Effective Planning:  Essentials for Church Health and Growth

An article written especially for The Center for Christian Growth and Development by Dr. Lloyd Elder, Director of the Moench Center for Church Leadership, Belmont University.  Visit the web site at: http://www.belmont.edu/skilltrack/index.html

     The passion, obligation, and practice of effective church planning should always be to contribute to the health and growth of the congregation.  We accomplish this best by our search for the essential center of the church-- its life and ministry.

     You may ask: “What is at the very center of my church?”  That may often be a very troubling question; not so much because you do not know that it’s “His church” not “my church.”  But, this is more troubling because what should be at the very core of the life of a congregation may not actually hold that place.

     Could you enthusiastically affirm: “The kingdom mission of Christ is at the center of my congregation”?  Or, has something else moved to its passionate, decision-making focus?  Another force may have become central, such as your church’s:

           . . . you may finish . . .

       These are all matters of significance but not worthy of central priority.  Happily that is how effective planning serves well the health and growth of the church.

        Effective planning begins with God.  The first question when leading a church in planning is:  “What does God want this church to and do?” “How is God at work in our church now?”  All church planning begins with sincere prayer seeking God’s will, His leadership.  Otherwise, planning becomes cold, calculating, and mechanical.  God gives His wisdom to those who seek it, so when church planning begins and proceeds from the heart of God, it can lead to revival and renewal, to church health and growth.    

        Effective planning generates a unifying kingdom mission statement.  The church must never lose sight of what it is trying to achieve, although it may change its method of approach.  A bedrock statement of purpose and intent becomes a guiding light for showing the way to proceed, to stay focused on what it is trying to be.  Good planning generates a commonly agreed upon and understood statement of purpose.  It contains the essential values the church seeks to embody and the basic reason for all its ministries and activities.

          Effective planning encourages innovative thought and creativity.  A good church planning process should provide ways of stimulating and capturing the innovative thought of church leaders and members.  It seeks to encourage spirit-led creativity in ministry, to channel it to a common purpose.  It will provide avenues for individual participation, and to elicit broad input from church members.

            Effective planning improves the ability to cope with change.     Planning cannot prevent change from happening--in fact, it does not seek to do this.  It can, however, help church leaders have greater awareness of the incidence of change, build this into church plans, and give the church a greater chance of maximizing the opportunities (and avoiding the threats) that change brings.

            Effective planning results in higher motivation. To achieve God-sized results, individual church members have to find spiritual motivation.  Good church planning motivates because it defines and makes known what the church, under the Lordship of Christ, is trying to achieve:  “What are the Lord’s plans for us so we can adjust our goals?”  This provides the church with a common purpose. The more people understand the mission and measure individual and church action by that mission, the more they are personally motivated to be involved in the church’s ministries.

            Effective planning results in coordination of church activities.  In most churches there are a variety of ministry activities which vie for time and resources, and require better coordination.  Each part of church life should have an awareness of what is going on in other ministries of the church and be required to work closely with other ministries which are influenced by or have a bearing on its results.  Good church plans are integrated, flexible, and coordinated.

            Effective planning results in better decisions about the future. God ordained that His work would be carried out through the church.  Struggling together in prayer and faith to determine the best or alternative course of action sharpens decision-making skills.  When decisions are made, not in a vacuum, but in community, there develops a growing sense of covenantal relationship.  No one can know for certain what tomorrow may bring.  The only decisions we can make are present ones.  So the good planner is always thinking of what to do today in order to be ready for tomorrow’s opportunities.

            Effective planning encourages the exercise of faith.  Scripture is replete with descriptions of those persons who attempt to be all they can be by trusting in themselves, and those who attempt by faith to become what God leads them to be.  Hebrews 11 is called the “roll call of  the faithful,” and it is inspiring to contemplate the risks that these ordinary men and women exercised in order to be obedient to God.  God is always able to do more than we could possibly think or request, and He has purposed that if we ask in prayer believing, “it will be yours” (Mark 11:24).  No thing great or small is ever accomplished apart from the exercise of faith.  Planning is not an attempt to eliminate risks, but requires that risk-taking decisions be hammered out on the anvil of faith.

            Effective planning fixes responsibility and accountability.  A good plan tells who is responsible for what and tells what organization or group in the church is responsible for what results.  By assigning responsibility and holding leaders accountable for results, the planner has gone a long way in guaranteeing the growing and greening of the church.  Once strategies are formulated and implemented through assigned tasks, God produces the results (see 1 Cor. 3:6).

            Effective planning clears the paths to goals.  Church plans that include the implementers in the process of planning are far more effective and motivational than plans that are determined by the leaders and then assigned to the “would-be implementers.”  The leader’s function is to help participants establish clear, challenging and specific goals and then clear the path to those goals.  For example, in Holy Scripture we read:

“Teach me to do your will, for you are my God, may your good Spirit lead me on level ground” (Psalm 143:10).

Church members will commit themselves to a church, a pastor, or a team of leaders who are directing them along a particular path.  The hope is that even more, they will “commit themselves to their faithful creator and continue to do good” (1 Peter 4:19).  

            In conclusion:  Effective planning is like navigation, steering a course toward church health and growth.  Suppose a passenger goes to the captain of the ship and says, “Show me on your charts our present location, what the next port-of-call will be, and our final destination.”  The captain responds, “I don’t know that; I just work to keep the ship moving this moment!”  How would you feel?  Would you really want to be a passenger on that ship?  So, plan not just to operate from day to day, but to move toward larger things in God’s kingdom.

 … Lloyd Elder, Director, Moench Center for Church Leadership