the the meta perspective I might call it
27:47 where a church things that as long as
27:51 somebody is a peace with God or
27:53 acknowledges Jesus as their Savior
27:58 or does any of those big picture things
28:03 then
28:07 it’s okay they might come here they
28:11 might go somewhere else but as long as
28:13 they’re they have these these big
28:15 picture tenants addressed as as long as
28:21 people you know are cool with these big
28:25 picture things then you know here
28:28 they’re what we’d love to have him here
28:29 but they go somewhere else that’s all
28:31 right you know they don’t necessarily
28:36 revolve around people just coming to
28:39 your church okay that’s the kind of meta
28:40 view the other perspective the other
28:43 extreme I should say would be the notion
28:47 that you and your church are basically
28:50 the one true way into paradise after you
28:57 die it’s the the one right way to live
29:02 you know in that case your competition
29:05 has every other Church that doesn’t
29:07 conform to exactly your your your same
29:11 doctrine okay
29:13 in either case both of you are gonna be
29:17 competing against anything else that
29:18 might keep persons from going to church
29:20 in the first place because the person
29:22 doesn’t go to church in the first place
29:23 they’re not going to come to your church
29:26 that believes that it’s you know the one
29:28 true the one true way okay so you my
29:35 point with this is you’re competing with
29:37 something whether you know it doesn’t
29:41 matter where you are you’re somewhere
29:43 probably between those two extremes your
29:45 church okay I would imagine most arm all
29:49 right but you know I’m not passing
29:54 judgment either way okay that’s you tell
30:00 you know I’m in absolutely no position
30:03 to tell you or your church how to what
30:06 to think in those respects okay like I
30:08 said I just use the extremes those
30:11 column as an example okay my goal is to
30:14 help you reach your goals whatever they
30:16 may be
30:17 and I make that illustration like you
30:20 said to help you understand that you
30:23 have competition okay so you have to
30:35 keep that keep that in mind as you move
30:38 forward and make your goals you you have
30:40 to have a competitive strategy to a
30:43 greater or lesser degree okay
30:45 the last of the three different
30:48 strategies is the functional strategy
30:50 okay
30:53 functional strategy is where you take
30:55 the overall strategy and break the goals
30:57 down into the departments in your church
31:00 okay so let’s look at our counterparts
31:03 in the for-profit world they will have a
31:09 corporate strategy but then have a
31:10 strategy for for manufacturing for
31:15 customer service
31:17 Stratton by strategy I mean goals okay
31:20 for marketing for sales for quality
31:24 control okay and all of those goals are
31:28 going you know achievement of those
31:32 departmental goals the functional goals
31:34 are gonna contribute to the achievement
31:36 of the goals by the organization as a
31:39 whole
31:40 so your church might be big small in
31:44 between but no matter how informal it
31:47 might be okay you have departments most
31:49 likely you have somebody that kind of
31:51 does your finance accounting you have
31:53 somebody kind of does operations so to
31:56 speak interaction with members so as we
32:02 move into the how-to portion of things
32:04 you can ultimately have to think about
32:07 what goals make sense for those those
32:09 smaller departments that are gonna help
32:11 your church as a whole reach its goals
32:14 okay so let’s get into the actual how-to
32:22 again this is just one way to address it
32:26 not the definitive way to dress it so we
32:30 talked about vision okay what is your
32:33 church look like in five to ten years
32:35 what do you picture what you know what
32:40 would make you feel like oh man we made
32:43 it you know its challenges are addressed
32:50 things are rolling good I mean you can
32:54 never Alton I don’t think then maybe
32:56 this apartment personality I’m a little
32:58 high-strung in that respect always
33:00 pushing to do more achieve more and that
33:04 but you know but putting in this is just
33:08 a thought exercise so you know what
33:10 would your church look like if you did
33:14 that if you you know if you took time
33:18 and thought about your vision and you
33:22 know what do you what do you seeing what
33:24 did what would it take to reach a goal
33:27 what has to happen
33:28 you can try working your way backwards
33:30 from that vision you can try to work in
33:32 your way forward from it and hopefully
33:34 as you kind of look at both you know
33:38 work your way backwards from the
33:39 destination work your way forward from
33:40 where you are hopefully you can start to
33:42 paint a picture of the goals that need
33:46 to be met in order to create that route
33:52 for you to get from where you are to
33:54 where you want to be you know I mean
33:55 think about it if you want a thousand
34:02 members in your church and currently
34:04 only have a hundred well you’ve got to
34:06 have 200 before you have 500 before you
34:11 have 800 before you have a thousand okay
34:14 things have to happen just in steps it’s
34:16 not tomorrow a thousand show up okay
34:19 that would probably frankly be
34:22 disastrous so it’s about thinking about
34:25 the milestones that have to be hit on
34:27 your way to achieving your vision
34:30 this should start to give you a little
34:32 idea of your path okay this is since
34:35 things are still a little big here but
34:37 it should start to hopefully you know
34:40 see a little little bit of that blue
34:42 line to lead you from where you are to
34:44 where you want to be you know in
34:49 particular the things you know what
34:52 happens tomorrow what happens next week
34:55 next month the theme the short term is
34:59 more under your control and it’s more
35:00 certain than the long term okay that’s
35:03 the case in whatever you’re doing
35:05 whether it’s strategy formulation or
35:07 forecasting you know when it comes to
35:12 making revenue or expense estimates for
35:20 capital budgeting operational budgets
35:22 know that okay so you know you want
35:28 probably more goals in the in the
35:32 short-term as in the coming year than
35:35 you do in year two three four five six
35:37 seven eight nine ten okay there’s you
35:43 know there’s any infinite number of
35:44 things that you could do to move
35:48 yourself towards that vision and you
35:51 don’t have the time and energy to do a
35:53 lot you don’t have the resources to do
35:54 them also so keep it simple and
35:57 achievable okay you know if you do your
36:02 little part keep in mind that the other
36:05 organizations out there that are doing
36:07 good in the world they’ll do their
36:08 little part and you know when you
36:10 combine all the little parts that you
36:14 know all the churches over the world do
36:16 then you know what what that can add up
36:21 to could be pretty significant okay so
36:25 with your goals I mean you probably
36:28 heard the old analogy about goals they
36:30 got to be smart I don’t even remember
36:32 them so you can we look that up here
36:39 it’s not not bad it’s not bad advice I’m
36:45 not cracking on it but smart means
36:48 specific measurable achievable relevant
36:53 and time-bound it’s good good rule of
36:55 thumb to to keep in mind when coming up
37:03 with goals okay you know you just I want
37:09 to I say this in every video and I want
37:12 to re-emphasize it you know just make
37:14 sure you’re dealing with reality don’t
37:17 don’t make pie-in-the-sky goals don’t
37:19 make goals I’ve worked for for-profit
37:22 companies they make goals they’re just
37:24 silly
37:25 I mean it’s just they’re they’re
37:26 arbitrary and they don’t you know they
37:29 don’t do anything to motivate anybody
37:30 they don’t you know it’s just going
37:33 through the motions it’s pointless it’s
37:34 a waste of time okay so so simple and
37:38 achievable okay focus on your strengths
37:42 from the from the SWOT analysis okay you
37:52 know if you have a car that’s meant for
37:59 met for speed then take those roads that
38:04 are long straight flat tops that you
38:06 know you can see the cops coming from
38:08 ten miles away right and you can take
38:11 that bad boy up to 150 I mean if that’s
38:14 your strength that’s your car if you
38:15 have the you know off-road vehicle or
38:21 that then take that that that can only
38:24 go you know 50 miles per hour tops don’t
38:27 worry about those take that take the
38:29 shorter route that can take the rough
38:31 terrain and and can handle it okay so
38:35 yeah keep in mind your strengths don’t
38:38 don’t fight yourself on your own goals
38:41 you know I’m saying so a couple of
38:44 things to keep in mind there
38:48 when coming up with goals based on your
38:53 vision another thing to do is put
38:54 yourself in the public shoes okay so
38:59 like it or not like said we talked about
39:04 so where’s the vision kind of addresses
39:08 the back up forcing it where the vision
39:10 kind of addresses the corporate strategy
39:13 all right putting yourself in customer
39:15 shoes is going to address the
39:17 competitive strategy the next section is
39:19 going to address the functional strategy
39:23 okay so when it comes to the competitive
39:26 strategy put yourself in the public’s
39:28 shoes okay you have to think about how
39:32 you’re perceived when you’re compared to
39:33 the alternatives alternatives might be
39:35 Church down the street or they might be
39:37 something frankly a little less
39:40 desirable okay a little less holy so to
39:44 speak but you know these temptations
39:47 exist if they didn’t everybody would
39:49 come to your church you’d have 7 billion
39:52 people there every Sunday I mean that’s
39:54 not the case there there are
39:56 alternatives now obviously there’s old
39:57 geography saying there it’s an extreme
40:01 example but you get my point
40:03 ok there are alternatives if people have
40:09 to make that decision
40:10 Sunday morning Saturday evening whatever
40:12 it might be Sunday afternoon to come to
40:19 find transportation and to come to your
40:21 church and make the commitment to stay
40:23 for 45 minutes an hour an hour and a
40:26 half two hours whatever it may be
40:27 okay so there’s competition so it just
40:30 helps to put yourself in your customers
40:32 shoes your member shoes your potential
40:35 members shoes and try to see things from
40:39 their perspective okay so you know that
40:46 the number of competitors depends kind
40:48 of where you are on that spectrum if you
40:50 take the the meta view as I said and you
40:53 know you’re really just competing
40:55 against temptations that would keep
40:56 people
40:58 from being religious or being spiritual
41:01 or something like that you know in the
41:03 end if your your your you feel as though
41:08 your church is the one way then you’re
41:09 gonna have a lot more competitors I mean
41:11 that’s just simple logic
41:12 you know you you’ve got a taller task on
41:16 your hands okay so think about what
41:23 makes your church different what it you
41:25 know again the for-profit parallel I
41:31 might draw as you know they always talk
41:34 about a unique selling proposition I
41:36 mean what’s your what what why you why
41:39 your church you know why why should
41:42 people to choose your church why do they
41:44 you know the the will probably come
41:47 from the do you know if you if something
41:51 doesn’t pop in your head right away you
41:52 know talk to your people solidify it
41:55 think about why you’re there you know
41:57 why you chose the work of this
41:58 particular church or volunteer or
42:00 whatever it might be you know you want
42:05 to you want to keep that in mind as you
42:06 make goals for a competitive strategy so
42:10 you know again does it also say there’s
42:15 a reason that these strategic planning
42:17 steps take place in the order that they
42:20 do because you want to think back to
42:22 your strengths and weaknesses from the
42:23 SWOT analysis which should my opinion be
42:26 done before this step okay about how you
42:29 set your church apart you know
42:31 weaknesses or things you want to avoid
42:33 strengths or things you want to
42:34 capitalize upon you know think back to
42:37 when you cross-reference strengths
42:38 weaknesses opportunities and threats
42:39 okay those are good ideas about goals in
42:43 terms of competitive advantage and you
42:46 think back to that I mean it had
42:48 everything from what the SWOT analysis
42:54 was your environment so you know you
42:56 want to if having considered your
42:58 environment the reality you work and you
43:00 want to make goals based on that you
43:02 want to make goals that are gonna set
43:04 yourself your church apart from other
43:07 churches based on the environment
43:11 you operate it okay so things from you
43:14 know your traffic and your signage to
43:17 the demographics of where you operate
43:21 out of to the culture of where you
43:26 operate up and all those things all
43:27 things to consider as you make those
43:30 competitive strategy goals so you know
43:35 keep in mind competitive strategy is a
43:37 subset of your overall strategy so don’t
43:39 make a competitive strategy the
43:41 contradict your overall strategy okay it
43:44 it it should just be a more detailed set
43:49 of goals that feeds from your overall
43:55 strategy okay because you can’t serve
44:00 two masters so to speak have a
44:02 competitive strategy that with goals
44:05 that have you doing one thing and
44:06 overall strategy has you doing a quickly
44:08 different thing okay you’re the the path
44:11 there’s gonna break off in okay or it’s
44:14 going to turn into a dead-end okay you
44:16 gonna have a fork in the road and
44:18 they’re both gonna be dead ends you get
44:20 to go back to the map analogy so the
44:24 final part here addresses and last part
44:31 the functional strategy so you got your
44:35 overall strategy you got your
44:36 competitive strategy you’ve got goals
44:38 for each okay it’s time to start then
44:43 thinking about what the departments
