Every organization makes decisions – that’s why planning is necessary.
Strategic planning can mean many things to many people. There is no one way to create a strategic plan. Even if there was, the value isn’t in the act of strategic planning itself. It’s in the execution of the strategic plan. So, ultimately, the best strategic plan is the one you follow through on.
Keep that in mind as your church goes through this process.
The first consists of one goal – “put a handrail on the steps for the elderly members.” In the subsequent weeks, the job was bid out and a handrail was installed.
The second involved the pastor, the elders, a consultant, and several members of the congregation. Six intensive weeks were spent on all the necessary steps. Documents were drafted, spreadsheets were made and hours of debate took place. When all was said and done – a very thorough and well-thought-out strategic plan was drafted. Then, nothing contained therewithin was acted upon. Nobody gave the strategic plan a second thought once it was done.
Which is better?
Obviously, the first church’s strategic plan is superior. Why? Because it got something accomplished. All the words in the world are useless unless they lead to action.
Don’t look at this template as a blueprint that you should never deviate from. Rather, know that following these steps should ensure, at the very least, that you think about your church in a comprehensive manner. Also, maybe most importantly, it will ensure that you give careful consideration to the financial aspects of your church operations. Whether you are a for-profit business or a not-for-profit church, your strategic plan has to make financial sense. If it doesn’t, then it’s pointless.
Need help with your church’s financial budget? Read this post:
CHURCH FINANCIAL BUDGET – A GUIDE TO MANAGING CASH FLOW
Some of these steps might require very little time or effort. Others might take considerable work and necessitate the involvement of many individuals within your church.
Dedicate at least a little thought to all of these steps. You’ll probably uncover something that you hadn’t even thought of before. The biggest threat to your church is probably not the “known unknowns;” the things you know you should be more knowledgeable about. It’s the “unknown unknowns;” the risks you never even knew existed.
No.
That’s a lot of material to cover. Too much for one web page (if you want to cover it thoroughly – which I do).
Most steps warrant their own page. As they’re created, they’ll be linked.
This post will cover strategic planning in general and strategy formulation in particular. What the heck’s the difference? That’ll be made clearer as you read on. Long story short, strategy formulation consists of the creation of goals and the fine-tuning of the direction of your church. It is a component of the broader concept of strategic planning.
I’m not the most religious person in the world. Far from it, in fact. I can probably count on my fingers and toes the number of times I’ve been to church in my life.
Now, before you scoff, let me reassure you that I am no atheist either. I simply feel that spirituality is a private matter.
Not everybody feels that way, I know. A lot of people feel the opposite – that you can’t express your appreciation for God without doing so amongst your fellow humans. That’s perfectly fine; it’s just not where I’m at.
I wanted to be upfront so that you had a little background on the person writing this post.
To be completely honest, it’s because “church strategic plan/strategy/etc” is an oft-searched-for term on Google.
Is that tacky? I don’t think so.
To be fair, that’s why 90% of the content on the web is written – because it’s what people want to know about. I have some knowledge on a subject and I’m sharing it within a niche where there is demand for that knowledge.
Beyond the demand for this information on Google, I’ve studied this subject extensively in the past. There’s a pretty good likelihood I’ve studied more on the matter than you. No, I’ve never started a church or led one through a miraculous turnaround.
Frankly, the “soft skills” (mission statement, SWOT, strategy formulation) aren’t my biggest strength. When it comes to the numbers (budgets) however, then you’re talking my language.
Fortunately, the soft skills involve a lot of material that can only be addressed by you and other members of your church. I couldn’t do that part for you even if I wanted to. I can sure as heck help you with the budgeting and anything else that involves numbers and a spreadsheet. At the end of the day, numbers are numbers and they have to make sense no matter what type of organization you’re dealing with.
Beyond that, I think I offer one more benefit that the professional church consultants of the world can not – I can offer you the perspective of a yet-to-be-won-over customer. If your strategy involves growing membership and reaching more people, then you need to understand how these people think. Not everybody has the exact same views I do, of course. But, if you’re wondering how the “spiritual, but not religious” crowd thinks, I can probably provide some insight.
I’ve got a bachelor’s and master’s degree in business from AACSB accredited schools. Also, I am a Certified Management Accountant. But, all that really doesn’t mean much.
As you probably know – a person can’t really understand religious texts until they’ve read them many times. Until they’ve pondered them and debated them with their peers. Simply going through the motions and memorizing facts accomplishes very little. It takes deep-diving and immersion to get a real understanding of a subject.
