Thanks Tony. Just wondering whether you see any substantive difference between what you're calling 'strategic planning' and a commitment to regularly evaluating what we're doing in church and making adjustments/changes as needed?
Hi Simon. If I was going to put my ‘strategic planning’ hat on, I think I’d say: “Regularly evaluating and making adjustments/changes *in relation to what*?” Evaluation and adjustment assumes that everyone knows what it’s being evaluated against, and what the adjustments are meant to achieve. Has this been talked through and articulated? Is everyone clear on it? If so, then you’ve already done some ‘strategic planning’ and are in the phase of working that plan and changing things as you go along.
But in my experience (and I speak to myself as much as anyone) taking the time to pause every few years, and to evaluate and clarify and articulate together what the big goals are, and the key emphases or priorities we’re working on, is super helpful in making regular ‘evaluation and adjustment’ more coherent and more effective as you go along. Particularly when there are always so many competing priorities and possibilities.
Yes. Makes sense. Can't evaluate progress if you don't have a goal. I guess it leaves open the question for me about whether the goals ought need to express something of what we hope, under God, to achieve? Or whether simply expressing what we plan to do (to achieve our macro Biblical goals) is sufficient? I suspect "strategic planning" is usually associated with the former.
Yes that’s right. ‘Strategic planning’ establishes various priorities in the things we plan to do on the basis of having expressed in more concrete form something that we hope, under God, to achieve — those hopes/desired outcomes being a particular instantiation in our context of the macro biblical goals.
So ‘reach the non-Christians around us with the gospel’ is a macro biblical purpose. Micro/specific versions of that might be: ‘our desire is for our congregation to prayerfully explain the gospel clearly to 500 non-Christian people in our community this year’ or even (more boldly) ‘we hope and pray under God to see 20 people converted to Christ this year’. Each of those desires/hopes would generate questions about what we’re planning to do and how; what we’d need to stop doing and start doing to engage with that many people etc.
This is really the value of the process (in my experience). It provokes in the first place a bracing conversation that you need to have every few years about what’s most important, where are we focusing our energies together, how could we work towards the ‘macro’ goals more effectively, and so on. And then it gives you a basis for the ongoing conversation, evaluation, adjustments etc. as you go along.
Thank Tony, I think there is much merit in your thoughts here.
I actually think this is even more critical in reformed/evangelical theological thought (I'm lumping them together for ease - so please accept the generalization). It is too easy to sit back, doing what we always do because "it is God that gives the increase..." and "unless the Lord builds the house". Forgetting that there are labourers in the second part of the proverb. I like your balance - you should probably do it - but only if you don't want to. I think that captures the balance perfectly.
That's perceptive Robert. I think I've heard that called the 'intermittent appeal to God's sovereignty' -- when things aren't working, that's when we're tempted to consign our shortcomings or even failures to the Lord not blessing us with growth, which of course may be the case. But it should also prompt us to examine what we're doing and to ask what we could do — for our part, and in constant dependence on God — to improve what we're doing.
There is an assumption we are both making here though Tony, and that is that something should be "working". Not all churches even evaluate where they are, let alone where they might like to be. This can be dressed up as trusting in God's Sovereignty in times of struggle - depending on the day I'm not sure whether it is or isn't to be honest. I see what you are describing as our need to partner with God in his Gospel work, but there is an alternate argument that faithfulness is what is required, following which our task is to trust.
Good point — and there’s more to be said on this question (of faithfulness). I don’t think faithfulness means absolving yourself of self-examination and reflection — to think and talk with each other about whether we could change or improve the way we’re doing things. There’s a both-and here that needs teasing out. I do what I’m commissioned to do faithfully and trust God to bless it in his power and goodness; but part of what I’m commissioned to do is to keep asking myself “Does love require me to change what I’m doing or how I’m doing it so that I can better serve others?” So faithfulness I think always involves a leaning forward, towards hope and change. But I can feel another post coming on — so I’ll leave it there!
At the end of Peter Jensen's time as the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, he commented at the synod (the assembly of reps of all the Anglican parishes in Sydney plus a few reps of Anglican organisations) that the diocesan mission, including the stated goals and plans, were really about helping us to understand how impossible it is for us to reach these goals, and to drive us to prayer.
I think that might give us a helpful test when doing strategic planning. Is our trust in what we can do if we have the right strategies and goals, or is what we seek to do causing us to humble ourselves in dependance on the Lord of the mission?
Very helpful - thanks Philip. Our 'desired outcomes' should constantly drive us to prayer, even as they also prompt us with equal humility to look at all that we're doing and ask honest and hard questions about the quality of our work, and what we could do to change and improve things. Humility is the key attribute at both points. I'm willing to change my precious plans, and even admit that I was mistaken, or that I've failed — and to talk openly with my team about this because we have something we're aiming to do together that is far more important than me.
