Ministry Planning: Worker's Guide

Your Purpose

Successful accomplishments in ministry rarely happen accidentally. They are most often outcomes of God supernaturally empowering a success pattern. Ministry planning is the process of laying out your ministry team's success pattern. This kind of planning is based on the Biblical principle of well thought-out preparation before action.

Proverbs 14:8 The wisdom of the prudent is to give thoughts to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception.

Your Plan

Ministry Planning involves a logical sequence of actions. These actions involve first discerning where God would have your ministry and then determining the most appropriate steps to get there. To develop a ministry plan, your team will complete the following steps:

Review the mission of your ministry team (pg. 2-7)
Identify goal possibilities (pg. 8-11)
Develop specific goal statements (pg. 12-13)
Select which goals to pursue (pg. 14-15)
Formulate action plans to reach top priority goals (pg. 16-17)

Your Goal

At the conclusion of the ministry planning phase, you and your team members will have developed a plan for effectively fulfilling your mission and addressing the issues identified through your Team Analysis.

Your Resources

Most importantly, the planner in your midst is the Holy Spirit working in the minds and hearts of you and your team members. You will be utilizing the input of each of your team members as well as your group facilitator and the worksheets on the following pages. But what will make these tools work is the empowerment of God. Pray for His guidance as you pursue development of this plan.

Step #1 Review the mission of your ministry team

Reviewing your ministry team's mission is an important first step in the ministry planning process. If your mission and sense of direction are either unclear or not seen in the same way by all parties involved, it will be difficult to move forward.

A mission statement explains your team's "reason for being." It enables you to clarify your purpose for yourselves and others who are interested.

Notes from the Front Door ministry team can be reviewed in the Appendix.

Record your ministry team's current mission statement here:

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Clarifying your current mission statement now will help you effectively aim your goals for the upcoming year. Next, you will review your mission statement by considering the ministry focus as well as criteria for effective mission statements .

Ministry Focus

When reviewing the focus of your ministry, consider questions such as:

Has your burden shifted, expanded or narrowed?
How have the insights gained from your Team Analysis affected your
view of your team's mission?
Do you sense God leading your team toward different areas of service?

Record below your thoughts and reactions regarding your own ministry team's focus.

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Also, in reviewing the focus of your ministry, consider these issues:

Are there other Xenos ministries addressing these needs?
If there are, how is your team unique or how could your team work in conjunction with them?

Now complete the same process for your team.

Other Xenos Ministries            Ideas & Issues
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Four Criteria for Effective Mission Statements

Now, review your team's current mission against the following four criteria. An effective mission statement of a Xenos ministry team:

Clearly states the nature of the team's cause.
Defines the team's area of concentration.
Fulfills a biblical precept, principle or example.
Aligns with the mission and vision of Xenos as a whole.

Check-off each item once your team's mission statement fulfills that criterion.

Clearly states the nature of your team's cause.

What has your ministry team set out to do? What kind of service is actually being performed by your team? What kind of special opportunities has your team set out to create? What is it that you, as a team, are about?

Current or clarified nature of your team's cause:

________________________________________________________________________

Defines your team's area of concentration.

Who is your intended target group, recipient, or audience? What area or segment of our culture do you feel God has called your team to reach and work in? This defines your specific niche of service.

Current or clarified area of your team's concentration:

________________________________________________________________________

Fulfills a biblical precept, principle or example.

The Bible provides the essential drive behind our directions for ministry. Consider specific commands addressed to the church (precepts), descriptive statements about the nature of the church which have universal relevance (principles), and examples of ways that the New Testament church gave expression to biblical precepts and principles.

List the passages that have inspired your team's mission.

Reference           Key Words or Phrases from Text                          
______________   ____________________________________
______________   ____________________________________
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Aligns with the mission and vision of Xenos as a whole.

Your team's mission should be aligned with Xenos' mission and vision statements.

Xenos' mission statement is as follows:

God has called on the church to cooperate with Him as He reconciles the world to Himself (2 Corinthians. 5:19). Therefore, Xenos Christian Fellowship exists to help people learn how to draw close to God. This work begins by inviting people to receive the gift of forgiveness offered through Christ.

We are committed to fostering spiritual growth by encouraging people to respond to God's love through loving service toward God and all people. Specifically, we direct our resources to serving the family, the non-Christian community locally and internationally, and the broader Christian community.

Xenos' vision statement summarizes what the Elders discern the church's focus should be for the following year. For 1994, it was stated as:

Xenos has set out to build a highly trained, sophisticated, caring, leadable, cohesive, committed, and flexible work force of Christian servants who continually strive to serve the Lord and do his will.

How does your team's mission align with or fulfill the greater mission and vision of Xenos?

________________________________________________________________________

Mission Statement Summary

Now, conclude your mission statement review by incorporating the insights gained into a clarified mission statement.

