The First Epistle
Volume 41, Number 34
September 5, 2008
Why a Strategic Planning Process?
Reverend Ligon Duncan
Many of you have heard that the elders of our church have initiated a Strategic Planning Process, and soon will be surveying the congregation for your input on a number of vital issues for the life and ministry of our church. Ruling elder Doug Dale is heading up the Strategic Planning Committee and he will be writing to you with more about the process next week, but I wanted to tell you a little about it and about why we are undertaking it, and then Doug can give you more details next week.
First of all, some of you may be wondering why initiate a strategic planning process? Good question and there are a number of good answers, but here’s one. It has been nearly twenty years since First Presbyterian Church has undergone a formal, church-wide strategic planning process, and the Session believes that undertaking such a process now will help us as a congregation:
(1) Better understand and articulate, and cultivate a greater passion for, the mission of the church. We have had a wonderful congregational mission statement for a number of years, but we wonder how many know what it is and/or are inspired by it to Gospel witness, love and good deeds. A strategic planning process invites and provides a means of reflecting on this.
(2) Better understand and more effectively minister in the local, national, and international environment in which we are placed. Are we sufficiently aware of our setting (our neighborhood, community, and city; the present and future demographic realities that will shape our community), and in light of those realities do we adequately understand our challenges and opportunities, and are we boldly preparing for and responding to them? A strategic planning process can spur us on to do this kind of hard but important thinking.
(3) Better understand the demographics, spiritual health, and perspectives of the congregation as a whole. Our congregation has experienced tremendous growth and turn-over in the last two decades. We are not the people we were in 1990. We have new strengths and weaknesses, new outlooks, new burdens. What are they? The elders believe that a strategic planning process can give you an opportunity to share your voice in a constructive, helpful way, and for them to listen and better understand where we are as a Gospel community.
(4) Better understand the present ministry and resources of the church, and help us assess our deployment of those resources. Are we under-resourcing important areas of ministry? Are we neglecting obvious avenues of ministry that the Lord has opened for us providentially? Are we staffing the church strategically? A strategic planning process can aid these kinds of necessary assessments.
(5) Develop a vision and objectives as a global, national, and local resource church. First Presbyterian Church is one of the largest Presbyterian churches in North America and the largest in Mississippi. We are a flagship church for the PCA. One of the things this means is that we need to have a vision to serve and resource our sister churches through the abundance that the Lord has granted to us. Are we doing this now? How could we do it better? These are answers we’ll be seeking through this process.
(6) Unite the strategic goals of various ministries within the church. We want to make sure that we are working in concert within the whole ministry structure at First Presbyterian. That the left and right hands know what the other is doing and support one another in doing it and are working toward the same ends in mutually helpful ways. The process is designed to help us assess and improve in this area.
More could be said, but this gives you the idea. We hope that this process will help us collect important information and learn about issues from the congregation, church ministries, church staff, and areas external and internal to the church that will affect planning for the future in order to create a new strategic plan that will in turn help us prioritize ministry and resources, and refine our structures, in order to further the biblical mission of First Presbyterian.
I should probably reiterate that the Session authorized the initiation of this Strategic Planning Process, not because of any particular problem in the church but with a view to our opportunities. They want to gather information about the church that will help them evaluate ministry priorities for the next generation, allocating resources accordingly.
If you want more information about this important and exciting process, see the Recent Updates section our website, where we will be adding strategic planning information. We’ll soon post FAQ on the strategic planning process. You can also contact the Strategic Planning Project Manager, Lauren Smith, 601-973-9128, laurens@fpcjackson.org.