Thanks Tony. Just wondering whether you see any substantive difference between what you're calling 'strategic planning' and a commitment to regularly evaluating what we're doing in church and making adjustments/changes as needed?
Hi Simon. If I was going to put my ‘strategic planning’ hat on, I think I’d say: “Regularly evaluating and making adjustments/changes *in relation to what*?” Evaluation and adjustment assumes that everyone knows what it’s being evaluated against, and what the adjustments are meant to achieve. Has this been talked through and articulated? Is everyone clear on it? If so, then you’ve already done some ‘strategic planning’ and are in the phase of working that plan and changing things as you go along.
But in my experience (and I speak to myself as much as anyone) taking the time to pause every few years, and to evaluate and clarify and articulate together what the big goals are, and the key emphases or priorities we’re working on, is super helpful in making regular ‘evaluation and adjustment’ more coherent and more effective as you go along. Particularly when there are always so many competing priorities and possibilities.
Does that make sense?
Yes. Makes sense. Can't evaluate progress if you don't have a goal. I guess it leaves open the question for me about whether the goals ought need to express something of what we hope, under God, to achieve? Or whether simply expressing what we plan to do (to achieve our macro Biblical goals) is sufficient? I suspect "strategic planning" is usually associated with the former.
Yes that’s right. ‘Strategic planning’ establishes various priorities in the things we plan to do on the basis of having expressed in more concrete form something that we hope, under God, to achieve — those hopes/desired outcomes being a particular instantiation in our context of the macro biblical goals.
So ‘reach the non-Christians around us with the gospel’ is a macro biblical purpose. Micro/specific versions of that might be: ‘our desire is for our congregation to prayerfully explain the gospel clearly to 500 non-Christian people in our community this year’ or even (more boldly) ‘we hope and pray under God to see 20 people converted to Christ this year’. Each of those desires/hopes would generate questions about what we’re planning to do and how; what we’d need to stop doing and start doing to engage with that many people etc.
This is really the value of the process (in my experience). It provokes in the first place a bracing conversation that you need to have every few years about what’s most important, where are we focusing our energies together, how could we work towards the ‘macro’ goals more effectively, and so on. And then it gives you a basis for the ongoing conversation, evaluation, adjustments etc. as you go along.
i.e. Strategic planning not voodoo. It’s a tool for good conversation, and productive cooperative work.
Thank Tony, I think there is much merit in your thoughts here.
I actually think this is even more critical in reformed/evangelical theological thought (I'm lumping them together for ease - so please accept the generalization). It is too easy to sit back, doing what we always do because "it is God that gives the increase..." and "unless the Lord builds the house". Forgetting that there are labourers in the second part of the proverb. I like your balance - you should probably do it - but only if you don't want to. I think that captures the balance perfectly.
That's perceptive Robert. I think I've heard that called the 'intermittent appeal to God's sovereignty' -- when things aren't working, that's when we're tempted to consign our shortcomings or even failures to the Lord not blessing us with growth, which of course may be the case. But it should also prompt us to examine what we're doing and to ask what we could do — for our part, and in constant dependence on God — to improve what we're doing.
There is an assumption we are both making here though Tony, and that is that something should be "working". Not all churches even evaluate where they are, let alone where they might like to be. This can be dressed up as trusting in God's Sovereignty in times of struggle - depending on the day I'm not sure whether it is or isn't to be honest. I see what you are describing as our need to partner with God in his Gospel work, but there is an alternate argument that faithfulness is what is required, following which our task is to trust.
Good point — and there’s more to be said on this question (of faithfulness). I don’t think faithfulness means absolving yourself of self-examination and reflection — to think and talk with each other about whether we could change or improve the way we’re doing things. There’s a both-and here that needs teasing out. I do what I’m commissioned to do faithfully and trust God to bless it in his power and goodness; but part of what I’m commissioned to do is to keep asking myself “Does love require me to change what I’m doing or how I’m doing it so that I can better serve others?” So faithfulness I think always involves a leaning forward, towards hope and change. But I can feel another post coming on — so I’ll leave it there!
At the end of Peter Jensen's time as the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, he commented at the synod (the assembly of reps of all the Anglican parishes in Sydney plus a few reps of Anglican organisations) that the diocesan mission, including the stated goals and plans, were really about helping us to understand how impossible it is for us to reach these goals, and to drive us to prayer.
I think that might give us a helpful test when doing strategic planning. Is our trust in what we can do if we have the right strategies and goals, or is what we seek to do causing us to humble ourselves in dependance on the Lord of the mission?
Very helpful - thanks Philip. Our 'desired outcomes' should constantly drive us to prayer, even as they also prompt us with equal humility to look at all that we're doing and ask honest and hard questions about the quality of our work, and what we could do to change and improve things. Humility is the key attribute at both points. I'm willing to change my precious plans, and even admit that I was mistaken, or that I've failed — and to talk openly with my team about this because we have something we're aiming to do together that is far more important than me.