44:47 within your church what they can do what
44:50 they can achieve what they need to
44:52 achieve for those competitive goals and
44:55 those overall goals to be achieved you
44:58 know if your church is super small those
45:03 you know the the different functional
45:05 roles might be fulfilled by the same
45:07 people okay it that doesn’t matter you
45:12 know it again it’s more about the role
45:15 the number of individuals doing it okay
45:19 so that’s kind of a thing where you need
45:24 to
45:25 custom make it for for your church and
45:30 you know just again you might have
45:34 departmental goals if you’re not big
45:35 enough to have departments then it might
45:37 just being a goal for Sally who helps
45:41 out with the books a goal for Joe who’s
45:44 the pastor a goal for you know Bob who
45:50 does the outreach in a community or you
45:53 know whatever it may be just you know
45:57 it’s kind of breaking those goals down
45:59 and then the smaller more more tangible
46:05 chunks that just things that the
46:09 individual people okay because any any
46:13 organization any church is made of
46:15 individual people goals that those
46:18 individual people can say okay if I do X
46:21 Y & Z every week every day I can picture
46:25 achieving this that or the other in a
46:30 month in six months and then if I keep
46:32 doing it beyond their achieving this in
46:35 you know a year and then by achieving
46:38 that in a year that’s helped to improve
46:41 the church’s competitive position you
46:45 know whether it’s filling out or
46:49 somebody running your social media and
46:51 just doing doing something on there and
46:53 it all of a sudden helps set your church
46:54 apart that helps you achieve your goals
46:58 from your competitive strategy and you
47:02 know that coupled with other goals
47:04 achieved from your competitive strategy
47:06 can help you achieve an overall goal you
47:10 know an increase in membership a
47:13 stronger membership whatever it may be
47:16 I hope I’m painting that picture about
47:18 how you know you know it just all breaks
47:21 down to individuals day in day out it’s
47:24 a grind sometimes these sorts of things
47:26 but you know doing the right things
47:31 moving towards a goal achieving small
47:34 goals that compound in the big
47:36 goals and snowball to even bigger goals
47:38 which take you from where you are okay
47:41 to your destination your vision so kind
47:48 of wraps things up I want to emphasize
47:49 again you know try to keep this stuff
47:51 simple especially if this is your first
47:52 year doing this sort of thing you know
47:54 it you might be gung-ho about it if you
47:57 know if hear me talk about these sorts
48:00 of things get you gung ho then I’m
48:01 flattered okay but rein it in a little
48:04 bit keep a practical focus on you know
48:11 understand the first time around you do
48:13 this that you know it’s not gonna be
48:16 perfect you’re getting get better every
48:18 year that’s good okay you want to get
48:19 better at it every year all right so
48:21 don’t just keep it I just you know
48:25 that’s my advice to keep things simple
48:29 okay and understand that it’s through
48:31 failure really that we learn our lessons
48:34 okay
48:35 learn two things that we need to to
48:37 succeed so don’t you know don’t look at
48:40 that failure is the end of the road okay
48:43 just uh just a detour okay roads
48:47 washed-out there’s construction traffic
48:51 jam okay on the way so you know keep you
48:58 know just don’t let falling short you
49:01 know keep you from making big plans high
49:04 aspirations and that sort of thing if
49:06 you need to go through the steps again
49:09 these strategic planning steps I think
49:12 you’re gonna be better off and you’re
49:14 gonna be closer to those you know
49:17 everything that you do that I’ve
49:20 outlined I think will help you get
49:24 closer to achieving what you want to
49:26 achieve again if I were starting my own
49:29 church tomorrow these are the things
49:32 that I would do okay so that kind of
49:38 wraps up the main part of the video you
49:43 know I like to end my videos
49:46 with with a few questions
49:51 food for thought so to speak for the
49:52 comments before I do that I have to do
49:59 something that I’d love to do suck up my
50:01 pride and just ask for likes
50:07 subscriptions notifications comments are
50:11 good I guess anything that sends
50:12 positive feedback to YouTube that you
50:16 liked what you heard even if you’d only
50:18 like some of it it’s it’s free you know
50:21 you’re you don’t only have like so many
50:24 likes to give over your lifetime you
50:25 could like every video on youtube if you
50:27 wanted to you know like I said I hate I
50:32 hate to grovel but you know if you did
50:35 like something that you heard it’s it
50:38 does help it gives me positive feedback
50:42 to do more of this sort of thing and it
50:46 gives positive feedback to YouTube
50:51 Google whoever it may be that you know
50:54 hey get this in front of more people
50:56 that’s just the way the system works and
50:59 you know it’s not necessarily always the
51:02 best videos that get in front of the
51:05 most people okay you know thanks first
51:08 of all for even just watching the video
51:10 um you know this this YouTube video or
51:13 YouTube channels and it’s empathy and
51:15 and you know I’m thankful to have people
51:19 who watch it but yeah so any of that
51:22 stuff like subscribe you know because I
51:26 do have a lot more coming up you know
51:28 not just in church is just a lot of
51:32 great information coming up just for
51:35 business in general Alerts comments all
51:40 that so thank you in advance for all
51:42 yeah so yeah in the comments look what I
51:46 want to hear back from you guys is kind
51:48 of two things you know first of all
51:50 what’s your vision for your church okay
51:52 if you’re in church management great
51:54 what let me know what your vision is
51:58 for the church that you manage on the
52:02 flip side though – if you’re just a
52:04 member of a church what’s your vision
52:06 for the church that you’re a member of
52:08 okay I mean or what’s your vision of a
52:10 church in general how would you paint
52:12 your perfect church okay what you know
52:16 what would it do who would it serve a
52:19 bit would it be you know whatever
52:21 whatever comes to mind
52:23 whatever happens when clear your mind a
52:26 little bit close your eyes and think
52:27 about it and then on top of that another
52:30 thing I’d like to know from you guys is
52:33 whether it’s you know a church you
52:37 manage your church that you attend what
52:40 what’s one goal that would bring it
52:42 closer to that you know I think I don’t
52:49 have to list you have to go through a
52:50 whole strategy formulation process but
52:52 you know look giving this feedback could
52:56 give great ideas the people who are
52:59 watching this video five years from now
53:01 you know like my hope is this content a
53:04 little bit evergreen so it’ll be up for
53:08 a while and people you know that’s
53:10 beauty YouTube people keep searching for
53:13 it and if I get you know if we convince
53:16 YouTube that it’s good content they’ll
53:19 keep showing it to people and what you
53:22 put down in the comments now could help
53:23 inspire somebody one three five ten
53:27 years from the hundred years for me who
53:29 nothing was really so I’d love to hear
53:31 from you guys on that that’s all I got I
53:34 I didn’t even keep track of this time
53:36 keep track of time this time I just I’m
53:39 sure that this was long and appreciate
53:42 you if you’re still with me appreciate
53:44 you sticking with me this long and thank
53:48 you for that take care all right

A Comprehensive Guide to Performing a Church SWOT Analysis [VIDEO]

by
Church SWOT video featured

Video transcript

00:00 how’s it going small business owners and
00:04 church professionals this is Chris
00:07 Charles with spreadsheets for business
00:10 comm and this is the accompanying video
00:16 for my post on conducting a SWOT
00:21 analysis for your church it’s the second
00:27 in the series that focuses on strategic
00:31 planning for churches and it’s another
00:35 one like my previous one I focused on
00:40 mission statements that is on in the
00:43 soft skills as I put it
00:47 most of what you’ll find on spreadsheets
00:50 for business comm is of course about
00:53 spreadsheets you know conducting the
00:57 SWOT analysis isn’t necessarily a
01:00 spreadsheet centric sort of thing
01:04 so it’s there’s no spreadsheet in this
01:09 one so I’ll apologize in advance for the
01:11 kind of dull background this might be in
01:14 the type of video you’ll just want to
01:16 put on in the background I don’t really
01:19 have much visually to put in there to
01:26 spice it up it’s just mostly gonna be
01:28 audio so I admit that that’s probably a
01:33 touch boring I mean I could have put
01:35 together a fancy-pants spreadsheet I
01:38 guess but in the interest of getting
01:41 this done and getting it out and you
01:43 know ultimately arms not fancy-pants
01:45 spreadsheets are a fancy-pants
01:47 presentation slideshow that’s what I was
01:50 looking for could have done that but you
01:55 know ultimately the value in this is in
01:57 the audio so you might be wondering well
02:04 okay if your spreadsheet if you’re gonna
02:08 spread sheet on the brain if your
02:09 website is
02:11 around spreadsheets then why do a post
02:14 on in a video on SWOT analysis and
02:19 that’s a good question and kind of like
02:21 a touched on in the mission statement
02:23 video because there are other elements
02:27 of strategic planning that involves
02:31 spreadsheets involve them heavily
02:33 capital budgeting for the church
02:36 operating budget for the church
02:38 financial budget for the church those
02:42 all build upon the softer points of
02:50 strategic planning specifically mission
02:52 statement SWOT analysis and strategy
02:59 formulation is the other one so they you
03:05 know these this video and post serves to
03:09 kind of round that out fill in fill in
03:13 the blanks kind of paint a complete
03:14 picture of what takes place during
03:17 strategic planning so you know since I
03:20 covered the the harder skills if you
03:24 will the spreadsheet and number
03:28 crunching and all of that I wanted to
03:30 like I said paint a complete picture by
03:32 covering some of the softer skills
03:36 heading out there will be a link to this
03:40 post on the website in the description
03:43 and it’ll kind of serve as a reference
03:48 if you know you want something in print
03:52 to refer to if you think back to
03:56 something in the video that I mentioned
03:58 and maybe you wanted to touch on again
04:00 it might be easier search for it and
04:02 print you know some of them the link
04:04 will be like I said in the in the
04:07 description there okay so let’s get into
04:13 a little bit of what a SWOT analysis is
04:14 and I’m gonna do my best to kind of push
04:18 through this this is a
04:20 it’s a big post it’s a complex topic
04:23 it’s you know it could go on for a while
04:26 and if you’ve seen in my other videos
04:29 you know that I’ve got no problem
04:32 rambling on about these subjects but you
04:37 know I’ve got a lot say on the matter
04:41 and you know I’ll try to but I’ll try to
04:43 keep it focused keep it moving here and
04:45 get this bad boy done under an hour okay
04:50 so a SWOT analysis what is a SWOT
04:52 analysis and if you can probably read it
04:54 in description
04:56 it’s about s wo T and that is an acronym
04:59 and that stands for strengths weaknesses
05:02 opportunities and threats okay s wo t
05:08 alright and what it does the point of it
05:12 is to paint a picture of the environment
05:15 that your church operates in so you’ll
05:19 hear a SWOT analysis referred to
05:22 sometimes as a situational analysis okay
05:26 the same thing it’s just taking time to
05:29 commit thought to your environment okay
05:37 understanding what your internal
05:40 environment is you strengths some
05:42 weaknesses your external environment
05:44 your opportunities and threats and how
05:47 all those interact will help you should
05:51 help you in your decision making over
05:54 the coming year okay so you know where
06:01 to even start with a SWOT analysis
06:09 start with thinking about you can start
06:13 with strengths and weaknesses or
06:14 opportunities and threats but you know
06:16 sometimes it’s easier to wrap your arms
06:21 around things that are within your
06:22 control and that’s the strengths and
06:24 weaknesses okay and when you’re thinking
06:31 about your strengths and weaknesses it’s
06:36 not a time to let yourself off the hook
06:41 it’s not a time to you know put on your
06:46 rose-colored glasses you if you want
06:49 this whole exercise to be effective
06:50 you’ve got to be painfully honest with
06:54 yourself okay so don’t list things you
07:01 think should be your strengths or wish
07:03 were your strengths and ignore things
07:06 that are your weaknesses you know you’ve
07:10 got a ultimately to put to make this
07:15 whole strategic planning process worth
07:18 your time you know you’ve got a deal in
07:21 reality so you’ll want to focus you know
07:25 once the SWOT announced has done focus
07:28 on your strengths and control your
07:32 weaknesses okay so the other side of the
07:35 coin is or excuse me opportunities and
07:39 threats these things outside of your
07:41 control be and you’ve been done so to
07:46 speak
07:48 you could probably be a little more a
07:54 little more in touch with reality when
07:59 listing your opportunities and threats
08:03 but you know don’t also when you’re
08:09 thinking about these you know don’t
08:13 don’t let political correctness or
08:15 stubbornness or you have your blinders
08:17 on or anything you know be be forthright
08:20 about
08:21 with real opportunities in your external
08:24 environment armed with the real threats
08:25 are okay so what I’m getting at kind of
08:31 in the intro part there is just be
08:33 prepared to see things as they are and
08:42 communicate things as they are because
08:44 you and your team that are doing this
