Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - June/85

Contributor - Murray Moerman

Title - Goal-Setting and Planning

Topic - Focusing on Church Growth

Permit me to brighten your day by quoting what is no doubt your favorite Schullerism. Hold on to your hat. Here it is!

"To fail to plan is to plan to fail."

There, didn't that feel good? Well, even if not, I hope you know it's true, none the less.

Some Reformed understandings of God's sovereignty preclude goal-setting and planning. The argument runs something like this: "If God wants something to happen, it will. If not, who are you to counter God's will by trying to make happen something God has not willed to happen?"

Goal-setting and planning however, are not attempts to overrule God's sovereignty, rather the failure to plan evades our stewardship responsibilities, i.e., by failing to do the most we can with the resources we have.

What then is goal-setting and planning? Those with courage call it: "Writing your history in advance." Those who aye more cautious see it as seeking to gain a vision of where God wants you to be in X number of years and defining the steps required to get there. In either case, if you don't know where you are going, it is doubtful if you will ever get there. And that is disconcerting, or should be, if you share in the responsibility of leadership.

Here's how to begin:

Dream - prayerfully ask: "What would be the greatest contribution our fellowship could make to our community, our nation, or the Kingdom of God?" Make lists of all the ideas offered, whether or not they seem possible or realistic. Don't evaluate or criticize. Let the ideas be offered in an atmosphere of accepting silence. Let your "old men dream dreams and your young men see visions and your sons and daughters prophesy." (Joel 2:28) Seek input from all the congregation; let your youth group contribute, let your committees speak, place a tear-off form in your newsletter or bulletin and encourage anyone who wishes to make suggestions. Have an elder's retreat devoted to brainstorming, no holds barred, and list all dreams, visions and potential ministries and programs.

Determine Needs - ask further: "What unmet needs do we see in our church and community?" You may go about answering this question by the process described above or better, you may go into the community itself to find out. You might use a questionnaire as follows:

Needs Questionnaire

Introduction: Hello, I'm with _________Church and we are attempting to determine the needs perceived by people in our community and wonder whether you would be willing to answer a few brief questions.

1. What do you believe is the greatest need in our community?

2. What would be other needs of nearly equal importance?

a.

b.

c.

d.

3. What needs do you think Christian churches should be meeting that you don't think they are meeting?

4. What would be the greatest need of you or your family?

Run off 100 copies and ask two men and two women who are confident and comfortable with strangers to take 25 copies each and go door to door for responses from the community. Six-thirty to eight p.m. is best in most non-farming communities.

Build on your Philosophy of Ministry - then ask: "What directions should naturally and logically arise out of our church's stated purpose and priorities as expressed in our "Philosophy of Ministry"? Each stated priority should suggest to you other areas of potential ministry.

Now that you have all this input from the congregation, from the community, and from the church's leadership, assimilate these suggestions into one comprehensive list, perhaps subdivided into such categories as suggest themselves. Remember: no suggestion that is not manifestly against scripture is unacceptable.

Now the leadership needs to establish some structure for goal-setting and planning. In our case we find that two short elder's retreats per year, perhaps 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, work well for this purpose. Then, quarterly, we devote time during a regular elder's meeting to evaluating these goals. The discipline of establishing such a structure, or one like it, is important. Important goals are easily lost under routine day-to-day paperwork.

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