A roadmap to effective congregational planning Creating a sense of mission and carrying it out
H
ow do you do effective congregational planning? Darrell Kehler of SCOPE • Multiplication of people and ministry 4 Leadership Development was • Focused on vision and movement Sustained health asked to answer this question at the June 10, 2022, Minis• Slow or no growth 3 5 terial meeting. His focus was • New people coming • Finances OK Strategic Maintenance • More concerned about those • Inviting friends on how leaders work together • Structure/systems start inside than outside growth with their congregations in • Methods vs. mission assessing their church health, • Attendance declines deciding what is important, 2 6 • Methods are sacred • Inviting friends Momentum and moving forward. Preservation • Strongest visionaries • Snowballing growth Congregational planning are gone or silent is a little like moose hunting, is how Kehler began the ses1 7 sion. Planning for the hunt is Launch Life support • Clear vision an interesting process. EveryTwo options: Pull the plug or Relaunch • Exciting, celebrating new people one who goes is committed, but everyone approaches it differently. They need to bring everything along but can’t bring very much. Despite all the planning, results are somewhat unpredictable. It requires patience and hard work, and the hunters must make it 23 work—no one gets voted off the island. Congregational planning, in a similar way takes intentional effort and planning.
Church life cycle
Where do you see your church on the life cycle?
Evaluate realistically where you stand right now.
8 2
3
9
5 0
1 Launch 2 3 Strategic 4 5 6 7 Life The first step, Kehler said, is to evaluMomentum growth Sustained MaintePreservasupport growth health nance tion ate together where your church stands right now. He showed the life-cycle chart (top right) and explained its purpose is who responded believed their church was in the to help us be realistic. Stages one to seven are maintenance phase. the phases that churches normally go through After this exercise, which was designed to from when they first launch. All congregations provide clarity on where ministerial believed launched at some point, he reminded us. The their churches stood currently, Kehler presented final life-support phase is one which a few of us them with three key steps to effective congregahave experienced first hand. tional planning: Those present at the meeting were invited to respond to a poll and say where they thought Step 1: Clarify where you are going their churches landed on this chart. The answers Kehler used the example of the cruise to (shown in the chart middle right) were shared nowhere to illustrate what churches should not at the meeting. Twenty-three of the fifty people be. The cruise to nowhere, he said, is a discount
www.emcmessenger.ca • The Messenger 13