Now, based on your reflection on the focus of the ministry itself and review of the criteria listed above, record your ministry team's clarified mission statement here:

________________________________________________________________________

Your mission is an umbrella statement under which you develop your goals and related actions.

Step #2 Identify Goal Possibilities

Having clarified your ministry team's mission, you are ready to begin identifying how to take your team from where it is now to where God would have it be.

The object of this step is to identify where your ministry team wants to be or what your team would like to accomplish over the next year. Identifying goal possibilities is the first step in giving substance to what would otherwise be ideas and desires.

Goals provide direction and motivation necessary for growth and success in important ministry areas. Goals are the end toward which your ministry team will direct some specific effort.

To generate possibilities for goals you will be incorporating the "raw materials" you have already developed, tied with a knowledge of three different goal types (described below).

The Raw Materials

Possibilities for goals will be stimulated by reviewing the "raw materials" of your issue and mission statements. The issue statements capture your team's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Your "reason for being" is summarized in your clarified mission statement. So, goal possibilities should point to future destinations that not only survey where your team has been and is now, but also combine this knowledge with the vision of your team's mission.

Goal Types

When you generate goal possibilities from these "raw materials," it is helpful to consider the various types of goals. Three types contribute in different ways toward fulfilling your team's mission.

                         Level of Need            
Goal Type                                  
Essential                Must achieve             
Problem-Solving          Ought to achieve         
Innovative               Nice to achieve

Essential goals are necessary for continued, ongoing ministry.

An essential goal identifies the recurring, and necessary ongoing activities of your ministry team that must be fulfilled to ensure successful results. They are required for the operation of your ministry. They are essential to continued success.

Problem-solving goals propose a more appropriate or desired condition.

A problem-solving goal identifies a current weakness, threat or less-than-ideal condition and a proposed solution toward a more appropriate or desired condition. Problem-solving goals improve your team's effectiveness. They are vital to growth, but may not be detrimental if not accomplished. Sources of problem-solving goals include:

Aspects of your team's ministry that can be improved such as strategy, quality
organization, efficiency.
Less-than-effective use of time or resources.
Obstacles in your field of ministry that can be eliminated.

Ask yourself, "What's involved in solving these problems?" The answer to this question can provide the seeds for developing problem-solving goals.

Innovative goals make something good even better.

An innovative goal improves the current condition. These goals do not address problems, but consider how ministry activities can be done better, faster, more thoroughly, economically, easily, more fruitfully.

By considering these goal types, you may be better able to identify the many goal possibilities that are all around. You will also be better able to determine their relative importance to your ministry team. The key is to remember that some goals must be achieved, while others ought to be achieved, and still others would be nice to be achieved.

In this goal identification phase, it is not important to include all the elements of an effective goal statement or to determine the exact objectives needed to succeed. Those aspects will be completed later.

For some examples of goal possibilities, see Front Door's in the Appendix.

Now, generate several goal possibilities which address your issue statements and fulfill your team's mission.
Think of essential goals that your team must accomplish on a regular basis. Think of problem-solving goals that ought to be accomplished. Think of innovative goals that would be nice to improve conditions even though there may be nothing at all wrong with the current situation. Indicate whether the goal type is essential (E), problem-solving(P) or innovative (I) in the space to the left.

Type       Possibility
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2. ______  _____________________________________________________________________   
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3. ______  _____________________________________________________________________   
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4. ______  _____________________________________________________________________   
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5. ______  _____________________________________________________________________   
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6. ______  _____________________________________________________________________   
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7. ______  _____________________________________________________________________   
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Step #3 Develop Specific Goal Statements

One way you and other key team members will decide if a goal possibility is worth achieving is through the planning and analysis of your goals. This is a form of "counting the cost."

Luke 14:28,32 "For which one of you when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it? ...Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and take counsel whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand?"

A written goal statement calls for a clear calculation of your intent and the results to be achieved. Effective ministry goals include these elements:

An accomplishment to be achieved
Success indicators
The time factors
The resources

The questions that follow further define the meaning of each of these goal-setting elements.

An ACCOMPLISHMENT to be achieved

"What will the outcome of our team's actions be?"

Goal statements indicate an activity, a performance, an operation or something that produces results. In most cases you will express this accomplishment beginning with an action word, a verb. Goals statements tell what is to be done to reach the goal. Here are some examples of action verbs:

Investigate   Influence      Provide        Inform             
Increase      Coordinate     Create         Deliver            
Develop       Expand         Generate       Implement          
Set up        Simplify       Start          Streamline         
Strengthen    Train          Transform      Uncover            
Win           Establish      Teach          Produce            
Present       Recruit        Reorganize     Research           
Maintain      Organize       Plan           Promote            
Improve       Introduce      Launch         Lead

SUCCESS INDICATORS

"How will we know when our team has reached the outcome desired?"

A goal statement clarifies the expected results that indicate completion of the goal. Success indicators are signs or measures you must see to know when the goal is reached. The indicator of success helps your team visualize what success would look like.

