Commentary: Leadership, Planning, and Vision

Many congregations and organizations by this point in time have formulated new goals and plans for the 2024 New Year. Some do this with a formal document known as a strategic plan.  Most have  posted budgets allocating funds towards specific areas for the year. Growing congregations typically appoint new deacons to implement functional areas of work. Many of these deacon assignments are very open-ended with broad titles like: senior ministry, worship, benevolence, missions, outreach, etc.  Deacons or ministry leaders are left to themselves to figure out what to do.  Some is this is good as micro-managing is not a good thing.

One must ask, however, does each ministry leader know the core values of the congregation? Does he know the vision synthesized by the leadership from member input?  In fact, do they have one that they can recite?  Does he know how his service area fits into  planning?  At the same time the ministry leader must be open to new strategies that opportunities provide.

  A good strategic plan has a vision statement that each member can recite immediately when asked. At the same time when asked what the congregation values most, members can tell anyone. Typically, the vision statement is a short phrase easily  remembered. It points to what the congregation wishes to have accomplished in the future.  For example Microsoft’s initial vision statement was: A computer on every desktop  ( using their operating system was understood) .  Long vision statements are worse than not any at all.

Strategic plans provide good guidance on implementing a particular congregations ability to execute Christ’s mission for the church.  They are worthless unless used.  They will fail  unless accountability is exercised in their implementation.

Some would say, our plan is the bible.  True.  What does that mean in practice for a particular congregation in a particular place in a particular point in time?  But one says, we are to “seek and save the lost.”  That is an aspiration.  It is something you should do.  It is not something you are doing unless you can articulate how.   Tell me how?   Are you going to the Agora as Paul did in Athens or first to synagogues as he did? I think not. Then, how?  What exactly do you hope to accomplish where you are located?

By the way, how do you determine a congregations core values upon which any vision and mission statement must be based? In a congregation, it must come from the bottom up. it cannot be imposed by the leadership. There are many processes to determine them  from small groups input to surveys.  The congregations core values are determined by the over-all culture in the congregation.  What do they really value in practice?– not in the things they should do, but in the things they are doing.

Martha’s poem is on leadership.