Strategic Planning, Goal Setting

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Strategic Planning, Goal Setting Leading Change

• VA Conference
• Mid-size Congregations
• November 1, 2012

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Clarity and Purpose as Central to Vitality

• CTA adaptive question to redirect resources
  of attention, leadership, and money to make more
  vital congregations.
• Facts on Growth, 2010
• Kirk Hadaway, Hartford Institute for Religion
  Research
• One of the consistent markers of a vital
  congregation and a variable that correlates
  directly with congregational growth is a
  purposefulness of the congregations ministry and
  the clarity of its identity.

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Clarity of Purpose Identity

• Clarity of purpose and identity in a mid-size
  congregation
• Making decisions
• Making choices
• Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandebaum, That Used
  to Be Us
• Leadership in our lives has shifted from
  directing resources to apportioning sacrifice.

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Three Types of Planning

1. PROBLEM PLANNING short term planning with a goal
   of returning to the way things were before the
   problem
2. DEVELOPMENTAL PLANNING long-range planning
   that asks the questions Whats next?, What
   do we do now? (Assuming that what we are doing
   now is faithful and appropriate.)
3. FRAME-BENDING PLANNING strategic planning that
   asks the essential formation questions of Who
   are we now?, What does God call us to do now?,
   and Who is our neighbor now?

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Today will focus on 3

• Frame- Bending Planning (For which you will
  need)
• A Mission Statement
• Outcomes (3-5 years)
• Values / Touchstones for decision making
• A Bold Story

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The Essential Question

• WHO
• IS
• YOUR
• CLIENT?

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1 A MISSION STATEMENT

• A STATEMENT OF IDENTITY AND PURPOSE
• Who are we now?
• What does God call us to do now?
• SHORT AND MEMORABLE (REPEATABLE)
• THE CENTER OF A BOLD STORY

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• 2- THE MORE CRITICAL ISSUE OF OUTCOMES

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The UMCs Long Journey from Membership to
Discipleship
The Preferred Future
The Present Reality
The Unsustain-able Future
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The Ultimate Gap
Making Disciples

Future
Present
Unsustainable
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The Need for Proximate Outcomes

• Making Disciples

Proximate Outcomes
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THE PROXIMATE OUTCOME QUESTION

• Making Disciples
• What does God call us to make different
  (in our congregation in our community)
  within the next 3 to 5 years?

Proximate Outcomes
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Resources, Activities and Outcomes

• The Non-Profit Outcome Dilemma
• Inputs Throughputs Outputs
• Resources Activities (Outcomes what is
  to be different.)

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Process vs. Outcomes
PROCESS FOCUSED OUTCOME FOCUSED
What does your congregation do? What is your congregation called to accomplish?
What kinds of programs or activities do you offer? How will people (or your community) be different because they are a part of your congregations ministry?
How many people are involved in your programs and activities? For the coming year, what level of results would make the year a success?
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3 VALUES / TOUCHSTONES FOR DECISION MAKING

• BACK TO Clarity of purpose and identity in a
  mid-size congregation
• Making decisions
• Making choices
• HOW WILL YOU DECIDE WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT?
• HOW WILL YOU STAY ON TRACK WITH COMPETING
  DEMANDS?

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ARKANSAS An Example

• We shall embrace deep change that empowers us to
  make disciples of Jesus Christ for the
  transformation of the world by
• Rooting all we do in our understanding of
  scripture, personal and social holiness (the
  foundational principles of United Methodism), so
  that we revitalize our connection and our
  ministry instead of being connected by our
  apportionments, appointments and benefits.
• Establishing the mission field as the primary
  place for our attention and resources instead of
  directing most of our attention and resources to
  the institutional needs of congregations and
  clergy.
•  

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ARKANSAS Continued

•  Equipping laity and clergy for shared outcomes
  of transformation with excellence instead of
  directing resources toward congregational
  preservation and satisfaction of current members.
  
•  
• Organizing our ministry around the unique
  geographic, cultural, demographic, and ethnic
  contexts in the identified mission fields instead
  of treating every church, district and conference
  structure the same.

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Monitoring our Decisions

• To what extent did we, in the past three months,
  make decisions that
• 1. Revitalized our Manage our
• Connection apportionments,
• appointments and benefits
• 1___2____3____4____5____6____7____8____9____10
• 2. Focus on the Address the
  institutional
• Mission Field needs of churches and
  clergy
• 1___2____3____4____5____6____7____8____9____10

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4 A BOLD STORY

• A Primary Task of a Leader is to Give the People
  a Better Story to Live
• The attractiveness of safe and weak stories
• People live into the stories that they tell about
  themselves

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Who does the planning?

• A small group of people who actually have the
  skills of adaptive thinking and spiritual
  discernment.
• Choosing a conversation team
• The need for listening above representation.
• Inviting people to balcony work.
• Working appreciatively from strength and
  sufficiency, not from problems and lack of
  resources.

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Leading in Change

• 6 Non-Synoptic Planning
• Complexity and Conflict

Problem Solving Normative Strategic Planning
Adjudication Non-Synoptic Planning