Strategic Learning

by Todd Rhoades


Churches, like other organizations, fail to develop because they don’t take learning seriously. In Becoming a Strategic Leader, authors Richard Hughes and Katherine Beatty show us how strategy ought to incorporate a learning process. Here’s an overview that adapts the authors’ ideas to the church.

1) Assess where you are. This requires collecting relevant info that makes sense of your church in the community. Go beyond mere attendance and income stats. Measure the percentage of regular attendees who are involved in ministry inside the church and outside the church. What percentage of adults is in a small group? How many new people have begun attending during the last year, and how many of these were non- or new believers? What are the demographics (age, gender, education, marital status, etc.,), and do they match the surrounding neighborhood?

2) Who are we and where do we want to go? Describe the aspirations of your church. Don’t do this as a lone ranger. Start with the pastoral staff, ministry leaders, and church board. List the vision, mission, and core values, and then see how you’ve lived these out during the last year—in your calendar and in your budget

3) Discover how to get there. Target the critical elements of a strategy. What will it take to get you from where you are now, point A, to where you want to get, point B? This may require you to look at other ministry models, read books, bring in a consultant, or take a trip to a church that’s accomplished something similar to what you want to accomplish. Most churches should avoid trying to model the mega teaching churches. We learn best from those who are one step ahead of us, and we teach best those who are one step behind us.

4) Take the journey. This means translating strategy into actions. What are the tactical ways that your plan is becoming incarnate? Do you ever go back to analyze what you’ve done to see if it truly reflects your values and vision and where you intend to go?

5) Measure your progress. What assessments have you developed that provide a good evaluation of how you’re doing? Ultimately, this begins the next cycle of a learning strategy because it provides input as to how you’re doing and where you need to go next in order to accomplish your mission.

These five components of a learning cycle, while basic, tend to be missing from the standard operating policies of most churches. Unless you can articulate specific ways that you address each of these five steps, assume that you’re probably not incorporating learning as part of your strategy. This is the sort of stuff that church boards and leadership teams should be involved with so they can provide guidance for the ministry implementers and help steer the ship in the right direction. Even Scripture says, “By their fruit you will know them.” (This article is the second in a four-part series on Becoming A Strategic Leader, Jossey-Bass.)

SOURCE: Rev! Online