Recently I was privileged to offer a Deeper Learning Track at the KidMin Conference in Chicago. The title was called Strategic Planning: Guiding Your KidMin With Purpose (it was a great conference and I would highly encourage you to attend next year!).
During the track we talked in depth about evaluating your children’s ministry, aligning it with the overall mission of the church, defining the culture, creating strategy and following through with your plans, among other things. Strategic planning is difficult, time-consuming and intense. Carrying out the plan is even more difficult! You can imagine the challenges, including:
- getting everyone (including senior leadership) on the same page and backing a strategic plan;
- communicating effectively to volunteers & families enough to begin moving forward with the plan;
- managing change and keeping the ministry on track;
- dealing with the unending distractions – the minutia that can so easily consume children’s ministry leaders;
- any number of other challenges.
- Just get through Sunday.
- Keep doing what we’ve always done.
- Hey, parents (and my senior pastor!) seem happy…we must be doing something right.
When I encounter a children’s ministry & it’s leader(s) settling for the status quo, it’s very disheartening. Can’t we have a vision bigger than that? Isn’t our responsibility, as the leader of this ministry area, to paint a picture bigger than the picture we’re currently serving within?
I think so.
While I believe we’ve got to know where we are at (evaluation) in order to know how to get where we want to go (vision), we can’t let the process of strategic planning keep us from moving forward.
At some point, we’ve got to buy into that Nike slogan and Just Do It.
- Make evaluation a regular, planned, systematic process in your ministry so you don’t get bogged down with it – it should be a natural task for you and your leadership team.
- Understand your unique church environment (culture) in regards to affiliation, size, region and other similar factors.
- Define your vision and the strategy you wish to use to get there.
- Just Do It! Don’t get stuck in “paralysis of analysis”…don’t be afraid of failing…don’t get overwhelmed at the size of the task…don’t listen to those who tell you it can’t be done.