08:47 SWOT analysis don’t really stand to gain
08:49 anything by fooling yourself or by you
08:54 know pretending really reality something
08:57 different than what it is okay so we’ll
09:04 get into how kind of a strategy for
09:09 doing the SWOT analysis I’ll make the
09:12 point like I did with the mission
09:14 statement excuse me that you know
09:19 whatever gets the job done its job done
09:22 you know this is looking at this video
09:25 and the post as a guide and an idea of
09:29 where to start they you know build on
09:32 that in whatever manner serves your
09:36 church best okay it’s not a you know a
09:41 strict step one through whatever process
09:44 that I promise is the only right way to
09:47 do a SWOT analysis now I mean whatever
09:49 works works and you know it’s sort of
09:55 thing every year
09:56 we should do it you’ll get better at and
09:59 more efficient at it but before I get
10:06 into that let me also qualify myself
10:11 briefly in terms of you know
10:16 Who am I to give you advice on how to
10:19 manage your church and you know as I
10:22 kind of hinted at earlier I’m more of a
10:25 numbers guy okay that’s that’s my
10:29 strength what I’m good at
10:31 it’s when my website revolves around and
10:34 you know so I don’t manage a church I’ve
10:39 never done a SWOT analysis with the
10:43 church and I don’t go to church on a
10:47 regular basis I have been to church I
10:49 think churches certain valuable purpose
10:53 and for the most part are a valued part
10:59 of society so I’m not coming from this
11:03 from some sort of weird angle or
11:05 anything okay I go to my website my my
11:11 post my free downloadable workbooks
11:16 spreadsheets okay all free so I’m not
11:20 trying to again pull something over on
11:24 you here by talking about something I
11:28 don’t know anything about you know what
11:30 what I did do when writing my post and
11:33 in making this video is give a lot of
11:38 thought to how I would do it so it’s
11:40 authentic in that respect anticipating
11:44 on my site is something I’m strive for
11:46 so you know not not trying to be a
11:53 charlatan or anything here you know I
11:56 here’s the thing it you know I I make
11:59 these videos for a for churches these
12:03 strategic planning videos because
12:05 there’s a demand for them based off of
12:07 what I found looking on the Internet
12:10 okay so it’s no different than I made
12:15 the point in the mission statement video
12:18 that if I were a or I might not never go
12:23 to like a nail salon or a women’s
12:26 clothing boutique to shop okay and I
12:29 wouldn’t start those types of businesses
12:31 because that’s just not what I’m into
12:34 but but nevertheless you know these a
12:36 lot of the things that I’m going to
12:37 cover in this video and
12:40 the soft skills and strategic planning
12:42 in general are applicable doesn’t matter
12:46 the industry you know the the thing is
12:48 and part of the one of the other reasons
12:50 I chose churches was because it gave me
12:52 the opportunity you know most of my
12:54 education training experience in that is
12:57 in the for-profit realm okay this gives
13:00 me an opportunity to look at things from
13:02 the not-for-profit perspective and I
13:06 thought that was a good opportunity for
13:07 me to learn something and kind of look
13:10 at things from a different point of view
13:12 you know because churches not not
13:15 everything’s about the bottom line okay
13:18 there’s a greater good to be served so
13:23 to speak so you know it was a great
13:25 opportunity for me to dedicate a lot of
13:28 thought and research to these sort of
13:30 things and again I’m not giving any any
13:33 advice that’s inauthentic tonight you
13:35 know if you’ve had me start a church
13:39 tomorrow these are the steps I would
13:41 take to do a SWOT analysis okay so let’s
13:44 get into it here first thing you’re
13:54 probably going to do is again like the
13:57 mission statement or brainstorming it’s
14:03 okay this gets the gears turning and
14:07 your brain gets you and your team that’s
14:13 doing a strategic planning and the right
14:16 frame of mind okay the right mindset so
14:21 really I think you know you can use some
14:26 of the tactics that I outlined there in
14:29 the mission statement video like I said
14:35 if you do a quick search online for
14:41 brainstorming techniques let’s bring
14:43 that up here
14:47 pardon my ancient computer and slow Cox
14:54 internet web connection disappointing
15:04 hang on you can search for brainstorming
15:08 techniques and you’ll get a multiple
15:12 multiple multiple of results that will
15:20 give you ideas of different ways to
15:21 approach brainstorming so you know yeah
15:24 there’s these the old fashioned lists
15:26 the first thing to come to your mind
15:28 no ideas are off the table it’s fine and
15:31 good there’s resources out there for
15:34 different techniques ok so let’s see so
15:49 ok so you get all that kind of down on
15:51 paper and then you want to start
15:58 consuming kind of information ok so
16:03 you’ve got you have a bunch ideas down
16:05 for your strengths of weaknesses your
16:08 opportunities and threats and you know
16:15 it’s time to start gathering some
16:19 solidifying those kind of vague ideas ok
16:25 here are a couple ideas that I have on
16:30 what it might help you to gather in
16:33 terms of strengths weaknesses
16:39 opportunities and threats there are
16:43 several different well I mean really an
16:47 infinite number of different things that
16:51 might qualifies a strength weakness
16:53 opportunity or threat again this is just
16:56 kind of an idea kind of get the
16:59 I get the gears turning and everything
17:01 to get you help give June the right
17:05 mindset so for instance you can start
17:11 with traffic count okay your church is a
17:16 piece of real estate okay what is the
17:20 most important thing in real estate
17:22 location okay so one of your strengths
17:28 or weaknesses might revolve around
17:30 simply the number of people that pass in
17:32 front of your church any given dating
17:35 okay most metropolitan areas that I’ve
17:44 found keep traffic count information
17:48 okay what that is is basically where the
17:52 Department of Transportation or
17:53 something similar similar counts the
17:56 number of vehicles that drive in front
17:58 or on a particular stretch of road in a
18:02 given day well day week month whatever
18:05 it might be
18:06
[Music]
18:08 let’s look at an example here we need to
18:12 search for one like we look for traffic
18:16 count what’s kind of a midsize it’s just
18:25 a single this big city not really
18:28 midsize bit you look here that’s just
18:35 not gonna work with me is it
19:04 that’s Google or what apologies for the
19:08 delay let’s see okay there we go so we
19:14 look first result was Missouri
19:16 Department of Transportation traffic
19:18 volume maps st. Louis district okay it’s
19:22 2016 it’s a couple years old at this
19:24 point well let’s see what they got here
19:27 I just pulled this out at random okay so
19:31 here we are we got us a PDF and Kenneth
19:38 and this one here scroll over you can
19:43 see we’re in the st. look a st. Louis
19:45 metropolitan area and it’s got data now
19:50 this one’s kind of on the like the
19:55 highways state highways interstates and
19:58 that sort of thing but gives numbers and
20:05 I bet there’s kind of a key somewhere
20:07 here the traffic volume and truck volume
20:13 for each of them so you can see in red
20:15 and black respectively so I said I
20:19 literally just pulled that up at random
20:22 and I did that to make the point that
20:24 this information is out there so your
20:27 your particular city I mean if you’re in
20:29 the real small town maybe not but you
20:32 know if you’re in at least a decent
20:36 sized metropolitan area you can find
20:40 this sort of information okay
20:44 so what what’s that tell you you know I
20:47 mean it’s basically you want to
20:49 understand what your visibility is to
20:51 passersby
20:52 okay if you’re getting heavy traffic in
20:55 front of your church that’s an
20:56 opportunity to reach people with a limit
21:01 call them just the marquee or whatever
21:04 or you know if you have a little better
21:07 technology out there a you know like a
21:11 LED like a display same thing input
21:15 video or
21:17 you know some sort of advertising
21:18 something so that’s a big billboard on
21:25 your property that’s a big opportunity
21:27 to reach people but more of a strength
21:29 excuse me not an opportunity
21:31 okay opportunities in external this is
21:33 under your control so hey I’m there’s
21:37 one idea another thing is to track your
21:41 church attendance okay and the point of
21:46 doing so is to gather data okay so you
21:52 just want to know how many people are
21:55 attending maybe you have a rough idea
21:56 maybe it’s small enough where you know
22:02 really well how it can fluctuate from
22:03 week to week but you know this this just
22:08 gives you an idea of the number of
22:10 behinds the chip put in the pews okay so
22:16 soft Lord exists for this depending on
22:18 the sophistication Church probably even
22:20 needs software but it’s just a matter of
22:22 accurately you know counting how many
22:25 people are you getting in getting an
22:27 idea you know the of your of your
22:30 customers okay in this case for your
22:32 church you know the people that attend
22:35 or your customers kind of so on the same
22:38 token you can do a church census alright
22:43 and what that is and it just might sound
22:45 a little intrusive and in a certain
22:48 sense that it is but you know like I
22:50 said if if the members are your
22:53 customers okay these are the people that
22:55 you’re serving the better you can
22:58 understand them the better you can serve
23:00 them okay and then what they need and
23:03 and again it it depends on your church I
23:06 mean if you’re you’ve got a tiny little
23:09 Church you might know in a small town I
23:12 come from a small town you know you
23:13 might know everybody’s family tree and
23:18 you know business that extends well
23:21 beyond church and and all that neck you
23:25 know might know they work
23:27 they live all those sort of things okay
23:29 you know in that case maybe an official
23:33 census wouldn’t make sense but other
23:35 instances where you’ve got you know a
23:38 lot of people that you know that you you
23:45 might recognize faces but not know
23:47 circumstances of or so many that you
23:50 don’t even recognize any but just a tiny
23:54 few amount of faces you know so since
23:58 it’s what it sounds like it’s like a
24:00 census that the government does today
24:02 you know you’re just basically getting
24:05 demographic information you know and you
24:07 don’t have to be intrusive with it you
24:12 know it depending on the culture of your
24:15 church the information together might
24:19 you know might be real high level or a
24:22 little more personal to to do a point of
24:26 course so depending on just things age
24:30 professions you know family size contact
24:37 information this is a good opportunity
24:38 to get that contact information I mean
24:41 look you might not ever use it you know
24:43 and I mean you probably not the type of
24:45 church that once put the hard sell on
24:47 people and exactly I don’t think you
24:48 should be but to have contact
24:51 information is valuable a to let if for
24:55 no other reason to let members should
24:57 know you know you’re doing a fundraiser
24:59 you’re doing volunteer opportunities
25:02 they you know things that they would
25:03 want to take part in potentially but
25:06 might not know about unless you market
25:07 it to them so you know none of this has
25:10 to be Shady or you know underhanded or
25:14 anything like that so the the challenge
25:18 you might run into with doing a church
25:21 census is how to get people to fill it
25:22 out you know and that’s just a my
25:28 opinion a matter of being the right
25:30 amount of pushy okay just general
25:33 reminders that you know during service
25:36 that you would appreciate if people
25:38 would fill
25:39 would complete these returned them to
25:41 you you know you don’t want to be
25:44 obnoxious of course but just you know
25:46 just reminder over a several week period
25:49 you know and you get what you can not
25:51 everybody’s gonna turn it in not
25:53 everybody’s gonna participate but you
25:55 just keep your your information in check
25:58 now once you have that information
26:00 depending on the size of your church it
26:03 might be a pretty high volume of
26:04 information okay so so then you’ve got
26:07 an issue of what what to do with all
26:10 that alright and you know you can use a
26:14 database you know access you can even
26:17 use Excel potentially depending on how
26:19 much information you talking about and
26:21 and I love Excel but you know it it’s
26:25 not a it’s darn close but it’s not a
26:28 cure-all for everything excuse me but
26:33 there suffer out there called CRM
26:36 software customer relationship
26:38 management and it’s meant to happen
26:41 handle this type of data okay so that’s
26:44 an option to if you want to make that
26:46 investment again I’m thinking along the
26:51 same lines from a church you know
26:57 attendance tracking and census would be
27:01 a a survey okay
27:14 and you know of course what a survey is
27:18 and it’s just basically getting feedback
27:22 from your customers do you members and
27:26 this can help to maybe confirm or
27:32 debunked information that you
27:35 brainstormed initially in the SWOT
27:39 analysis okay you know the things it
27:45 kind of serves as a reality check you
27:47 know particularly if the survey is
27:51 allowed to be filled anonymously you
27:56 know and I was can be done online can be
27:57 done in person it’s kind of up to you
27:59 with the best manner to collect that
28:01 information is but anyhow you know
28:06 really think through if you do that what
28:08 the the questions in your survey should
28:11 be make sure they’re pertinent you know
28:13 don’t don’t make it too terribly long
28:16 don’t make the questions trivial keep it
