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Beginning ministryLeadershipWomen's Ministry

Planning for Strategic Ministry

By March 2, 2017April 11th, 20223 Comments

Before you can plan, you need to know where you are going. That is why the preparation aspect of ministry planning, that I wrote about in the previous blog and discussed on the 1st video is so important. When you sit down to begin to put your ministry plan together, you should have a good picture of where the ministry is currently and of your vision. The vision does not have to be perfect, but the old saying, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time,” is true. (Think about that!)

Once this is fairly clear, begin to work out the strategy for where you want to go. You are going to start breaking down the vision into goals and action steps that will take you there. Out of everything you could do or want to do, what are the three or four must do’s or most important things that will influence the most people, grow your ministry and achieve your vision?

Years ago when I first began the process of ministry planning for women’s ministry, our vision was something like this, “To make a difference in women’s lives by helping them follow Jesus Christ, develop a hunger for His Word, serve in love and seek the lost for His glory.” This morphed over the years, but it was a great starting point as we were excited to bring women’s ministry to a more intentional level.

From that vision, we determined some goals and they came right out of our vision statement.

  • Help women grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ
  • Help women get established in the Word
  • Help women learn to serve in love
  • Help women understand how to live out the gospel

From those goals, we developed some strategies:

  • Help women grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ
    • Model growth from leadership to all
    • Provide opportunities to hear the stories of other women and their walk with Jesus
    • Create safe environments where women can be real, ask questions and take next steps in their faith journey

From these strategies, we designed programs, events and studies. Since we wanted women to grow spiritually, we knew we needed Bible studies for all ages and stages. We knew we needed to incorporate biblical truth and principles into all programs and events. We knew women needed to be inspired and motivated to grow as they heard stories of others who grew in their faith and whose relationships with Christ were active and growing. And, we knew we needed to encourage women to attend worship services and be involved in a small group since that was an overall goal of the church.

To reach goals and implement strategies, action steps needed to be determined. Again, we broke it down to decide specifically how to make it happen. This step will also help lead you to make decisions on who is responsible for what (leader, chairman or volunteer team), what they are to do (ministry descriptions) and when it should happen (timelines).

  • Help women grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ
    • Model growth from leadership to all
      • Appoint women to leadership who are actively pursuing their relationship with Christ
      • At each leadership meeting, ask one leader to share with others how she is growing in her faith
      • Equip leaders with discipleship materials and ideas

I share this example so you can see how the process came about. The real work and fun starts when you begin to implement your action steps. Make sure you are including others from your board, ministry team or co-workers in developing this plan. You will want their input, ideas and accountability. If you give the time and prayer needed to this process, the results will leave you more focused, productive and confident.

Next up: Proceeding with your Ministry Plan.

Watch Claudia on video discussing this topic.

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