Hey Friends -

I hope your new ministry year is kicking off with a bang! It is always an exciting time, and the cycle of a New Year always invigorates me. One of the things I love about a New Year is starting the planning done in November/December. Today, I want to talk a bit about these plans and how we can better approach them.

Goals Drive Plans
You can work hard on some amazing plans, but unless there are goals attached to them, those plans will just linger on a whiteboard, note, or in a conversation at the beginning of the year. You have to set goals throughout any plan to measure your progress. These goals also allow you to stair-step the project.

If a goal isn’t met, it doesn’t mean failure. It simply means you need to adjust some of the specific tasks you are doing to get there. This is what Daniel Im refers to as input goals and output goals. One of the basic steps is learning to tell the difference between the two.

Be appropriate
Larger goals sometimes require mini-goals. I’ve said this before, but sometimes a mini-goal is gaining competency and understanding of the exact problem you are trying to solve. One of my first steps in everything is research and theory. I want to understand why there is something that has to be different. As much as I love action, I’ve learned that what sometimes looks like non-action is necessary before getting to the actual work.

Build a new world, not a new outcome.
We often feel the need to drive change in ministry. That is one of the major shifts in the past 50 years of church work. But here is the thing…change only comes when we are able to create an entirely new world. We can’t get a different outcome when nothing changes. Often, the biggest driver of a changed outcome is a new world.

As you think about your plan and those first steps of being appropriate, think about what an environment would look like where the natural outcome is the change you want to instill. This is more of Im’s input goals/output goals.

It might look like this.

Goal: Greater Impact and Participation in Youth Ministry

Mini-Goal: Find out what the current participation rate is. Learn who is engaged in that ministry area and who is not.

Mini-Goal: Is this about interest in the current program? If interest is low, then something new might need to be created. If interest appears to be high, or the program is already rock-solid and key to communication, it might be a communication problem. Discern this. Talk to people involved and not involved.

Mini-Goal: Audit the ministry to make sure it can handle any new growth. Do you need more leaders, a bigger space, or to split the ministry into an appropriate size? If you want more Youth, how many do you currently have? It might be 15 students in 6th-12th grade. Splitting them into middle school and high school might be the biggest driver of change. What might need to happen to make this a reality?

Mini-Goal: Meet with the team and draw out a plan for the interior re-organization. Find those leaders, look at the schedule. Once this work is done, create a communication plan and direct it towards those who could participate. Send some focused emails directly to the parents, telling them the why. Have leaders and volunteers engage with the students who aren’t active and invite them to be part of something new. Enlist current and engaged youth in inviting their friends in the church and outside of the church.

Think about your plans for the ministry year. Do you need to do some investigation work and structuring to make sure you hit those goals? Try this framework.

Chad

PS. Both of my courses, Becoming Productive and The Working Notebook Template System, will be going up in price at the end of the month. If you need a better strategy for planning, the 2nd half of Becoming Productive is for you! If you've been thinking about either of these courses, now is the time to grab them.