If you’ve ever made Macaroni & Cheese, you know there are a few elements that you MUST have to successfully make one of America’s favorite dishes. These bottom of the barrel basics must be present, or it just wouldn’t be macaroni and cheese. They include: (1)pasta, (2)cheese, (3)water, (4)containers, (5)heat. Your STRATEGY for making Mac & Cheese can differ from person to person. For example, there are various kinds of cheese you might use. You might make the pasta from scratch. You can boil it over the stove, cook it in the oven, over an open fire or in the microwave. That said, I think everyone knows, without those five things, we can’t really make the dish or it wouldn’t technically be called “Macaroni & Cheese”.
The same is true for the LOCAL CHURCH. There are a number of elements that are necessary for a church to successfully fulfill it’s mission to reach their communities for Jesus Christ. The STRATEGY behind how each church accomplishes those goals may differ, but for church to happen, each one takes place in some form or another.
10 STRATEGIES OF THE LOCAL CHURCH
After years spent in pastoral ministry and coaching church leaders I’ve identified ten key areas that make up a local church. These are the aspects of ministry within the church which I recommend leaders regularly evaluate, strengthen and develop. It is important to recognize that this series of articles do not outline WHAT your strategy should be in each area. Rather, they represent what strategies your leadership team should clarify and develop for each age demographic of attendees in your church body.
The Marketing Strategy
Any church worth attending should be worth talking about. The Marketing Strategy will determine how well known your church is in the community. It will include traditional methods of advertisement like your website, email campaigns and social media, but it should also take into account the overall ‘culture’ of your congregation when it comes to word of mouth advertising.
The Assimilation Strategy
This strategy includes your “Guest Friendly” programs and processes. It should specifically help to provide a positive experience for your first time and returning guests and eventually lead them down the path of full integration and involvement in the life of your church. Check out other posts focusing on the Guest Friendly Church right here.
The Weekend Service Strategy
This strategy includes all of the systems surrounding the Sunday morning service. Everything you do (or don’t do) to prepare and lead the service, from cleaning the building, worship team practice, bulletin prep, technical prep, sermon prep to facilitating communion, communicating announcement, and ministering at the altar.
The Fellowship Strategy
This strategy is about fostering a church culture where people will develop authentic relationships with one another. Healthy churches encourage and offer ways for attendees to connect with one another and build a biblical community beyond the weekend service experience.
The Discipleship Strategy
This strategy addresses the issue of discipleship among your church attendees. Your Discipleship Strategy describes what the local church is doing to help people become more like Christ in their everyday lives. Understandably, you will have individuals who are at different stages of maturity in their walk with Christ. This strategy ensures there is a plan to provide a foundation to new believers while training, empowering and releasing mature believers as disciplers in the church and community.
The Care Strategy
This strategy concerns how the people in your church and community receive personal and ongoing care during times of physical, emotional, relational, financial, or spiritual crises. Most pastors provide some counselling to church attendees and make pastoral calls to the hospital, but the Care Strategy also addresses how the congregation cares for one another, what you do when someone in the church dies, and how your church will respond during a community or national crises.
The Ministry Partner Strategy (Volunteers)
Effective and growing churches will ensure that church attendees can and will ‘partner’ together in ministry. The pastor will be a facilitator and enabler for others to be ministers to the body of Christ. This strategy outlines how that gets worked out practically. It will answer questions like: How are volunteers recruited into ministry roles? What on-ramps have been created to allow easy access to ministry partnership? How are Ministry Partners being equipped, resourced and encouraged?
The Leadership Strategy
Similar to the Ministry Partner Strategy, but fundamentally different in a few important aspects, this strategy will clarify how you identify, recruit, train, strengthen, and hold your leaders (both staff & volunteer) accountable for the ministry that they lead. An effective leadership strategy centers around a trust-filled environment where relationship and accountability work together to achieve results. The Leadership Strategy also addresses the administration of the oversight setup for the church (elders, denominational authority, etc.).
The Stewardship Strategy
This strategy addresses how the church budgets, spends and manages money and physical resources (like facilities, grounds, vehicles and equipment.) However, it is much more than that. Your Stewardship Strategy encourages regular giving & tithing in your congregation, strengthens families through biblical teaching on personal financial stewardship, and facilitates effective capital campaigns.
The Strategic Planning Strategy
Without regular evaluation, discussion, and ongoing clarity all of the church systems & strategies will eventually decline into sacred cows; bulky & ineffective ministry that is increasingly irrelevant to the church body and community. Your Strategic Planning Strategy ensures that the other 9 strategies, their associated systems and every ministry initiative in the church is aligned with the church mission, vision and values.
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NOTE: To see an archive of past articles on many of these strategies, check out my archived blog at www.waynehedlund.org/category/healthy-church-growth/ten-church-strategies/. Stay tuned on Transforming Church to learn more about each of these strategies!