The “actionable” part of the Strategic Plan consists of critical strategies, each broken into key objectives. Critical strategies are the highest-level objectives that begin to break the plan down into its different and distinct areas of focus. Key objectives are the detailed actions identified under each critical strategy.
The church’s critical strategies and key objectives are outlined below:
(1) Numerical Growth – In order to increase the church’s reach in the local community and beyond and to fund more and more ministry activities, numerical attendance growth must continue to be a major focus. The goal is to grow average weekly attendance to x,xxx by the end of 2016 (x,xxx adults, xxx students, and xxx kids).
(1.1) Commit to planning and executing 12 “big Sundays” every year that will function as a “parallel” to what’s happening programmatically in adult, student, and children services.
(1.2) Focus on and invest in getting the word out about these 12 “big Sundays” by advertising in as many ways as possible (banners, step stake signs, newspapers, billboards, radio, other?).
(1.3) Knowing that the most effective “advertising” method is encouraging the congregation to invite a friend, increase the frequency of “invite a friend” (invite cards, stage pushes, etc.) pushes from the previous 4 “growth” weekends of the year to 12 times/year in support of the new 12 “big Sundays” growth strategy.
(1.4) Commit to executing two direct mail campaigns (Easter and Christmas Eve) every year.
(1.5) Given the church’s dependence on weekend services and special events to attract and retain new people, develop and execute a plan to radically improve everything about the “entrance to exit” experience.
(1.6) Fund numerical average weekly attendance growth to x,xxx by the end of 2016 through a 3-year “Growth” capital campaign.
(1.7) Formalize and document the church’s “Missions Strategy” before the end of 2014.
(1.8) Plant a 2nd campus by the fall of 2017.
(1.9) Drive growth in numerical attendance through the development of growth objectives in each ministry area.
(2) Conversion – The church’s strategy continues to be reaching people who are not yet Christ followers. Therefore, helping people to cross the line of faith continues to be a high priority. The goal is to baptize x,xxx people by the end of 2016.
(2.1) Keep the need to be baptized as well as the church’s aggressive goal of x,xxx baptisms constantly in front of the congregation.
(2.2) Help new people get connected through a monthly “welcome class” held the same Sunday each month, making it easy to promote.
(2.3) Keep a focus on getting people connected and in relationships with others, with emphasis on spiritual growth, through volunteer teams and groups.
(3) Discipleship – After conversion, engage new believers in developing themselves into fully devoted followers of Christ, fueling the church’s growth through an ever-expanding base of growing believers. The goal is to grow small group attendance to 50% and volunteer participation to 75% of average weekly adult attendance by the end of 2016.
(3.1) Improve the weekend service as a tool for developing believers through significant improvement and investment in teaching and moment creation.
(3.2) Help new believers understand what it means to follow Christ, beginning to live out the 5G’s through regular Foundations Classes, facilitated by staff and lay leaders and scheduled to accommodate everyone.
(3.3) Develop, document, and implement a Donor Development Strategy that continuously increases giving per capita.
(4) Organizational Effectiveness – Strengthen and enable the church to execute this plan through focus on leadership development and organizational infrastructure.
(4.1) Establish leadership development and personal growth plans and goals for staff, resulting in an increase in overall organizational effectiveness.
(4.2) Renew the church’s focus on Leadership Evangelism as the primary means of identifying and deploying new leaders.
(4.3) Improve the church’s ability to grow through the development of infrastructure strengthening objectives in each ministry area.
(4.4) Develop and execute a plan to revamp the church’s Information Technology infrastructure, moving from a PC based network and hardware to MAC and use of the “Cloud” for file sharing, business processes, etc.
(4.5) Take development, documentation, and implementation of all ministry and church business processes to the next level, with renewed emphasis on development and expansion of the Management System.
Working with the Ministry Staff, the Executive Staff adds or modifies critical strategies and key objectives as part of the annual planning process.