I had a reader who was recently appointed the responsibility of creating the annual church budget.
She asked for help in creating a meeting agenda, preparing to lead the church budget meeting and tips for keeping the group moving forward.
Leading a budget team meeting can be a fun and productive experience. The secret is being prepared.
There is a lot more to leading a budget meeting than meeting with a team. Read the Full Article →
Let’s be real. No one goes into ministry because they like to ask people to give money.
In fact if you ask, most pastors they will tell you that it is the least desirable part of their job.
However, churches need to have the financial resources to be able to sustain their existence and fulfill its mission and vision.
The church is no different from a business because, in order to achieve their goals, consistent cash flow is necessary. Read the Full Article →
Strategic planning is an important part of the creation, development and growth of any organization. Ministries that are interested in church growth are not exempt from planning.
Church planning helps the organization map out strategic steps to achieve its mission and vision.
Churches can experience a level of success without a plan, but those who invest the time and resources into developing a specific strategy and plan can achieve success at a much quicker pace.
Read the Full Article →It is hard to comprehend that another year has come and gone. As we close out this year, hopefully your church has been preparing, planning and writing church goals for the year to come.
One goal that many churches focus on is growth. Churches want to reach more people and reaching more people is an outcome of growth.
Growing a church requires a vision, thought and strategy.
Read the Full Article →I don’t know if you listen to Andy Stanley’s leadership podcasts or not but if you don’t it is a great resource for church leaders.
Anyone who has ever listened to Andy knows that he is a great communicator and addresses many of the challenges church leaders face every day.
One of his recent podcasts titled, Trust vs Suspicion is a great teaching on how to steer a church employee culture toward trusting that others are doing the right thing and encouraging employees to demonstrate behaviors that warrant trustworthiness. Read the Full Article →
Managing a church facility is very similar to managing any other type of building or campus. The only difference being churches often use volunteer labor to help get the job done.
This approach provides volunteers with opportunities to give back to the ministry and allows the church to maintain its campus with a limited church budget.
Churches can be very busy campuses with activities going on almost daily.
Read the Full Article →Fulfilling a church’s mission requires taking the time to develop a strategy, planning the steps to get it done and management of the process.
Managing the process requires identifying who needs to do what, by when and holding them accountable for what they are responsible for doing.
Part of the church strategic planning process is setting church goals and objectives.
Goals should be written so they are measurable and should be an outcome of the strategic planning process.
Goals simply map out steps to achieve a strategic objective and do not need to be overly complicated. But, implementation of goals does require discipline and a commitment to follow-through to completion. Read the Full Article →
I went to a conference earlier this year and rode the airport shuttle with one of the conference instructors.
When he learned that I was also attending the conference, we began talking about all sorts of things but performance management (PM) and more specifically performance appraisals (PA) came up.
He had very strong feelings about why he thought performance appraisals were a waste of time and ultimately added no value to the employee or organization. Read the Full Article →
Every church is challenged with balancing day-to-day job responsibilities with achieving goals that help take the organization to the next level.
Churches grow and advance to the next level by achieving objectives that are determined by a strategic planning process.
These objectives are articulated through well written church goals that are filtered throughout the organization. However, there needs to be a strategic approach to ensure goals are accomplished. Read the Full Article →