28:19 to 10 or 15 tops I would say you know
28:22 you don’t want people to get tired of
28:24 doing it and then just you know yeah
28:28 yeah yeah their way through it okay so
28:31 there’s uh there’s no shortage out there
28:35 of ideas for survey questions again a
28:44 simple search on the handy-dandy
28:48 internet will give you plenty ideas as a
28:55 starting point and you know also refer
28:58 to those the things that I said that
29:00 shut it down with your brainstorming at
29:03 the beginning of the SWOT analysis okay
29:10 here it was quick search first years old
29:14 you know plenty of resources out there
29:17 and you know there’s there’s no no shame
29:20 in
29:22 building off of someone else’s work you
29:25 know they a lot of a lot of great
29:29 information there so you know whether to
29:33 do the surveys and the census as a paper
29:44 or online kind of up to you it’s kind of
29:48 up to your congregation
29:51 you know what suits them what makes
29:54 sense for them and you know that’s
30:00 really kind of an individual subjective
30:02 sort of thing so gathering information
30:07 digitally is tends to be more efficient
30:10 you know otherwise you’re probably going
30:13 to be inputting it in to a digital means
30:17 but if you gather it like paper copies
30:21 but you know again that kind of depends
30:25 size of the church nature of the
30:28 membership those sorts of things so the
30:33 other way to get an idea of to do a
30:38 little scuttlebutt as it’s called in the
30:43 investing community is to do good
30:45 old-fashioned talking okay talk to you
30:50 family talk to the leaders in a church
30:52 talk to the people aren’t lead isn’t
30:54 working in the church talk to the
30:56 membership talk to if you’re part of a
31:00 network of you know church management
31:04 talk to them okay
31:06 you know up the ladder down the ladder
31:08 sideways everything just you know get
31:11 get these topics out on the table and
31:15 you know people God uh you know
31:21 obviously different perspectives and
31:23 they you know it could help you come up
31:25 with ideas you might thought about maybe
31:30 put a you know a strength weakness
31:32 opportunity or threaded
31:34 active those sorts of things so it’ll be
31:39 afraid to do that so we’ll talk a little
31:42 bit now about ways to get you thinking
31:49 okay these are these are ideas and they
31:51 kind of play not ways to get you
31:54 thinking like ideas if this is kind of
31:57 your first time doing a SWOT analysis to
32:01 and you don’t know where to begin these
32:04 are some ideas that I gathered from
32:06 doing a little research on potential
32:08 strengths weaknesses opportunities and
32:10 threats okay this is not an exhaustive
32:12 list okay you know you don’t have to go
32:15 through these bullet points and say
32:18 answer these questions and then you’re
32:20 done yeah you did you SWAT it on us no
32:22 this is just things to think about okay
32:26 so let’s see let’s actually copy this up
32:37 here so here’s an idea for possible
32:47 strengths okay you talked a little bit
32:52 earlier about the traffic you churches
32:54 on a high traffic road okay
32:57 membership is stable or growing would be
33:02 a strength and most of the members have
33:04 been with the church a long time you
33:07 have a pool of retired members with time
33:11 on their hands and hopefully a
33:14 willingness to help with skills that
33:16 could help the church your church is
33:21 welcoming the newcomers okay it’s
33:28 probably hard to grow membership if you
33:32 Church is considered like closed off or
33:35 cliquish sure or that but that you know
33:40 fairness might be what you’re going for
33:42 you know maybe you want to screen people
33:46 out you only want a certain type into
33:47 your church you decide these things a
33:50 lot of this you know this is why we do
33:52 the mission statement before the SWOT
33:53 analysis because you what you consider a
33:58 strength is going to depend in large
34:00 part on what your mission statement is
34:02 you know strengths are going to serve
34:03 your mission statement weaknesses are
34:07 going to help are going to contribute to
34:11 you preventing you from achieving your
34:14 mission okay but I guess these are just
34:19 ideas as far as possible strengths Kate
34:21 Church has a good reputation in the
34:23 community strong sense source of
34:26 donations for better or worse money’s
34:30 got to keep coming in the door okay you
34:33 know in order to keep the lights on and
34:35 doors open you know great leadership
34:38 that’s always a strength because the
34:42 opposite is certainly a weakness so you
34:46 know a self-sufficient attitude rich and
34:50 lanky history could be considered as
34:53 strength you know there’s a lot of
34:54 social proof there in terms of your
34:58 church that you know you’ve longevity
35:04 and this doesn’t mean that you know well
35:07 if your new church there’s no hope
35:09 obviously because new churches spring up
35:10 all the time they also disappear a lot
35:13 over time but a you know history kind of
35:18 gives you like I said that social proof
35:20 it kind of for you know like it or not
35:25 proves you’re worthwhile this because
35:28 you’ve been around that long okay for a
35:30 long time in a sense of family church
35:36 members who speak the same language as
35:37 locals in the community you know Church
35:40 revolves a great deal around
35:42 communication right I mean that’s
35:45 communications almost the product really
35:48 you know you’re you’re communicating
35:54 thoughts on you know higher power and
35:59 everything
35:59 you know I’m trying to I’m usually not
36:03 the type to like walk on eggshells but
36:05 there are a lot of different churches of
36:07 a lot of different nature something you
36:09 know I don’t want to say well churches
36:12 just revolve around the Bible churches
36:14 just revolve around you know this
36:17 religious text that religious checks
36:18 whatever but any on well I’m getting at
36:21 is a you know speaking the same language
36:23 so you know what whatever it is whatever
36:26 your church is about it you know viana
36:32 it’s about communication because the you
36:34 know the greatest written text or you
36:39 know spoken word in the history of
36:43 religion doesn’t mean anything if it
36:45 can’t be conveyed to anybody
36:47 okay so whether you’re you know English
36:53 speaking Spanish speaking whatever you
36:57 know it’s that strength to be able to
37:00 reach the community to reach the people
37:02 you do want to join a church okay
37:04 next one’s quality mission statement and
37:07 like I said I have a mission statement
37:10 video that I made earlier that covers a
37:15 lot of things to think about when
37:17 drafting mission statement and like I
37:19 said I would recommend doing so before
37:21 you do SWOT analysis and frankly if you
37:24 want new members and higher donations
37:29 and a better reach and you know you need
37:35 the capacity just to accept new members
37:37 okay if you’re filled to the brand got
37:40 people hanging from the rafters at every
37:42 service you know that’s that’s gonna be
37:46 tough to to build membership in there so
37:50 that’s some idea about some ideas about
37:53 some possible strengths move on next to
38:00 potential weaknesses
38:06 okay if church membership is declining
38:14 okay that’s weakness this membership
38:18 equals less reach equals less donations
38:22 you know it’s a general rule of thumb
38:25 unless again unless you have a very
38:29 specific member type of member in mind
38:34 be believing not coming back it’s
38:37 generally gonna be bad low attendance
38:41 along the same lines low attendance from
38:42 children and young people okay I mean
38:46 over time obviously the children become
38:49 you know adults the young adults become
38:52 middle-aged adults become old adults you
38:55 know
38:55 it’s a lot of people attend church where
38:57 their parents did their family does and
39:02 if if you’re losing the kids and the
39:06 young people you know it might not
39:09 impact you so much this year next year
39:14 excuse me from a long-term standpoint
39:18 you know it’s something that you can
39:20 have to plan around them you know maybe
39:23 the welcoming process that your church
39:25 is is lacking you know there’s there’s
39:29 not a kind of a I don’t want to call it
39:31 an orientation to make it say no to
39:33 formal or that and maybe you do have
39:35 some a formal like that but you know
39:39 something that kind of makes the new new
39:42 members feel like part of the church
39:44 community okay if you got a congregation
39:48 that’s inflexible and stubborn that’s
39:51 rarely a strength usually a weakness
39:54 whether we’re talking about churches or
39:56 anything else in life you know a low
40:00 turnout when you’re doing community
40:02 outreach you similar to the one earlier
40:06 and you’re not doing a great job of
40:08 inviting people okay you’re not getting
40:10 the word out you’re not letting people
40:11 know that they’re welcome
40:14 and right growing membership that sort
40:17 of thing is going to be tough
40:19 members that aren’t getting value okay
40:22 if they’re just coming out of obligation
40:25 fillings you know feeling like it’s a we
40:32 wouldn’t call it a burden almost you
40:34 know an obligation and that’s gonna give
40:38 you trouble you know probably sooner
40:43 than later you know a reluctance to
40:46 challenge the status quo could be a
40:51 weakness volunteers that are work too
40:53 hard you know because you have low
40:56 turnout for volunteer efforts so the
40:59 people that do volunteer their time and
41:02 and do their best to do something to
41:06 help the church are getting burnout morn
41:09 down kinda you’re you’re asking too much
41:12 of them and a couple other things
41:14 antiquated technology shortage of
41:17 handicapped facilities lack of a
41:19 strategic plan okay so you know I’ll
41:23 obviously be covering that like I said
41:25 and the posts are up the videos are
41:29 coming and you know strategic planning
41:35 and there are also a bunch of other
41:38 great resources out there not just
41:40 spreadsheets for business okay so you
41:44 know your if you’re like me you’re gonna
41:48 try a couple of different things try to
41:50 take the best of what you find and
41:52 that’s great that’s what you should do
41:54 so take the best of what you find for me
41:56 take the best of what you find from some
41:58 of the other big names out there in
42:01 terms of Church management Church
42:04 strategic planning and you know yeah
42:06 give yourself the best odds for success
42:08 another one that kind of relates to
42:10 something that I do do well do do is an
42:15 inability to budget effectively would be
42:17 a weakness okay you know churches have
42:21 greater callings than just profit but
42:24 like I said it’s you know
42:28 there are still bills to be paid and
42:31 that is just the reality of the world we
42:34 live in and you know you got to plan
42:36 accordingly so I can definitely help you
42:39 out with that one now here’s a look at a
42:42 couple of opportunities that you might
42:44 consider now opportunities again or
42:49 external not internal these things
42:51 outside of your control but they could
42:54 still help you okay
43:00 population of your geographic area is
43:04 growing okay more people in the area
43:07 equals more opportunity for growing
43:10 membership local use that are need of
43:13 church services for whatever reason
43:16 maybe you know because they they’re at
43:21 risk or you know people that they’re you
43:28 know they could use your help you know
43:31 whether it’s something to do after
43:32 school something on the weekends that’s
43:36 another opportunity you’re near a
43:38 college you’ve got people for instance
43:40 young people that are probably away from
43:44 home so away from the church they might
43:46 have grown up going to and are in need
43:48 of you know what your church can offer
43:53 okay
43:55 another opportunity is members with
43:57 influence in organizations throughout
43:59 the community okay you know c-level
44:02 executives people in management
44:05 positions people on boards of directors
44:08 it’s you know basically people that are
44:11 people in government that are powerful
44:13 and you know that can only serve as an
44:17 opportunity doesn’t mean you need need
44:19 to exploit the power you know but you
44:25 know can’t hurt right so another
44:31 opportunity would be offering services
44:33 this one might be considered as strength
44:35 it since it is kind of near control but
44:37 offering services at different times in
44:39 Sunday morning
44:40 okay more flexibility on your part means
44:45 probably more opportunity to give people
44:49 in the doors and in the pews the
44:53 internet and social media of course
44:54 represent an opportunity and in hosting
44:57 community events and otherwise unused
44:59 facilities a lot of churches have a
45:01 bunch of square footage okay
45:05 you know community that’s kind of a
45:07 vague term but you know like for
45:11 instance one church something always
45:14 took my kids to whenever little was like
45:16 a trick-or-treat Street kind of thing
45:19 that they did at my watch church and it
45:25 was great God
45:26 you know again it’s not all that
45:29 different from a for-profit business to
45:34 give people in a dorm you know
45:35 opportunity to market to them again
45:37 don’t have to be pushy marketing but
45:39 just give opportunity from the seat what
45:40 you’re about increase the likelihood of
45:43 them wanting to join the ranks of the
45:44 membership okay look here then at
45:52 possible threats
45:55 okay you know I’m about 45 minutes
46:00 a little over so keep grindin alone you
46:09 know if you’re in a smaller town older
46:11 population you know the kind of United
46:15 States anyways as increased urbanization
46:17 people move into bigger towns smaller
46:20 towns older population means you
46:23 unfortunately everybody passes away
46:25 eventually more of a longer-term
46:28 consideration but as a threat laws and
46:32 regulations that inhibit actions can I
