The FaithX Project

Strategic Missional Consulting

Missional Planning for Dioceses: Where Do We Go from Here?

by Ken Howard

This the 7th and last post in a multi-part series. Click here to read the previous post.

Step 4 – Where Are Our Future Opportunities and Threats? (Investing in The New). Think of this in term of ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky’s immortal wisdom: “I don’t skate to where the puck is, I skate to where the puck is going.” In other words, it is insufficient to just know where there are people in need of ministry, to whom your churches could uniquely minister. You must also understand where you have no presence, and what you would have to do to be present there.

To do this, you would want to start by identifying all areas of your diocese which are not within 15 minutes of another congregation of your denominatiuon. These are areas where your diocese does not have a functional presence (since 70% of people will not drive more than 15 minutes to attend a congregation) and which merit more research as possible sites for new congregations, using the same three community population trends identified above to refine your search:

  • Population Growth. Growing or shrinking? (Growing is better)
  • Diversity. Increasing or decreasing? (Increasing is better)
  • Generational Balance. More balanced or less balanced? (More is better)

Example – Assessing Sites for New Church Starts Based on External Sustainability:

 

 

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Missional Planning for Dioceses: Vision, Context, and Stewardship of Resources

 

by Ken Howard

This the 6th post in a multi-part series. Click here to read the previous post.

Step 1 – What is God calling us to be? (Vision). What we are looking for here is succinct statement of what you have collectively discerned that God is calling you collectively to be and to do. It is a description of what the diocese wants to be when it grows up, the belief that drives all other beliefs, the passion that drives all ministries and programs, a vision the people find worthy of their faithfulness, even in the face of failure. You should be able to reduce it to a one or two sentence “sticky meme” that anyone can recall and repeat. And you should revisit in any time you engage in strategic planning.

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Missional Planning for Dioceses: An Introduction


by Ken Howard

This the 5th post in a multi-part series. Click here to read the previous post.

In our last several posts, we discussed the what it means to be missional and how to go about developing a missional plan for a congregation.

In this next series of posts, we move up a level in the ecclesiastical food chain for a discussion of how to go about developing a missional plan for a diocese, district, synod, or other adjudicatory.

It’s harder to develop a missional plan at the diocesan level than at the congregational level: not because of the process but because of the politics. The process is easier because there are fewer demographic “moving parts” to track. But the politics are harder because an honest diocesan mission plan cannot avoid venturing into the political minefield of resource prioritization and reallocation questions. Because nothing opens up fissures in the fabric of a diocese like talking about opening, redeveloping, and closing congregations, especially closing. Because every congregation that needs to be closed has a “great,” emotion-driven story about why they shouldn’t be, while diocesan leadership haven’t had ready access to the information necessary to create a convincing data-driven story about why they should. Which is why many dioceses avoid this kind of planning altogether or abandon the effort after running into political roadblocks.

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Missional Planning for Congregations: Where Do We Go from Here?

by Ken Howard

This is the fourth of several posts in the multi-part series on Missional Planning
Click here to read the previous post

Step 6: What Does This Say About Us? (Sustainability).

The data about your communities not only teaches you about your neighborhoods and the people, they also can teach you something about the internal sustainability, external sustainability, and vitality of your congregation.

  • External Sustainability. Data trends on things like population growth, diversity, and generational balance, along with the number of same-denomination congregations located within your MissionWeb, can tell you something about whether the community has the capacity―in people and resources―to support a congregation.
  • Internal Sustainability. Examining similar trends in your congregation, such as attendance, diversity, child-to-adult ratio, and income, can tell you something about whether your congregation has the capacity―in people and resources―to support itself.
  • Vitality. Examining whether your congregation has sufficient desire and will to adapt to the characteristics, needs, and aspirations of the communities and people around it can tell you something about your congregation’s vitality.

For a free resource to help you dive deeper into the question of sustainability and viability, go here to download a copy of our Congregational Vitality Assessment: http://bit.ly/FaithXCVA

 

Step 7 – Where Do We Go from Here? (Making Plans).

This could be a blog post all by itself, but suffice it to say that if you include the following information, you are on the right track:

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Missional Planning for Congregations: Who Are Our Neighbors?

by Ken Howard

The third post in a multi-part series on Missional Planning.
Click here to read the previous post.

Step 2: Who Are Our Neighbors?

The next step is find out as much as we can about the characteristics of the people who live in your neighborhoods. We say neighborhoods (plural) because the community in which God has planted your congregation is actually a collection of communities: a neighborhood of neighborhoods, each of which have their own character and characters. And marketing research shows that there are definable subgroups within the general population that share similar demographic characteristics, values, and behaviors.

There are several kinds of data you can study to develop a clear picture of the people in your neighborhoods.

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