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Advantages of Doing Ministry Without a Ministry Strategy

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The Killing Cockroaches Summer Tour visited The Orchard near Chicago on Wedensday. I had a great time with the church leaders gathered there. Then we made a pit stop in Granger, Indiana to visit our previous neighborhood friends before heading to my hometown of Piqua, Ohio. We’ll be hanging out here for a couple of days with family before moving on to Columbus for the next stop of the tour.

All of this travel over the last couple of weeks reminded me of a previous road trip. This one was out west. And, among other places, I had the opportunity to visit Nothing, Arizona. That visit inspired this post:

Nothing, Arizona

So I’m reading Robert Scoble’s blog the other day (doesn’t everybody?), and I read his post about Google’s lack of strategy being a strategy. It reminded me of my visit to Nothing, Arizona earlier this year. You’ve probably not heard of Nothing, Arizona because it’s essentially…nothing. Here’s the sign that hangs in the center of the town:

nothing, arizona

As you can see, the people of Nothing had a vision for Nothing that involved nothing. There’s really not much to the town of Nothing. There’s a gas station, called the “All Mart” and a couple of trailers. Nothing was their vision, and it resulted in nothing.

Well, these thoughts about lack of vision, or a vision of nothing, got me in a particularly fiesty mood and I began to list some of the advantages of doing ministry without a ministry strategy. Since my last Top 10 list was so well-received, let’s see how this one does. Here are:

10 Advantages of Doing Ministry Without a Ministry Strategy

  1. You give the loudest person the opportunity to decide what happens at your church.
  2. Sharp leaders who are accustomed to serving in organizations with clearly defined plans for future growth won’t stick around your church. That means more ministry for you!
  3. You’ll get to hone your debating skills as people argue about what to do next. [continue reading>>]

What would you add to the list of advantages of doing ministry without a ministry strategy?

Hot Strategy Topics

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My next coaching network meets for the first time a week from Friday. Before we gather, I asked the guys involved to rank the strategic topics we might discuss. Here’s how they ranked the proposed topics:

  1. Personal Development
  2. Leading Up/Laterally
  3. Discipleship strategy
  4. Growth Strategies
  5. Volunteer strategy
  6. Communications
  7. Structure
  8. Staffing
  9. Multi-site
  10. Financial stewardship
  11. Series planning

Want to know something funny? With the exception of possibly financial stewardship, I probably would have ranked those topics completely the opposite way. Isn’t God funny? He pulled together a group of guys that are going to stretch me. Needless to say, I’m probably the one who’s going to do the most learning over these next six months.

By the way, what topic do you think is missing from the list? If you were going to talk with a group of your peers about general ministry strategy, what would you want to discuss?

Ministry Strategy Webcast Replay

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Earlier today, I had two Q&A sessions with church leaders gathered at our NewSpring Greenville campus. We also had about 160 leaders watching via the web. I took questions from those in the room and those who were watching online. Here are the two sessions.

Free Ministry Strategy Webcast

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If you don’t have anything important on your schedule tomorrow afternoon (Thursday, December 11), you may want to join us for a free webcast. I’ll be at our Greenville campus meeting with a handful of ministry leaders who are joining us for our all-staff meeting. They’ll be asking questions. I’ll try to provide answers or ask more questions. I’ll also be taking questions from webcast viewers. It’ll be live. And, because I know you’re cheap, it’ll be free.

Here are the details:

  • First session starts at 1:15-ish (Eastern time)
  • Second session starts at 2:30-ish (Eastern time)
  • Live video webcast will be on my Mogulus channel.
  • Watch my Twitter updates for exact start times.

Feel free to start asking questions by leaving comments on this post. By the way, I happen to believe there are stupid questions. I can’t make any promises that I’ll answer all the questions I receive. Just because I don’t answer your question, though, doesn’t necessarily mean I think it’s one of the stupid ones…though it could be.

You’ll see me tomorrow. Hope to see you in the chat room.

That’s Quotable [Kate Sweetman]

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Kate Sweetman, author of Leadership Code: 5 Rules to Lead By, as quoted on FastCompany.com (November 14, 2008)

“Strategy is often delegated upward to the CEO or senior management team, which have a legitimate responsibility to shape the direction of the entire company. But strategic traction comes when employees at all levels of the company not only understand where the company is going, but they are excited by it, remember it, and know what to do to make it happen in their day-to-day decisions. They will have valid points of view about how the strategy will be operationalized internally, including which difficulties need to be overcome and how.”