By picturing the situation surrounding the accomplishment of a goal, you can identify effective measurement criteria - simple, identifiable indicators of success. Define these criteria in terms of observable behaviors or qualities, and measurable units. Pushing for specificity will go a long way to develop a solid understanding of what is to be achieved.

The TIME FACTORS

"When exactly or at what frequency do we want to have the goal accomplished?"

Just as important as the other elements is a specific date or time by which your team will want to be able to say you have accomplished the goal. For recurring goals, the frequency or regularity of activities is also important to define.

The RESOURCES

"How much will our efforts cost (money, people, facilities and other resources) when we say 'It's accomplished'?"

The resource constraints lead you to place a relative value on the outcome. Resources that may be available include facilities, people, money, tools, equipment expertise, information, spiritual gifting and knowledgeable people inside and outside your team.

Using these four elements, develop goal statements from the goal possibilities you generated.

See samples of Goal Statements developed by the Front Door ministry team in the Appendix. Ministry Planning Sheets are then provided in the Appendix to guide the development of your own goal statements.

Step #4 Select Which Goals to Pursue

The next step in developing your ministry plan is to determine the most significant goals to achieve. Prioritizing and choosing which goals to pursue is easier now that you have created specific goal statements.

Classify Goals

To decide which goals to pursue, it is helpful to first classify and prioritize the various goal possibilities drafted by you and your team members. Setting these priorities results in a list of goals that ensures that the most important goal will be acted on first.

The first criterion for prioritizing goals is by their type (Essential, Problem-Solving, or Innovative). No problem-solving goals will have a higher priority than the lowest essential goal. Goal statements may overlap into multiple types. When this occurs, classify overlapping statements by the highest level of need. If a problem-solving goal ("ought to be achieved") appears to warrant higher priority than the lowest essential goal ("must be achieved"), then one or the other goal statement may have been classified incorrectly.

Prioritize Goals

Using a simple numbering system ("1" being highest), prioritize the goal statements within each type, essential goals first, followed by problem-solving goals, and finally the innovative goals.

Here are some examples of criteria for setting priorities within a given goal type:

Relative Importance: The achievement of essential goal B is objectively more important to the church than achieving either essential goals A or C.
Time Sequence: Essential goals A and C cannot be achieved until essential goal B is completed; therefore, B must have the highest priority.
Cost-Benefit Relationship: Essential goal B can be achieved at a lower cost than either A or C and will produce immediate benefits; therefore, B should have the highest essential goal priority.

Other criteria can be used as well to establish priority within goal types. The key is to establish a criteria that is meaningful to your team's specific situation.

Choose Goals to Pursue

You are now ready to select which and how many of the goals to pursue.

A number of other criteria (including those listed above) can be used to determine how many goals to pursue, but consider that for a ministry plan to be a positive motivation, it must consist of a realistic number of goals.

A realistic number of goals ensures that your team's ministry plan is practical, achievable and motivational. An unattainable number of goals can demotivate and defeat the ministry planning process.

At the other extreme, goals should represent a challenge or stretch and call upon a degree of faith as well. Goals that present a challenge can stir motivation and inspire dependent trust in God to empower.

A realistic number of goals strikes a balance between what is hard and what is easy to achieve. The number of goals in your plan should be prayerfully and carefully calculated to require a "stretch" that reaches beyond what is easily achieved without inducing a "snap" that causes your team members to fall into defeat or abandon the plan. Stretching creates the necessary balance between faith and effort required to achieve the goal and the probability of success.

On the Ministry Planning Sheets, mark the goals which you discern are most appropriate to pursue in the upcoming year.

Step #5 Formulate Action Plans for Top Priority Goals

The final task of the ministry planning process involves putting selected goals into workable action plans. Action plans detail the activities necessary to accomplish a goal by organizing ideas into logical and executable actions. They describe the tactics to accomplish each top priority goal statement. When objectives and tactics are incorporated into a workable action plan, goal achievement is more likely to occur.

The order and organization of action plans using the Ministry Planning Sheet in the Appendix helps to create a road map to goal accomplishment. Consider having the person responsible for coordinating achievement of the goal complete the Action Planning section.

There are three separate entry areas on the Ministry Planning Sheet.

Person Responsible:

This identifies who is responsible for achieving the goal. It has been well said that, "Everyone's responsibility is no one's responsibility." Many individuals participate in achieving specific tactics, but only one person should be held accountable for goal accomplishment.

First Action:

This lists the first step, task, or assignment that must be completed to reach the accomplishment. This is the most important aspect of the action plan because it triggers the implementation of this goal.

Starting Date:

This date indicates the targeted time to start this action.

The completed Ministry Planning Sheet organizes the various elements of the goal into a systematic, workable road map for goal achievement. It provides a visual representation (and ongoing reminder) of all the actions, tactics, expected results, timing, benefits, responsibilities and contingencies of a well-planned goal.