46:34 mean if you know as time goes on the
46:41 United States in my opinion gets more
46:45 there’s more as bigger differences in
46:50 the cultures of particular parts of the
46:53 United States
46:54 it’s okay and laws are enacted that to
47:02 reflect those different beliefs you know
47:06 people different beliefs select
47:09 different elected officials and have
47:11 different laws these laws might inhibit
47:16 actions that you want to take that you
47:19 feel contribute to achieving your
47:22 mission so if you’re in an area where
47:26 laws and regulations will do that that’s
47:29 a threat that’s a problem because you
47:32 know if I run a kickboxing gym you know
47:40 where I’m at and you know some buffoon
47:45 of a governor gets elected and outlaws
47:48 kick boxing gyms well I can take my
47:50 expertise move across state lines open
47:54 kickboxing gym not quite as easy with
47:56 Church you know it’s a you know you you
48:00 get customers and you get them long term
48:02 certainly that’s one benefit of churches
48:04 flipside is you know it can’t just pick
48:07 up shop typically and then can move I
48:12 can tell move a state away so other
48:17 threats are competition for new members
48:18 okay every church wants new members I
48:21 would assume and you know so there’s
48:25 competition you’re you’re competing
48:27 against the church down the block across
48:28 town you know that’s a that’s a threat
48:34 is kind of touches on what I said
48:38 earlier an anti religious culture and
48:41 environment it would obviously be a
48:43 threat and you cannot hardship in the
48:46 community okay when times are tough and
48:51 people are having trouble making ends
48:53 meet you know contributing the church
48:57 will probably fall by the wayside you
49:01 know behind rent bills car payments
49:03 those sorts of things but not just the
49:05 dollars just the
49:07 you know some people might cling to
49:10 church and no circumstances other people
49:11 might pull away from it so again the
49:15 economic hardship it is typically going
49:18 to be a threat it’s just not good for
49:21 business whether it’s a for-profit
49:22 business whether it’s a not-for-profit
49:23 business so let’s talk a little bit here
49:28 once once you’ve got you know so we’ve
49:32 talked about let me back up for a second
49:34 sorry
49:36 brainstorming okay information to gather
49:42 you know to come up with your strengths
49:44 weaknesses opportunities and threats
49:47 ideas for you for strengths weaknesses
49:50 opportunities and threats okay so with
49:52 those three things hopefully you have a
49:54 pretty good list now you’ve got all four
49:57 quadrants well-thought-out and you know
50:02 a comprehensive list for each one of
50:06 those four factors now you want to think
50:12 about how those factors interact and how
50:14 you can exploit those interactions so
50:17 exploit sounds bad you know but in this
50:24 case you just you’re you’re positioning
50:26 yourself as best you can your church as
50:28 best you can in light of your strengths
50:31 weaknesses opportunities and threats
50:34 okay so just think about what it means
50:41 where these interact you’ve got
50:43 strengths and opportunities okay and
50:48 this is where the stars align okay
50:51 you’ve got an opportunity and it
50:54 interacts with something you’re good at
50:55 that this is this is the low-hanging
50:58 fruit so to speak you want to take
51:00 advantage of these opportunities for
51:04 example might be do churches on a
51:05 high-traffic Road and the population of
51:09 your area is growing okay so you’re in a
51:12 good location you’re gonna have more and
51:15 more people driving by your church every
51:19 day every week every year excuse me you
51:24 want to make sure that your signage and
51:26 your marketing is effective okay you’re
51:28 appealing with the people passing by
51:31 another one might be your church is
51:33 welcoming the newcomers and your
51:38 opportunities the host community events
51:40 and otherwise I need four sell unused
51:41 facilities you could offer those
51:44 facilities at a reduced price to members
51:48 okay
51:48 that’s a benefit of being a member of
51:51 your church okay so you’re welcoming in
51:54 that respect by having those facilities
51:59 available and at a reduced price of
52:01 people are members and you’re in revenue
52:05 from otherwise unused facilities okay so
52:10 the next interaction we’ll talk about is
52:13 strengths and threats okay threats are
52:17 bad but if you know the strengths to
52:20 offset them you can temper neutralize
52:25 the threat to a certain extent so let’s
52:26 say you’ve got a pool of retired members
52:29 with skills that could help the church
52:31 and there’s economic hardship in the
52:33 community those retired members could
52:36 put on workshops for the community
52:39 members okay and these workshops could
52:42 be anything
52:42 well there is budgeting whether it’s
52:46 somebody you know retired member from
52:48 the financial services injury how to
52:50 deal with late payments how to deal with
52:53 creditors those sorts of things you’re
52:57 leveraging the knowledge of the retired
52:59 members to help those who are suffering
53:01 from the economic hardship another one
53:04 is the capacity to accept a lot of new
53:06 members competition for new members okay
53:09 the threat is the competition its chance
53:12 for you to set your church apart from
53:14 the others okay you don’t want to you
53:20 know having way too much capacity could
53:22 be a problem obviously a weakness but
53:27 it’s any it could be it
53:30 you know a selling point for people who
53:33 are in an otherwise overcrowded church
53:36 to come to yours and not feel over
53:40 credit and maybe you have it a place
53:41 where it’ll feel more more personal okay
53:44 next interaction is weaknesses and
53:47 opportunities okay well you know in this
53:56 case the weaknesses can be preventing
53:57 you from capitalizing on opportunities
53:59 and that stinks because opportunities
54:03 are you know sometimes a rare thing and
54:06 you want to be able to capitalize on
54:08 them but you know so what do you do if
54:11 the opportunity isn’t something that
54:14 plays to his strengths of yours rather a
54:16 weakness okay so let’s say the church
54:18 has low attendance from children and
54:20 young people and you have local use or
54:23 need of church services what’s going to
54:25 happen local users are gonna attend
54:28 church somewhere else probably so in
54:36 this case you know you’re you’re looking
54:43 at how the two things in turn the
54:45 weakness and the opportunity and
54:48 unfortunately not able to exploit it so
54:55 you want to since you you were honest
55:00 with yourself and recognize this
55:01 weakness okay you’re you have an
55:06 opportunity to fix it so you want to
55:09 think about then what can you do to make
55:13 your church more appealing to children
55:15 and young people okay because you’ve got
55:19 demand and local youth that are in need
55:22 of church services but you know for
55:25 whatever reason you know since you’re
55:27 honest with yourself and admitted your
55:28 your weakness that you’re in essence
55:31 driving children in people way so it’s a
55:33 chance to reflect on what’s causing that
55:35 and maybe the survey can help with that
55:37 maybe they’re talking with other members
55:38 too
55:38 with that and address the issue so you
55:41 can turn your church from a place that
55:44 has low attendance from children and
55:45 young people innocent driving away to a
55:48 strength where you know it is a
55:55 appealing place or you have programs
55:57 that are appealing to young people and
55:59 you can take advantage of that
56:00 opportunity where local youths are in
56:03 need of church services okay
56:07 another interaction of weaknesses and
56:10 opportunities sorry I’m going to wet my
56:15 whistle there our members aren’t getting
56:17 value from the church and the
56:20 opportunities internet and social media
56:22 so you have the ability there to provide
56:25 extra value to members and non-members
56:27 okay the social media is a you know with
56:37 with the internet and the you know
56:41 advent of internet and social media you
56:43 have that opportunity to you know if
56:46 you’re followed on you know Twitter
56:47 Facebook whatever social media to reach
56:50 your members not just Sunday morning
56:54 okay they repeatedly throughout the week
56:57 daily multiple times daily okay so yes
57:04 that’s that’s no good that you you know
57:06 you’ve acknowledged to yourself
57:08 potentially that members aren’t getting
57:10 value from the church but this
57:13 opportunity of the internet social media
57:15 gives you a chance to you know to change
57:17 that to come up with a strategy via the
57:19 you know via the internet social media
57:22 to start adding value okay to think
57:25 about how you can add value outside of
57:27 church you know the other six days of
57:30 the week theme you know whether it’s
57:33 through inspirational messages whether
57:35 it’s through showing how other people
57:38 are getting value from church okay so
57:42 you know I think the the big key there
57:45 would be to be authentic you’ve heard me
57:47 talk about authenticity earlier I was
57:49 talking about myself and talking about
57:50 my circumstance
57:51 and you know what what kind of led me to
57:54 make this video to make these posts and
57:58 yeah just definitely don’t don’t go
58:01 boilerplate here you know I would
58:05 definitely you know think about what you
58:09 would want to see in terms of social
58:11 media if you find yourself in this
58:13 situation and you know try to put
58:16 yourself in the other you know the the
58:19 person who might not be getting value
58:20 from churches shoes and I think you’ll
58:23 attract a lot more people than just you
58:26 know kind of recycling wore-out talking
58:28 points okay so the last intersection
58:31 we’ll go over is weaknesses and threats
58:33 okay this is you know this is a bad be
58:38 threat on the horizon you’ve got no
58:40 answer for it and never see now that I’m
58:44 not gonna make my hour unless one I
58:47 promise so you know but hey everybody
58:54 has weaknesses the the key is to
58:57 neutralize threats try to shore up those
58:59 weaknesses so let’s say you’ve got a
59:01 reluctance to challenge the status quo
59:03 in your church and you’re in an anti
59:05 religious culture or environment it’s
59:08 time to come to terms with reality in
59:10 that case you know there’s this might be
59:24 kind of a touchy one you know cuz
59:28 because maybe there are people in your
59:30 church that are like well this is what
59:32 it means to be our religion or our
59:35 churches or culture this is what we vote
59:37 this is what we’ve always done sort of
59:39 thing but you know you’re in an
59:40 environment that is a hostile in a lot
59:45 of respects so it might be a situation
59:48 where it makes sense to tweak you don’t
59:53 have to tweak your overall message you
59:54 don’t have to obviously go against your
59:56 mission or that but perhaps work in one
60:04 way
60:04 a little bit of a flexibility to try to
60:07 find some common ground okay with the
60:09 the people in your community okay dish
60:12 you know because if it’s if it’s an anti
60:15 religious culture environment I mean
60:16 they then they obviously are hostile
60:20 towards you so it’s an opportunity to
60:24 find some common ground in a case like
60:27 this and it gets tough situation did but
60:31 you know meet people where they are I
60:34 mean you know a good example of that to
60:36 me is volunteerism I mean nobody is
60:39 going to think poorly of a church I’m a
60:44 having a right mind anyway so some
60:46 people will not everybody’s in the right
60:47 mind but I can I think poorly of a
60:49 church that volunteers you know that
60:54 gives may get presents for kids at
60:57 Christmas that you know feeds the
61:00 homeless gives the homeless clothes and
61:03 coats those sorts of things so it’s just
61:06 a matter of you know but maybe these
61:11 things have never been done in your
61:12 church and you know this is new and this
61:15 is gonna cost money and time and effort
61:17 where you know what I mean that’s the
61:18 old status quo that this isn’t who we
61:20 are this isn’t what we do and most
61:23 churches do volunteer work obviously but
61:25 like I said it’s just kind of an example
61:27 that you know you’ve got a you know if
61:31 you’re dealing with with stubborn people
61:32 in your organization like that you know
61:34 claim this is not who we are but you
61:35 need to you know you need to change who
61:39 you are who you appear to be a little
61:43 bit to function in a hostile environment
61:47 and you know you’ve got a you know
61:54 you’ve got a deal then with the Stuber
61:57 people that are holding you back from
62:00 doing that another one is the inability
62:04 to budget effectively economic hardship
62:07 in the community you need to practice
62:10 what you preach
62:11 you know if the community’s suffering
62:14 for me
62:15 my hardship due to their own creation or
62:20 from the economy in general but you’re
62:24 over here to run in your church and and
62:26 it’s struggling so you’re you know
62:28 you’re conveying to your members that
62:32 you know we need donations cuz you know
62:36 that donations probably gonna go down
62:40 during economically tough times but you
62:43 know but if you haven’t planned around
62:47 that you know by budgeting you know and
62:52 spreadsheets for business can help you
62:54 with that
62:54 all three fascist facets of budgeting
62:56 capital budgeting operational budgeting
62:58 financial budgeting you know you’re
63:01 gonna come off is it’s gonna be a tough
63:03 sell when the times are tough for people
63:05 and because you’ve managed your finances
63:10 and effectively you’re there asking them
63:14 for money the individuals so this one is
63:19 preventable that weakness the inability
63:21 to budget effectively so you know the
63:28 the beauty of numbers and in finance you
63:32 know in particular is that their reality
63:36 numbers don’t lie Megan you know there
