Strategic Planning for Church Growth

There are only three ways your church can grow: biologically (by existing members having children), by getting people from other churches to transfer to yours, or by attracting the unchurched. Of these approaches, reaching the unchurched should be your priority.

In the early phases of strategic planning, you and your committee will wrestle with just how to get their attention. To start, break down the process into phases: vision, data collection, analysis, prioritizing and planning, and vision advancement. Doing so involves others in the process, including elders, the finance and budget committees, as well as the church body and promotes a sense of ownership.

Cast the vision

Casting the vision means understanding and defining your church's purpose, future community needs and vision for the future, starting with a purpose statement. Usually, this is a one-sentence statement identifying why your church exists. Once it is developed, it is good practice to craft an expanded statement of purpose-giving guidance for more detailed planning. For instance, if an activity or program in the church in not contributing to the overall purpose, it becomes a candidate for elimination. Similarly, when your purpose statement has been written and expanded, it might disclose other programs still needed. Naturally, an expanded statement of purpose also sharpens your ability to develop a vision for the future and helps pinpoint what community needs your church might want to meet. You must revise these estimates as you grow more acquainted with the community. When you begin this effort, you start to define your church's vision.

The vision statement itself addresses the questions of who, what, when, where and how, and thus is a description of how your church will look in the future--facilities, location, programs, staff composition and membership profile, to name a few. However, the critical part of your vision will answer one question: what needs in your changing community your church will serve, consistent with your purpose, in the future.

Naturally, this involves developing a land and facility master plan, usually drawn up with the help of an architect. This plan is indispensable for plotting property acquisitions, development, space allocations and remodeling. Collecting and analyzing good data is critical to this process.

The data collection and analysis phase consists of both internal and external data. Focused on gathering information needed for planning and decision-making. If you find you don't have the data you need, establish a collection system within your church. All required data must be periodically collected, summarized, prepared in report form and archived for future use.

Most often, internal data can simply be classified as "people" data--attendance, profiles and trends--and financial data, including expenses, income and trends. If practical, calculate the costs, incomes and benefits associated with specific cost centers (costs versus benefits of each program in the church). This information will be very useful when weighing alternatives, prioritizing and making tradeoffs during the planning phase.

The best demographic information to be collected is age, marital status, income, education and occupation. Consider reclassifying the data to fit your church's profile if you hire an external resource to conduct this process. Accordingly, such information might be grouped as infants, toddlers, children, youth, college, singles, couples, families with children, and senior adults. In other words, use the data to build an external community profile and compare it to an internal church programs profile. Use the external data to conceptualize a profile of current and future needs. Also ask what church programs people in your community think are relevant to their needs. When doing so, assume the "local community" includes anyone who lives within a 20- to 30-minute driving distance of your church. Find out what days, times and types of services, music, activities and programs they prefer. Jesus Himself said, "He that would be the greatest among you must be servant of all." Hence, serving the needs of the community must be a major focus of a truly great church.

During the prioritizing and planning phase, determine and schedule necessary actions for realizing your vision. In this rapidly changing world, planning three, five or even 10 years into the future is a good idea. Set goals and measure progress toward their realization on every year.

The first step in identifying priorities is to list, in order of importance, planned initiatives and programs as well as expected direct costs for each, especially personnel, facilities and overhead. Based on your vision, determine which programs you will establish, and frequently reexamine your selections.

Trend charts and analyses cannot anticipate the unexpected, but with frequently review of your planning, you can see some changes coming. To ensure realistic results, include your finance committee when implementing the actions required for vision advancement, the phase that connects the present to the future. Accordingly, first make sure your programming posture is appropriate with regard to present realities--specifically, finances, attendance, needs and church purpose. Collected data and completed analyses might suggest a need to eliminate or add programs now to meet current needs. If so, do these things first.

Beginning with the end result in mind, implement the action plans that will build bridges from the present to the future. Success is assured if you are clear about your purpose and vision, have carefully analyzed both internal external data, have served your community consistent with their needs, and if you've followed a systematic planning process. You will be a great church. And you will grow.

Bob McCaughan, Ph.D., is an Alpharetta, Ga.-based management consultant for churches and nonprofits. Contact him by calling 770.663.8405 or by e-mail at ramccaughan@mindspring.com.