A growing church must be a church that knows where it’s heading, can plan in advance, and execute that plan to see it through. The process from planning to execution is not as daunting as it might seem… In today’s article, I am going to break it down and make it simple for you in 4 simple steps:
Step 1: Have a vision meeting with your core team.
In this meeting, discuss upcoming conferences, holidays, events, and big days for the year ahead. Write them all down and write out the vision for each one. You need to know where you’re heading and what you’re planning for before you can execute a plan and assign roles. Your team needs a clear direction in order to take on a project and execute it. Our job as a leaders is to cast the vision and make sure everyone is on the same page.
Step 2: Create long calendars.
What do I mean by this? You need to be booking and preparing for Christmas / big events right now. This will help free you from events sneaking up and putting too much weight on your staff to pull something off last minute. Start planning long before the big events and take small steps throughout the year to plan and prepare. Know where you are heading as a team and church and communicate with your team the vision thoroughly.
Step 3: Create short calendars
Growing churches perform well under pressure. Long-range planning is about strategy, the short of it is about pivoting and adapting.
You need to be able to both plan for the long-range, but also be good in the short windows also. Can you play for the 50-yard line but also in the end zone? You have to be able to score in the short-term and be quick on your feet, ready to plan and execute in shorter windows. This might look like creating a “process of planning and execution” that you follow for events that come up throughout the year. I will explain how to do that in our next step.
Long-range planning is about strategy, the short of it is about pivoting and adapting. Click To Tweet
Step 4: Assign deadlines, tasks, and roles to execute
When you get the vision, create a plan of execution by writing out all the steps needed to get to complete the process.
Then, write out the deadlines for each task along with an assigned role for who is tackling what. This will help create a simple process of strategy, keep the ball from dropping and everyone on the same page.
I hope this helps get you prepared to take on any project, big or small this year and do it with grace and excellence!
Click here to read week 3 of 7 Commonalities of Growing Churches!