63:38 are tricks and games when you play with
63:40 them but you know one’s always one fives
63:43 always five tens always ten you know so
63:47 finding out that kind of wraps up like I
63:51 said how the factors might interact and
63:53 it’s time for me to wrap this video up
63:56 because I’ve been going for an hour and
63:59 five minutes or so here it’s a like I
64:03 said it’s a lot of information to cover
64:04 I did get through it as quick as I could
64:07 it probably sounds like a but a lot of
64:10 trouble but it’s one of those things
64:11 connecting the mission’s thing once
64:13 you’ve done it the first time the first
64:15 time is the toughest okay if you’re
64:17 starting from scratch
64:18 give it once you’ve done it you can kind
64:20 of build off opportunities and threats
64:21 gonna carry from your to your strengths
64:23 a weakness is gonna carry it from year
64:24 to year and
64:26 it’ll get easier but you know I think
64:29 it’s a worthwhile exercise because just
64:34 what you’re gonna learn about yourself
64:35 which can learn about your environment
64:37 okay you can have a better grasp on
64:40 reality this is gonna help when it comes
64:42 to getting grasp on reality in terms of
64:44 doing your budgeting in terms of your
64:46 your strategic planning the goals you’re
64:48 gonna make there it there’s really no
64:51 downside to doing it even if you can’t
64:54 get anybody else in your church on board
64:55 and it’s just you sitting down one
64:57 afternoon and and brainstorming and
64:59 thinking about a couple of things I
65:01 addressed here and a couple of things
65:02 that some of the other gurus and the
65:05 church management arena might have come
65:08 up with it there’s no downside now the
65:12 only potential downside is you had to
65:13 drag on and become a big convoluted mess
65:16 you know and argue over well this is a
65:20 strength this isn’t a strength weakness
65:22 not a you know that it can’t in that
65:24 respect but as long as you you know I’m
65:26 a big fan of time limits and deadlines
65:29 and just have it done by this day
65:30 because again you’ll be able to revisit
65:32 it again next year it’s not set in stone
65:36 it’s a dynamic thing life’s dynamic
65:39 teaching planning is dynamic you know
65:42 there’s really no good reason not to do
65:46 it okay so that being said if you’ve
65:52 stuck with me this long an hour-plus man
65:55 you’re a trooper and I appreciate it of
66:00 course and you know if I had the ability
66:09 to get likes and subscriptions to the
66:12 people who watch my videos from start to
66:14 finish I would do that but that’s not
66:17 the way YouTube set up so you know look
66:21 if you if you like some of what you
66:23 heard if you think that there’s some
66:28 good some good ideas in here some things
66:32 that other people might be able to use
66:35 you’ve got a you know the game is if I
66:41 don’t get likes and subscriptions
66:42 YouTube’s gonna think I’m worthless and
66:45 they’re gonna bury me okay so if you
66:48 found something that you liked heard
66:50 something you liked
66:51 and was it a lot visually and again I
66:53 apologize for that just kind of the
66:57 nature of the the video most of my
66:58 videos I’m gonna be in the spreadsheet
67:00 clicking back and forth showing how my
67:01 equations work that sort of thing but if
67:03 you like like what you saw I like in a
67:06 subscription is a great way to give a
67:09 free tip to me to let me know that let
67:15 YouTube know that so if you did do that
67:18 or do that at some point in the future
67:21 again thank you very much and as far as
67:25 comments go I like comments you know a
67:29 couple of things that I’d love to hear
67:30 from with you guys is what other
67:32 information you think is worthwhile to
67:34 gather okay when you’re in the midst of
67:37 doing your SWOT analysis
67:38 you know I touched on a bunch of them in
67:41 terms of you know the traffic count
67:44 census survey those sorts of things what
67:49 else what what’s gonna help you you know
67:52 besides just thinking of it what what
67:55 information is out there that would help
67:57 you get a better grasp on your church’s
67:59 strengths weaknesses opportunities and
68:00 threats and the other thing that I’d
68:03 love to hear from you guys on is the
68:09 ideas you know I gave bullet point lists
68:13 possible strengths when uses up to these
68:15 threats you know what are some other
68:17 ones that I left off you know you you
68:21 guys probably know more than I do miss
68:25 respect you know again I did a lot of
68:27 research one to come up with a pretty
68:28 good comprehensive list as a serve as a
68:30 jumping-off point that maybe you’ve done
68:32 a SWOT analysis before with your church
68:34 in the past and there are things that I
68:36 left off that you think that every
68:39 church should consider in terms of
68:41 strengths weaknesses opportunities or
68:42 threats so leave all that in the
68:44 comments below
68:45 again thank very much for your time
68:48 take care and I will talk to you later

Church Mission Statement Walk-through [VIDEO]

by
church mission statement video featured

Video Transcript

00:00 hey everyone this video is gonna be a
00:04 little different than most of the other
00:08 videos that I’ll post in that you know
00:12 my website is called spreadsheets for
00:14 business so obviously it revolves around
00:18 spreadsheets but in this case wanted to
00:22 talk a little bit about mission
00:24 statements and in particular mission
00:28 statements for churches so why make a
00:33 video you know about something that’s
00:36 not spreadsheet centric like mission
00:40 statements as well because they you know
00:43 a lot of the spreadsheets that I make
00:46 fall within a particular theme you know
00:51 for instance strategic planning or cost
00:54 management performance measurement
00:56 things like that so in order to kind of
01:00 round out the the theme you know to to
01:07 put the spirt the videos that I make and
01:10 the the pages that I post on you know
01:16 spreadsheet related things like the
01:18 budgets operating budget capital budget
01:20 financial budget you know this these
01:25 types of things help give them posts
01:28 about like the softer skills that I call
01:32 them hope to put them in the context in
01:36 terms of you know things like the
01:38 mission statement it’s one analysis
01:40 strategy formulation in that so anyhow
01:44 get into it here and you know you
01:47 probably are familiar with the term
01:49 mission statement it’s pretty widely
01:54 used you know and you might even think
01:57 it that it’s kind of a business school
02:02 sort of thing and you know it wouldn’t
02:05 be completely wrong in that respect but
02:08 you know there is some benefit I think
02:11 actually it attentionally a lot of
02:12 benefit they can come from going through
02:14 the steps of creating a mission
02:16 statement and if you create an effective
02:18 mission statement that it can definitely
02:21 potentially help your church to make
02:27 decisions that are kind of consistent
02:31 you know not not all over the place so
02:36 you know a mission statement is a
02:44 [Music]
02:45 basically a sentence or any group of
02:48 sentences a couple of paragraphs that
02:53 serve as the basis and this is kind of
02:57 my definition of a mission statement
02:59 they serve as a basis in these words for
03:03 every decision that you make going
03:05 forward so it kind of it can also be
03:12 considered a definition for your church
03:16 what’s your church about well you know
03:19 if somebody were to ask you that instead
03:21 of kind of him lon
03:24 you know having to sit there thinking
03:25 about it hopefully your mission
03:27 statement and a lot of in most instances
03:32 would basically capture that in kind of
03:35 a short and sweet memorable saying so
03:40 you know but most for-profit businesses
03:47 have a mission statement you know and
03:54 you might think well you know most in
03:59 general most for-profit businesses are
04:03 different than a church obviously which
04:06 is not-for-profit you know in the day
04:09 their mission is to make money but you
04:12 know they begin most
04:13 for-profit businesses have a mission
04:16 that
04:17 goes above and beyond just making money
04:21 you know the the goal for profit is done
04:25 within the context of something else now
04:28 you know if that wasn’t the case there
04:31 would be less people getting into
04:38 businesses and in low-margin industries
04:41 like grocery stores you know building
04:44 materials and another retail and things
04:47 like that I think that if there were no
04:52 mission statement there customer service
04:54 even element in customer services and
04:57 always gradient well for-profit
04:58 businesses we know that but it would
05:00 also suffer so what it does is it
05:05 hopefully if it’s done right it can get
05:09 everybody on the same page you know if
05:11 if you have a an effective
05:15 organizational mission statement then
05:17 you have hopefully less of a temptation
05:21 for everybody within the organization to
05:25 kind of consciously or subconsciously
05:27 come up with their own mission statement
05:29 right so if you’ve got a hundred people
05:31 in your organization each other own
05:33 mission statement their own definition
05:35 for what the company is and they may can
05:38 be working in a hundred different
05:39 directions you know and that’s a trap
05:47 that you can fall into also if your
05:52 organization has a mission has a missing
05:55 mission statement excuse me it but
05:58 doesn’t emphasize it or just basically
06:00 and it goes through the exercise of
06:02 making one print you know puts it on the
06:05 website maybe puts it up on the wall
06:07 somewhere and that’s that it’s not
06:08 emphasized then you probably run in the
06:10 same sort of situation where people are
06:14 just going to fill that vacuum and come
06:16 up with their own individual missions so
06:20 the mission statement is kind of a
06:26 you know a fixed-point I use the example
06:30 of a mission statement you can um point
06:34 your organization in the right direction
06:36 you know north south east west north
06:39 west south east whatever but it’s later
06:44 on in the strategic planning process and
06:46 when you do formulate an actual strategy
06:49 that you’ll decide that the roads you’ll
06:52 take to get there so you know you might
07:01 be asking yourself if your church really
07:07 needs one and I mean Dean the truthful
07:14 answer is no it doesn’t need one you can
07:17 still operate your church function as a
07:20 church without one but hopefully some of
07:24 the benefits that are kind of just
07:27 outlined there they upside of doing so
07:31 of creating a mission statement I think
07:36 is bigger than the downside from just
07:40 disregarding doing it now more freedom
07:46 my next bullet point here and what that
07:49 means is you know eat you might think
07:54 the creating a mission statement and
07:58 then having it weigh in on all of your
08:04 future decisions you would make with for
08:08 your organization in your church would
08:12 give you less freedom because every
08:15 decision you might think has to fall
08:18 within the context of this mission
08:20 statement that’s one way of looking at
08:23 if you turn that on its head though it
08:26 can give you more freedom and then
08:28 you’re not spending time on decisions
08:32 that don’t fall within the context of
08:35 the mission statement okay it gives you
08:37 it gives you direction
08:39 you focus so that’s how having a mission
08:45 statement might give you more freedom it
08:48 frees you up from spending time on
08:51 things that aren’t moving you in the
08:54 direction of accomplishing your mission
09:04 so let me kind of wrap up the intro by
09:08 saying you know if I had a church if I
09:11 ran a church we would have a mission
09:13 statement I think the the exercise and
09:18 kind of going through the steps you know
09:21 my my interpretation of the the steps
09:25 that I would take again if I was
09:31 constructing the mission statement for a
09:35 church you know but keep in mind as I go
09:37 through these steps that there’s no
09:39 wrong way to create a mission statement
09:41 okay if you wake up in the middle of the
09:49 night and have an epiphany and you see
09:57 you know in in the dark there your
10:00 mission statement written clear as day
10:02 in front of you and that’s just it and
10:06 it’s you know this aha moment then by
10:10 all means you know go with it if there’s
10:14 no shortage of information out there on
10:16 how to create a mission statement so if
10:21 these steps don’t work for you then by
10:25 all means use someone else’s
10:27 step-by-step program you know it’s fine
10:32 I mean I if I’m being realistic honest
10:36 myself I know this is probably not your
10:39 one-stop-shop for creating a church
10:42 mission statement probably shouldn’t be
10:44 you’ll probably combine and for me
10:46 from several different sources and
10:48 that’s fine that’s exactly what I do
10:49 when whatever I’m learning something new
10:52 or under and they’re taking something
10:53 you know I’m I want to get a couple
10:56 different perspectives so that’s that’s
10:59 great I hope that this video and the
11:02 post which I’ll link in the comments can
11:06 at least give you a couple ideas a
11:08 couple of new perspectives on how to go
11:12 about it and you know can can help you
11:16 at least in some little way when it
11:19 comes to making a mission statement for
11:22 your church so speaking of a different
11:26 perspective if I want to be upfront and
11:32 authentic which I do you know I don’t
11:36 make these videos or write these posts
11:40 to sell you anything you know my all my
11:46 spreadsheets available for download on
11:48 my side are free you know so I don’t
11:53 have some ulterior motive
11:56 you know I’m my goal right now is to get
11:59 traffic to be honest and now to get
12:01 traffic get traffic by being helpful
12:05 getting likes and subscriptions getting
12:08 paid views things like that so that
12:13 being said you know I think so I think