That is exactly what I’ve done with the quantitative aspects (the “hard skills” so to speak) of strategic planning.
So…with your intimate knowledge of your church, your congregation, and your community, combined with my intimate knowledge of finances, we can probably get you pointed in the right direction.
Look, a lot of these concepts (especially the soft skills) come from academia. I’m going to write as authentically as I can, but some of these concepts are grounded more in theory than practice. Created by “those who can’t do.” Not by the people “in the trenches.” People like you
What is written here is not gospel (so to speak). This is not the only way to have a successful church. But, if your church follows these steps, I think you’ll uncover some valuable information. By going through these exercises, you’re bound to find a thing or two you had not considered before. If it serves no other purpose, this church strategic planning template will force you to think comprehensively about your church from a “higher level.”
That said, here we go…
Remember that this post is kind of a hodge-podge. The section above covered strategic planning as a whole (all of the steps). This section will address the formation of a strategy – the third step.
Within this church strategic planning template, strategy formulation takes place after a mission statement has been drafted and a SWOT analysis has been performed.
The best way that I know of to explain this is to use a map analogy.
The previous steps focused on providing a direction (mission statement) and understanding the terrain (SWOT analysis). Strategy formulation is about deciding exactly where you want to go and what route you’re going to take to get there.
Need inspiration for your church’s mission statement? Read this post:
IDEAS ON DRAFTING AN EFFECTIVE CHURCH MISSION STATEMENT
But, before a route can be planned, you have to know what your destination is.
Where do you want your church to be in five years? What’s your vision? What do you see when you let your mind wander? That’s your destination.
So, if you know your destination, that’s good. You have a leg up on a lot of other people. Let’s talk about the landmarks you’ll pass on the way there. These are your goals.
See how this is all fitting together?
As always, try to keep things as simple as you can. Too many goals and you run the risk of goals conflicting with one another. Or you might have a situation where you feel overwhelmed. Only make goals that will lead you to your vision. Not take you on detours.
As we all know, there is more than one way to get from point A to point B. In fact, you’ll be developing 3 separate, but important strategies (routes) for your church.
Maybe you’re rolling your eyes now. “Three strategies?!?! One was going to be enough of a pain!” I know, I know. Again, I urge you to read through this and give some thought to the topics covered. Also, don’t make things too complicated. If you and the other decision-makers in the church ever feel like you’re spinning your wheels – take a step back. Make sure you aren’t over complicating things.
By even giving just a little thought to these topics, you’re setting your church up for improvement.
So, what are these three strategies I speak of?
This is what would be known as the corporate strategy in the business world. This will be comprised of the goals of the church as a whole and the strategies that need to be adopted to reach those goals.
Want to know more about churchgoers in your area than the competition does? Read this post:
MARKET RESEARCH DATA SOURCES THAT YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE CONSIDERED
Maybe you don’t consider church management to be a competitive industry. Personally, I don’t think it should be.
I suppose there are two extreme schools of thought on the matter.
There’s the “meta” school that says what’s important is that people make their peace with God and they live in a manner that is in harmony with all other living beings. In this case, your competition would be anything that might potentially disrupt this harmony. Your goals wouldn’t necessarily revolve around people following you, but rather that people followed someone, anyone, worthwhile.
The other end of the spectrum is the notion that you, and your church, are the gatekeepers of the “one true way.” In this case, your competition is any other church that doesn’t conform exactly to your doctrine. Plus anything that would lead people away from the church in the first place. Put another way – you are competing against the vast majority of the rest of the world.
Probably you and your church fall somewhere in between. You feel like your church and your beliefs offer the best chance for salvation. Following others might help someone…but you can’t offer any guarantees.
I’m not passing judgment either way. My goal is to help you reach your goals.
Here’s the reality of the situation, though. No matter how strict your beliefs, you are competing against something. Whether it’s another belief system or the most unforgivable sin imaginable, something is tugging at your current members and you’re would-be members. You’re competing with something and your church has to develop a strategy to compete. Or…you probably won’t reach your goals.
This is where you take the overall strategy and break it down between the departments within your organization.
For example, a for-profit corporation would have to consider what operations, sales, finance, and marketing would need to accomplish as departments in order for the overall goals to be achieved.
No matter how informal they might be, your church likely has departments of its own. However small, your church has a finance/accounting department. It has an operations department – e.g. the actual interaction with the members. And so on…
What do these “departments” within your church need to accomplish so that your church can reach its overall goals? Again – try to keep it relatively simple. Keep this strategy oriented toward the bigger picture and the overall goals.
