When does it make sense for your ministry to engage in a strategic-planning exercise?

When there has been a major change in the external context surrounding your ministry (demographic, economic, cultural, legal, and needs-based considerations).

When there has been a major shift in the internal context of the ministry (attendance shifts, age of members, abilities and spiritual gifts of participants, staffing changes, financial pressures).

When a ministry is stuck in a status quo rut or the people are complacent and uninvolved.

When your staff are working well and trying their best, but what they are doing does not seem to be working, and you want to find out why.

When there is a desire to consider God’s will regarding broadening or expanding the ministry.

Three Dangers of Strategic Planning

After a ministry is finished with the process and the results are announced, it goes right back to dealing only with operational planning and the current urgencies of the moment. The end result will be that the work done in the strategic planning process will make no difference in the ministry.

The ministry attempts to accomplish the whole plan through a shotgun approach, trying to do too much all at once. The participants in the ministry become overwhelmed and revert to self-protection mode. For them, survival means abandonment either of the plan or of the ministry.

The end result of either of the above is that not only will the plan fail to be implemented but also that no one will ever want to do that again!