12:19 by being authentic that’s how I can
12:22 accomplish you know what mine my goals
12:24 are here in the early stages of my
12:28 website and when YouTube channel so be
12:31 completely upfront I am NOT a churchgoer
12:34 a frequent churchgoer I’ve been to
12:36 church I you know have family that goes
12:44 to church regularly so I’m no stranger
12:47 to it
12:48 it’s obviously beyond the context of
12:52 this video too
12:56 get into some sort of diatribe about why
13:02 you know why I do what I do or that
13:06 don’t do what I do however you want to
13:08 put it but you know let me just say this
13:10 I certainly respect the purpose that a
13:16 church serves in a community and I think
13:18 there are a lot of positive things that
13:23 take take place in church and you know
13:28 in service and outside of the service
13:29 and that so I certainly respect what it
13:35 is most churches set out to do and you
13:40 know so I’m not I’m not trying to do
13:43 this solely for views or anything like
13:48 that so you might ask yourself well okay
13:51 you’re not a churchgoer then why why
13:54 making the video on and they you know a
13:59 whole see Sierra do on church mission
14:04 statements and a whole series of posts
14:06 on strategic planning for churches and
14:07 the answer is quite simply because
14:09 that’s what there’s a demand for you
14:12 know and the way I looked at it it was
14:15 no different for me to make these videos
14:19 and post and for an industry that I
14:26 don’t frequent then it would be for me
14:29 to make them for you know a nail salon
14:31 for instance I don’t
14:33 I’ve never gotten a manicure pedicure
14:36 don’t know that I ever will
14:38 you know maybe but I you know it’s a
14:43 these principles those strategic
14:46 planning you know kind of like I touched
14:49 on earlier for-profit not-for-profit
14:53 manufacturing retail service you know
14:58 what they they transcend industries you
15:03 know the the particulars certainly can
15:05 be a little different you know between
15:08 industries but
15:10 it what the steps that I’ll go through
15:15 here for how I would suggest drafting a
15:19 mission statement are no different than
15:20 like I said if I were no different than
15:24 what I would suggest for you know the
15:26 restaurant down the road here okay here
15:30 then you know retail store or whatever
15:35 you know are the the small manufacturer
15:38 it so that’s why I chose to you know
15:47 chose to focus on churches in Franklin
15:50 cuz it got me a little bit it isn’t you
15:52 know there’s a lot is the same but a
15:54 little bit as different than
15:55 not-for-profit most of my education and
15:57 experience in that comes from the
16:01 for-profit arena and that there was an
16:04 opportunity for me to think of things
16:06 from a different perspective you know
16:07 particularly churches who might not
16:10 major everything in terms of strictly in
16:13 terms of dollars and cents so you know
16:17 yeah I think it was beneficial for me to
16:21 look at things from a different
16:24 perspective and if you’re not completely
16:27 turned away by the fact that I’m not a
16:30 frequent churchgoer perhaps you might
16:33 find that my perspective as an outsider
16:37 so to speak is beneficial for you when
16:41 it comes to not just writing a mission
16:44 statement for your church but the whole
16:47 strategic planning in general because
16:49 like I said there’s videos and put the
16:52 posts already exist all the line and the
16:54 financial budgeting posts but you know
16:57 there’s more videos to come on this
17:00 subject so anyhow let’s move on to kind
17:07 of the steps that I would suggest in
17:12 acting these steps gonna rep myself
17:16 there I think these steps apply whether
17:23 you’re starting from scratch in terms of
17:28 mission statement or you know looking to
17:30 to freshen up I think you know that it
17:34 doesn’t matter whether you’re coming
17:35 into it ice cold or kind of looking to
17:38 build upon or you know change an
17:41 existing mission statement so the first
17:44 step is good old-fashioned brainstorming
17:46 and that you know I think the benefit of
17:55 brainstorming is that it kind of if you
18:02 do it right it can kind of help get rid
18:05 of the pretense okay you know because if
18:09 you and the other key individuals in
18:11 your church are coming into this and
18:13 everybody has kind of their maybe even a
18:18 rough draft of what a church mission
18:21 statement should be already you know
18:23 those mental rough drafts might not line
18:27 up and could you know could lock things
18:33 up like the whole process up and make it
18:36 more difficult you know brainstorming
18:39 doesn’t right you probably know you know
18:43 is supposed to kind of be a situation
18:48 where any idea is allowed even if it’s
18:50 silly ridiculous or that it just kind of
18:54 helps hopefully to get you open your
18:56 mind up take the blinders off and you
19:01 know make sure you are looking for you
19:05 know looking at this this task of
19:07 drafting a mission statement for your
19:09 church from every every appropriate
19:12 angle that you can so this isn’t just
19:15 let’s plan out brainstorm a mission
19:21 statement there are different techniques
19:28 that a person can use or a group of
19:32 people some of these techniques require
19:34 people
19:38 in order to brainstorm and some of
19:42 them you know are pretty novel you know
19:44 I use them in other aspects of my life
19:48 what I yeah when I want to really open
19:51 my mind up and be open to be open and
19:55 honest with myself I you know I’ll use
19:58 some of these techniques or that and
20:01 it’s simply a matter of searching for
20:04 brainstorming techniques okay you’re
20:07 gonna get a big list of you know several
20:11 pages goes on and on of different
20:13 techniques there’s no shortage of sites
20:16 that have written on the topic and you
20:21 know I I think it would be good before
20:23 you start Matt to browse those and find
20:26 some that some topics are I’m sorry some
20:30 techniques that you might want to use
20:31 some I copied one site or link to one
20:36 site in particular here just shows me
20:38 it’s 25 techniques on brainstorming and
20:42 you know all you know in some of these
20:45 you’re selling and brainstorming it’s
20:46 kind of a silly thing you know but it
20:50 that’s the point is when it’s you know
20:52 when it’s silly it gets can get you out
20:55 of your your funk out of your tunnel
20:57 vision like I said so definitely before
21:01 you start brainstorming I would you know
21:05 browse and pick some of these techniques
21:08 to to utilize you know rather than just
21:13 doing traditional brainstorming like
21:14 saying okay everyone what should our
21:17 mission statement be and just start
21:20 rattling off ideas you know it’ll help
21:23 you approach it like like I said it from
21:26 a couple of different angles so from
21:32 then after you brainstorm and
21:34 everybody’s
21:35 kind of had there been able to weigh in
21:42 on the subject and things have been
21:46 looked at from a couple of different
21:47 angles you know now I would suggest
21:50 start creating rough drafts and you’ll
21:53 notice that that is plural not just one
21:57 rough draft I would you know set a timer
22:02 if you want and say and just start right
22:05 see how many you can write you know
22:07 rough drafts that’s a mission statement
22:08 and you know this is just a one step
22:10 removed from brainstorming and that
22:12 that’s fine you’re gonna probably throw
22:15 away all but one of these if one you
22:17 might combine them or whatever you know
22:20 you don’t necessarily have to use one of
22:22 these but it’s like let’s take all of
22:24 our our brainstorming ideas about what
22:28 we want to include it in a mission
22:29 statement or what we want to want it to
22:34 be about and let’s start turning them
22:37 into actual mission statements so again
22:41 don’t overthink this part you know get
22:45 the get a get a big number of mission
22:48 statements rough drafts created okay and
22:52 from there then you can start kind of
22:55 sorting out what those you like those
22:59 don’t really pass muster and you know
23:03 the cream will start rising to the top
23:04 so to speak so you’ll probably find that
23:08 the your best mission statements rough
23:13 mission statements will resonate with
23:16 almost everyone okay don’t give people a
23:18 good feeling they’ll make people nod
23:21 their head they’ll you know you’ll just
23:24 you’ll know it when you hear it you’ll
23:26 know when you read it okay so I narrow
23:29 it down to the your your top view right
23:32 and from there then it’s time to make a
23:35 decision now again touched on a second
23:39 ago
23:43 don’t need to you can still polish it
23:46 from there don’t need to just choose one
23:47 and then that’s it these were rough you
23:50 can polish them there and you can
23:51 combine you can subtract things from
23:55 your mission statement but you know it
23:59 comes a point of course that you have to
24:01 start to narrow it down from ideas that
24:07 you came out brainstorming to rough
24:10 drafts to fewer rough drafts to one
24:13 final mission statement and hopefully
24:19 for the most part you can really narrow
24:22 it down and settle for the money and
24:27 alibiing what you begin to settle on
24:30 will resonate with everybody and
24:33 hopefully everybody will or or less be
24:35 in agreement you know we’re all human so
24:39 that’s probably wishing for a little too
24:42 much and it might be an instance where
24:45 ultimately person with the most
24:47 authority has to make a decision and
24:49 that’s that even though but I mean
24:52 here’s the thing so after giving it as
24:56 much thought as you have and if somebody
25:00 does have to make a final decision
25:03 you’ll know that hopefully you and
25:06 everybody else will know that you know
25:11 it’s after all that scrutiny and all
25:13 that thought but into it that you know
25:16 this is a pretty good ideal for your
25:18 church to live up to this is a pretty
25:20 good direction for your church so you
25:24 know it it it might not be exactly with
25:28 this individual that individual wanted
25:30 to see but it should be after all that
25:33 time and effort it should be good some
25:38 that will be a good feeling I’m sure
25:41 when you’ve settled on a mission
25:43 statement but does that mean you’re
25:45 finished will the time being yeah it
25:48 probably does but you know life is
25:53 dynamic situations are dynamic things
25:56 changed
25:56 just know that it probably pays to
26:02 revisit this at least briefly maybe not
26:05 as much detail if you had this time
26:07 around but you know when you do your
26:10 annual your church does its annual
26:12 strategic planning to at least make sure
26:16 that this is still the direction that
26:21 your church wants to go you know if your
26:22 head and due north which this is not my
26:26 strength but if that’s zero degrees you
26:30 know
26:30 maybe over the past year things have
26:33 changed enough you need to tweak that
26:35 two degrees okay more or less the same
26:37 direction just a tiny little tiny little
26:40 tweak you know no shame in it and it’s
26:43 beneficial I think to to be dynamic to
26:46 be flexible so for the time being though
26:50 after going through those steps should
26:52 have a mission statement that you can be
26:56 proud of and that will serve your church
26:59 well so if all that if even after going
27:10 through those steps you can’t settle on
27:12 something you just not able to
27:16 accomplish what you set out to it’s fine
27:19 there’s still a another path you can
27:25 take and that is to look at other
27:30 church’s mission statements and
27:32 potentially build upon them or you know
27:37 they say what is it imitation sincerest
27:42 form of flattery just to use another
27:45 church’s mission statement so I will
27:49 touch on that again here shortly you
27:54 know let’s go briefly about why your
27:59 church might not want a mission
28:01 statement so you know for the sake of
28:04 being thorough and
28:09 you know addressing everyone’s concerns
28:12 there might be object objections that
28:14 you have thinking that you know this is
28:17 too much trouble I don’t see the benefit
28:18 and you know don’t think that a mission
28:24 statement is for you these are a couple
28:25 of reasons that I came up with why that
28:27 might be the case you know the first is
28:30 that it’s the wrong mission for the
28:34 wrong Church you know I’m sure you know
28:40 that churches full along like most
28:46 things along a spectrum and there are
28:50 strict letter letter of the law churches
28:56 you know there are more and you want to
29:01 put it just flexible churches okay if if
29:09 a more flexible Church tries to have a
29:12 mission that was you know the same
29:16 mission as the letter letter of the
29:18 Bible Church it’s probably not going to
29:24 work if if you know conversely if the
29:28 more structure ch translating the same
29:32 mission as the more flexible Church
29:36 probably not going to work it’s
29:39 pointless and it could potentially
29:40 create more harm than good so the steps
29:44 kind of went through earlier you know
29:47 should help you avoid in a situation
29:51 like that the next reason Church might
29:57 not want a mission statement is because
30:00 it’s a facade you know
30:02 you probably notice when I talked about
30:04 the steps to making a mission statement
30:10 that a lot of it was you know talked
30:12 about having a group involved the key
30:15 individuals in the church how many
30:17 individuals that is well it depends
30:19 probably a large part on the size of you
30:22 church in just the culture the nature of
30:25 your church and everything but I can
30:28 envision a scenario where if one person
30:31 at the top takes it completely upon
30:34 themselves to write a mission statement
30:36 and says this is it you know no input
30:42 from anyone else that it could do more
30:49 harm than good because you know if
30:53 they’re just using the mission statement
30:54 as a tool to control the point – you
