I still remember the very first Strategic Plan ever developed by the staff of Christ’s Church of the Valley (CCV).
It was 2002. I was a volunteer, very involved at our church in a number of ways. Our senior pastor had asked me to take a few days off of work to lead the staff through the process of developing a Strategic Plan.
The “document” itself turned out to be a trifold that contained mission, vision, values, etc.
We’re still doing it, but the document has evolved a bit. I would say it’s evolved to a document that’s high on content and short on explanation. Over time we were thinking, “Everybody gets it. We don’t have to keep explaining it.”
We’ve realized of late, though, that much of the vision casting and explanation related to Strategic Planning happened a very long time ago. Years ago, in fact. Our “Why plan?” and “What does this really mean?” discussions have long since been had. But, much of our current staff wasn’t around then, and we’re finding that a document that’s high on content and short on explanation, is no longer good enough.
So, we’ve gone “back to basics,” when it comes to the document itself. Each section of the plan has a few sentences (in some cases a few paragraphs) that explain the section. You know … what it is and why it’s important.
Here’s a listing of the document’s sections:
- Statement of Purpose
- Mission Statement
- Vision Statement
- The 5G’s
- Core Values
- Critical Strategies and Key Objectives
- Personal Planning
- Key Performance Measures
I plan to post each of these new sections separately over the next few weeks. As I post each section, I’ll come back to this post and make each of these section titles a link to the relevant post.