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The 26 Purposes for Strategic Planning 
An Excerpt from “Advanced Strategic Planning” by Aubrey Malphurs
- To discover the organization's strengths, limitations, and weaknesses. Every organization, whether Christian or not necessarily Christian, has strengths, limitations, and weaknesses. Out of all that it needs to accomplish for effective ministry, its strengths are what it accomplishes well and its weaknesses are what it does not accomplish well. Its limitations are those areas of ministry that it is not qualified to do and likely should not even attempt. The process of planning in this book asks the organization’s strategic leadership team to take some kind of ministry analysis in the preparation stage so that it will know what its limitations are.
- To build on its strengths and minimize its weaknesses. Some believe that leaders should seek to improve or at least minimize their ministry’s weaknesses to become strong. This is not correct. To become strong, you must maximize those areas where you are strong and either work around or hire others to address the weaknesses.
- To facilitate organizational communication and build the organization's trust. One of my favorite statements to leaders and strategic planning teams about a congregation is “if they do not trust you, you cannot lead them!” And one of the most important ways to win trust is through truthful communication. When you fail to communicate what you are planning, people become suspicious.
- To understand and implement spiritually healthy, Christ-honoring change. To do this involves a theology of change. We must know what the Bible says about change so that we can know what must change and what must never change.
- To get our people―leadership team and Conference―on the same page. While this is impossible on every issue, it is possible on the major issues that really matter, such as who you are, where you are going, and how you will get there. As people agree on these issues, many others will fall into place as well, promoting church unity.
- To encourage and promote spiritual revival. While all churches need to experience spiritual revival, those that are tired, discouraged, and struggling needed to address it yesterday. Regardless, this is a vital step in assessing your ministry’s readiness for strategic planning. This establishes a spiritual foundation for the rest of that process.
- To discover and articulate your ministry’s core values. This gets at your core identity, your DNA, or who you are as a church or organization. The importance of core values is that you act on the basis of who you are. All the decisions you make are values-driven. Values are the key to knowing why you do what you do or do not do what you should do.
- To develop and communicate your God-given mission. In addition to knowing who you are―your identity as a Conference and church―you need to know where you are going. This is a directional issue. Navigators use their compasses to get them to a port. Do you know your Christ-given direction? Do you have a ministry port?
- To develop and articulate an inspiring, compelling vision. A dream―like a mission―addresses a ministry’s direction and paints a picture of that destination. The result of a powerful dream is that people get excited about the organization's future. Vision fuels a passion in people to want to be a part of the future.
- To understand and relate more effectively to the community. Every church is located in a community and is responsible to minister to the community. Acts 1:8 has geographical implications. Who lives in your neighborhood? Who is unchurched and without Christ? To minister effectively to the community, you must know and understand your community and its culture, especially those who are unchurched.
- To develop a disciple-making process for the entire church. The mission of the church is to “make disciples” (Matthew 28:19-20). The question is, How will your church accomplish this? The answer is to design a unique-disciple-making process, using the maturity matrix in chapter 9 developed by the Malphurs Group especially for you.
- To assess, recruit, and develop a strong staff team. Whether your staff consists of one person or one hundred, you must help them know how they are―their DNA (core values), their divine design (gifting, passion, and temperament), and where they fit best in ministry. You must consistently encourage them and put in place a leadership development process to help them grow deeply as leaders.
- To mobilize the Conference to serve and do the work of the ministry. According to Ephesians 4:11-13, the congregation, not the pastor or staff, is to accomplish the church’s ministry. This entails a three-step process of discovery, consultation, and involvement that launches the believer on a lifetime of ministry fruitfulness.
- To make wise decisions about the facilities and their location. Churches must meet somewhere, and we have discovered that their care and the location of their facilities are strategically important to ministry to the community. Churches must determine if they are best positioned to reach their community, or if they need to relocate for maximum effectiveness.
- To inventory and assess current giving. What does the congregation think about giving? Do they understand what the Bible says about stewardship? Do they feel that the pastor preaches too much on giving or not enough? Are they willing to give more or less? Conference and church leadership needs to know what people know and think about these core financial issues.
- To explore new streams of giving to increase current income. Most churches are ministry-limited due to a lack of financial resources. The problem is that they depend on only one or at the most two sources of income when God provides others as well. Does your church know what these other sources are? How can you discover and explore these other sources?
- To design a stewardship strategy to help people be good stewards of their finances. Conferences and churches must build good stewardship into their fabric. People do not give what they should because most organizations do not have in place a good strategy of stewardship that touches every ministry in a Christ-honoring way.
- To analyze and evaluate the organization's budget, looking for ways to best handle the finances. Simply because an organization has a budget does not mean that it handles its funds wisely and biblically. Organizations need to know how much money to direct toward personnel, programming, missions, and facilities. They need to discern whether the budget is outreach or in-reach oriented and where there is unnecessary waste.
- To raise additional funds and to direct capital funding projects. In addition to their normal giving, every organization needs an occasional “kick in the pants”. Conferences and churches need to explore ways and means of encouraging people to give sacrificially.
- To know how to implement the entire strategic plan. An organization can design the finest, most biblically oriented plan that never happens. Doing must follow thinking, and doing involves ministry implementation.
- To regularly evaluate and improve the organization's ministries. How does an organization keep from growing stale and becoming brittle? How does an organization improve what it does? The answer is ministry evaluation. Organizations that constantly evaluate all phases of their ministries not only improve those ministries, but innovate well.
- To discover the ways God is blessing organizations across America and abroad and why. Most churches realize that it is not “worldly” to know what is going on in society and churches across America and the world. This helps them understand people as well as observe what God is doing. A good strategic planning process addresses this through the use of an environmental scan.
- To know and work with the latest technology (Internet, website, and other). Organizations must keep up with and employ technology in their ministries to best serve the Savior. Otherwise, they lag behind in needed technological development.
- To empower the governing board and pastor to lead with excellence. It is imperative that pastors and their governing boards work together for effective ministry. This involves a policies approach that provides role guidelines and proper distribution of power.
- To build a lay and staff leadership development process. All organizations must develop their lay and staff leadership if they are to minister with impact. Many are talking about it, but few are doing it.
- To develop a marketing strategy that will best position the church in the community to glorify God. The purpose of the church is to glorify God, especially among the unchurched, unbelieving people who make up the church’s community.
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