We’ll start first with the overall strategy and work our way down.
That vision you have for your church in 5-10 years – what has to happen to reach that goal? Try working your way backward. Before you can say to yourself “we did it,” what took place?
You have to have 500 members in your church before you can have 1,000. You have to have 100 members before that. Think about the milestones that have to be hit on the way to achieving your vision. Hopefully, after giving this some thought, your path should start to take shape. Maybe you’ll see that this grand, overarching, vision you have for your church isn’t unattainable. It’s just a matter of steps. First one, then the next, and so on until you’re finally there.
Focus, in particular, on the coming year. Don’t get ahead of yourself. What milestones must be hit if you’re going to get where you want? These are milestones that, if they aren’t hit, then realizing your vision simply isn’t going to happen. Got it? Okay, those are your goals.
Again, don’t venture too far off the path here. There is an infinite number of things you and your congregation could do to benefit the world. There simply isn’t enough time and resources to do them all.
Fortunately, there are a lot of other do-gooders like yourself out there. Between you and them, you can make a considerable impact on the world.
What if the goals for the year seem too unattainable? Then you’re going to have to back up and rewrite them. Unattainable goals won’t motivate you, and they sure as hell won’t motivate those that work for you and volunteer for the church. We’re dealing with reality here and anything that is unrealistic serves no purpose. I can’t reiterate it enough. Particularly for the overall strategy – keep it simple. If you do that and focus on your strengths (don’t try to be everything to everyone) you’ll have a shot.
Next, you have to consider how you’re perceived when compared to alternatives.
The alternatives might be the church down the street or they might be something much more sinister. This is where you have to consider who your competition is.
If you take the “meta” view mentioned above, then it’s probably not the church down the street. It’s the temptations in this world that would lead people away from religion in general.
Conversely, if you take the view that your church’s way is the is one true way, then your number of competitors is considerably higher. It’s the church down the street and it’s the religious figures on the TV. It might even be any number of authors or bloggers. Again, if that’s the view you take, I’m not passing judgment – just trying to help you put things into perspective.
Most churches are going to fall somewhere in between these extremes, however. With your competitors in mind, whoever or whatever they may be, consider what makes your church different.
Think back to your strengths and weaknesses from the SWOT analysis. Your strengths are how you will set your church apart. Your weaknesses are, obviously, things you want to avoid when constructing a competitive strategy.
Did you cross-reference your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats when you did your SWOT analysis? That’s a great resource for ideas about goals that can help your church gain a competitive advantage.
Also, keep in mind that your competitive strategy is a subset of your overall strategy. Don’t get pulled off in a completely different direction. Think about what competitive goals for the coming year (and beyond) fit in with your overall strategy. As with the overall strategy – limit the number of competitive goals you create to a number that is manageable. Less is more.
Every overall and competitive goal for your church as a whole is comprised of smaller goals that must be reached by the separate functional departments within your church.
If your church is small, many of these roles might be filled by the same person. No matter who does what within your church, you now want to consider what each functional department must accomplish in order for your overall strategy and your competitive strategy to work.
Not every church will have the same departments and if they are not big enough to warrant their own strategy, that’s fine.
You know the drill by now – make sure every goal set for a department is congruent with the mission, overall strategy, and the competitive strategy. Goals that play to a particular department’s strengths and takes advantage of opportunities are more likely to be achieved.
Finally, and most importantly, keep the number of goals as minimal as possible and keep things simple.
Interested in learning more about church strategic planning? Watch this video:
CHURCH STRATEGIC PLANNING AND STRATEGY FORMULATION WALK-THROUGH [VIDEO]
Complicated strategies are less likely to be carried out. Particularly if it’s your first time drafting a strategy.
Hopefully, this isn’t a make-or-break year for your church. Your strategy probably won’t be flawless, even if you are an experienced strategic planner.
I watched a really good YouTube video today about entrepreneurship. The gist of the video is that it’s only through failure that we learn what we need to in order to succeed. The only time we really fail is when we refuse to admit that we messed up and when we quit.
So, don’t let a fear of falling short of your goals prevent you from planning big things for your church. If you went through the previous steps (mission statement, SWOT analysis) you should have a better grasp on what goals can help your church reach its vision.
What does your church look like in 5-10 years? What’s your vision?
If you could make one goal for your church this year, to move you toward that vision – what would it be?
Leave a comment and let me know!
Also, check out my video on church strategy formulation below.
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