30:57 know I created the mission statement but
31:02 I point to the mission statement so I
31:05 can make the church do X Y or Z you know
31:10 I’m deflecting it off myself and but
31:15 pointing is something that I created
31:16 nonetheless you know so if if a mission
31:21 statement is used kind of as a tool of
31:23 control like that I can envision where
31:26 it might be more harmful than good
31:29 the other two reasons that you’re you
31:34 you might think these aren’t these have
31:39 a little different tone than previous
31:41 two but you know I think that you’re too
31:42 small and you know I suppose if your
31:49 church are super small it might feel
31:54 gratuitous to create a mission statement
31:57 but I would still argue that there are
32:04 plenty of businesses with you know fewer
32:07 than 100 members which my understanding
32:11 would qualify as a pretty small church
32:12 but with fewer than 100
32:15 stammers and you know very small staffs
32:17 that still have a mission statement it’s
32:19 for the exact reasons that I outlined
32:20 earlier that you know it helps give you
32:25 direction and one hundred people still a
32:26 lot of people 50 people’s a lot of
32:28 people you know and having that mission
32:31 statement would still help you have more
32:36 freedom would still help you move
32:38 everybody in the same direction and then
32:40 you know finally I talked about earlier
32:45 a little bit how mission statement might
32:47 be viewed as a you know kind of business
32:51 school mumbo-jumbo too formal too rigid
32:55 or whatever and you know that is a valid
32:58 concern but I think the extent to which
33:04 your mission statement is formal or
33:06 informal rigid flexible whatever will
33:10 depend on what the mission statement is
33:12 you know so buying brainstorming making
33:19 rough drafts getting a lot of input from
33:23 other individuals that will be affected
33:25 by the mission statement I think that
33:28 you know it you’ll end up settling on
33:32 something that’ll have just the right
33:34 amount of formality so like I mentioned
33:42 that you know if you’re you reach the
33:47 gridlock and you can’t you feel stuck
33:51 and even the the steps that I outlined
33:55 earlier are just not getting anywhere
33:59 then you might look to other churches
34:04 and their mission statements you know
34:07 for inspiration for to borrow them to
34:10 tweak them and make them your own and
34:11 and frankly looking at other church’s
34:13 mission statements is probably a good
34:17 exercise to do beforehand anyhow is
34:20 again it just puts you a little bit in
34:23 the mind of other individuals who’ve
34:24 been in similar circumstances
34:27 we’ll kind of get get your your mind set
34:30 in a mission statement setting so I
34:35 outline on the the page like I said
34:38 which would be linked down in the
34:39 description on church mission statements
34:45 briefly I cover three random mission
34:51 statements that I found and states
34:53 across the country and they’re all very
34:55 different and kind of touched on you
34:59 know from my point of view as an
35:01 outsider what I like what I maybe would
35:04 have done different and you know again
35:09 that is quite simply an opinion I’m sure
35:11 these churches hopefully their mission
35:14 statements serve them well and that’s
35:16 fine they didn’t make them you know for
35:19 for Chris they they made up for their
35:22 congregation and rightfully so so you
35:25 know I got three different ones on the
35:27 website the web page and I picked in
35:31 preparation for this video three that a
35:37 look looking at kind of with a fresh
35:41 perspective I’ll admit my intention was
35:46 with these to look at him completely
35:48 sight unseen and give my input but what
35:53 happened was I recorded this video once
35:56 already and it recorded wrong because
35:58 I’m still getting the hang of recording
36:01 videos so I have seen him before it’s
36:03 not not a I’m not completely fresh on
36:09 him so what I what I did here is real
36:12 simple and it’s again just something a
36:14 technique that you might use and all I
36:17 did was search for random state state
36:21 being took a state of course and just
36:23 searched random state I don’t think
36:25 Google would know what to do with that
36:26 or whatever search engine you use so
36:32 that is basically a matter of
36:41 doing this and you’ll see that there’s
36:47 no shortage of results okay we can go
36:54 ten pages deep I bet here yeah here we
36:59 are you know about talks about mission
37:04 statement I guess that’s a college not a
37:06 church but ma’am this is just one state
37:09 you know just little little Arkansas you
37:17 find the same thing for any state you in
37:19 or so lots of inspiration to be had out
37:22 there okay and plenty plenty of people
37:27 who gone to this process before to pull
37:31 like I said pull inspiration upon so we
37:37 look at the first one here
37:38 Arkansas church mission statement I just
37:41 pulled this at random mrs. Furr Arkansas
37:48 Baptist Church fellowship community
37:52 church they do what you’ll find a lot of
37:58 churches do not surprisingly in
38:01 reference either directly or indirectly
38:05 from verses in the Bible their mission
38:09 is to make disciples of Jesus Christ by
38:12 leading people into a growing
38:13 relationship by seeking serving and
38:15 sending so that’s their mission and then
38:19 they expound on that which I think is
38:21 good since it’s such a kind of short one
38:24 sentence mission statement and uses
38:26 terms that are a little
38:29 up for interpretation so they expand on
38:32 that what they consider seeking serving
38:34 and sending so it’s the mission
38:38 statements unique in that respect that
38:43 it kind of has a you know expounds upon
38:52 some of the terms used and it’s like I
38:54 said I think that’s I think that’s neat
38:59 neat right the second church is in West
39:08 Virginia in its West Virginia presbytery
39:21 and they also go with a simple
39:24 one-sentence mission statement you’ll
39:27 see that that’s there’s a wide variety
39:30 of course in the length of mission
39:33 statements the several of them I have on
39:36 my website are paragraph or in some
39:41 cases couple paragraphs so it’s up to
39:45 you what suits your church best you know
39:52 another individual who is kind of in the
39:57 church consulting niche is
40:03 his name’s Audrey ralpherz and I
40:05 referenced a lot of his work kind of
40:07 putting together you know particularly
40:08 the the post on the soft skills and in
40:14 regards to the church strategic planning
40:16 and he’s a bigger proponent of shortened
40:21 to the point memorable I think is how he
40:24 put some mission statements and I think
40:29 there’s something to that but if you if
40:31 if you go that direction
40:33 you’re probably gonna spend a little
40:35 more time on it fine-tuning it
40:37 substituting one word for another and
40:39 that sort of thing but you know it there
40:45 is a benefit to it it is a statement not
40:47 a mission book a mission you know
40:52 treatise it’s a mission statement so you
40:57 know I would I would still say do don’t
41:02 don’t hold yourself you know you feed to
41:07 the fire in it has to be a one short one
41:11 sentence memorable mission statement of
41:13 whatever provides you direction whatever
41:15 outlines that direction north south east
41:18 west that you want to move your your
41:20 church I think that’s the most important
41:24 thing not the the link if it if that
41:26 takes a couple paragraphs and okay you
41:29 know maybe it’s time yours only tweak it
41:31 you can find that certain things don’t
41:35 contribute to pointing your church in
41:38 that direction that you know it that’s
41:45 you know one individual respected
41:47 individual in the church consulting
41:50 industry who that’s his thoughts on the
41:53 matter so anyhow the Presbyterian West
41:56 Virginia yes they did and with a short
41:59 one sentence mission statement and
42:03 that’s the presbytery of West Virginia
42:05 is the baptize covenant people called by
42:08 God to reflect Christ’s love through
42:10 mission ministry and relationships and
42:14 they unlike the was an Arkansas Church
42:20 that we looked at don’t expand upon that
42:24 it’s those terms mission ministry and
42:33 relationships I think ministry and
42:35 relationships is pretty straightforward
42:40 and that most people to agree what that
42:42 means but I if it strikes me as a bit
42:46 odd I’m not sure they have their reasons
42:47 but that they would reference their
42:49 mission in the mission statement you
42:53 know to say that they want to reflect
42:57 Christ’s love through their mission but
42:59 this is our mission it’s kind of
43:00 circular reasoning so there might be
43:03 something I’m missing there but I do
43:08 find that a bit curious it’s not as neat
43:13 with all due respect was virginia
43:16 presbyterian
43:18 folks they again and besides they make
43:22 that mission for me so the fact that it
43:27 doesn’t quite ring you know doesn’t
43:33 resonate with me that’s perfectly fine
43:38 the last one here is the native american
43:41 church of god
43:42 and South Dakota and it always had to
43:48 look for it in here it’s kind of buried
43:51 which I I would not recommend they do
43:56 [Music]
44:00 here it is you know kind of hidden away
44:05 and I would personally have encouraged
44:12 them to make it stand out emphasize it a
44:16 little more for people who might visit
44:18 the site and people are curious about
44:19 what the Native American church of god
44:20 ministries is that in any event their
44:25 mission statement is expressing the love
44:26 of God by practicing the ministry
44:28 presents building meaningful
44:31 relationships loving without hurting
44:33 working or partnering to disciple the
44:37 lost so of the three I know this is
44:41 probably my favorite and that probably
44:43 is why I would encourage them to
44:45 emphasize it a little more no I would
45:03 make that stand out a little more as an
45:06 individual that one resonates with me
45:11 probably the most of the thirty like I
45:13 said it’s it’s pretty simple it’s one
45:15 sentence you know with a handful of
45:18 commas a little drawn another long
45:20 sentence but you know that’s fine I
45:23 think I like personally its emphasis on
45:32 relationships and just understanding you
45:38 know that it has kind of that theme I
45:40 think of understanding so I think it’s
45:43 very welcoming for somebody who might
45:45 not be familiar with the church to read
45:47 and you know to feel like
45:54 when they got to the point if they were
45:56 interested in attending a church that
45:58 this would be you know some place they
46:01 were welcome or somebody who was going
46:03 through a particularly rough time you
46:05 know it makes a statement of partnering
46:08 to disciple the lost again somebody who
46:11 might be welcome there so anyhow that’s
46:16 just a little illustration of you know
46:20 how you can look to other churches for
46:26 for inspiration there if like as I
46:30 mentioned I would recommend doing that
46:32 no matter what just again to get you
46:36 kind of the right mindset but if you’re
46:41 completely stuck you know again plan any
46:44 of this is you don’t have to reinvent
46:47 the wheel and plenty of inspiration to
46:49 pull from so it’s kind of wrap things up
46:54 here I would be interested to know what
46:57 you guys thought in the comments there
47:00 and what what is your church’s mission
47:06 currently if it has one and what do you
47:09 like or dislike about it do you think
47:11 it’s too long do you wish that it
47:15 included something else what what would
47:19 you change about it you know the
47:20 Internet depends on how you signed up to
47:23 Google but Internet in general is an
47:27 anonymous arena so you know don’t you
47:33 you know feel free to be truthful and
47:37 you know I mean if you’re being honest
47:39 then there’s nothing to be ashamed of I
47:42 don’t think you know you know should
47:43 want to worry about any sort of
47:44 repercussions it you know be here’s the
47:47 thing and this is a good thing to keep
47:48 in mind when you’re making a mistake for
47:50 your church if it can’t stand up to a
47:52 little scrutiny if you can’t back it up
47:54 and say well this is why we emphasize
47:57 this or this why I included this didn’t
47:59 include that then you probably didn’t
48:02 give it enough thought and it’s probably
48:03 not as effective as it could be
48:06 you know if you can’t stand behind
48:09 itself you know the other thing then I
48:14 would ask for you guys to comment upon
48:17 is what do you think is essential it
48:22 related to the previous question you
48:24 know what do you like or dislike about
48:25 your church’s current mission statement
48:27 and you know what do you think is
48:28 essential is it something included in
48:30 your church’s mission statement
48:31 currently there’s something missing you
48:33 know what do you think every church
48:36 mission statement needs some a couple of
48:39 things I’d love your feedback on all
48:41 that I’ll leave you with the typical
48:45 spiel that youtubers close with you know
48:52 first of all appreciate if you stuck
48:54 with me this long I’m not sure they
48:56 didn’t at my time we’re going how long
48:57 the video is
48:58 I’m guessing it’s approaching 40 minutes
49:01 if not warm but stuff stuck with me this
49:05 long I appreciate it you know look I got
49:07 a couple more videos coming out on these
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49:20 just like this was okay you know I liked
49:24 what Chris had to say about this down or
49:27 the other then I likes appreciated you
49:29 know for better or worse this is the
49:33 Internet and it’s something of a
49:34 popularity contest so if you did hear
49:40 see something that you liked I would
49:42 definitely appreciate like everyone does
49:46 the like subscription notification about
49:50 all that I’m you know it it’s a way to
49:56 give a little bit of free feedback it’s
49:58 free tip love it that way so I am again
50:01 appreciate time thanks for watching
50:04 take care