More Planning: Foundational Pillar 3

This eight-part series focuses on “more.” Sunday School becomes ineffective without any of these pillars and cannot grow without doing more in each of these pillars. The pillars include more purpose, more teamwork, more planning, more trained leaders, more groups, more member and prospect care, more new members, and more disciple-making. Will you commit to more of these eight pillars this year?

To commit to more purpose and teamwork but fail to plan produces poor results. Additionally, excitement without action produces frustration. What can you do to increase effectiveness and growth through more planning?

More Planning

This pillar is listed third because purpose and teamwork are critically essential to planning. When the team gathers to plan while considering the purpose, the fruit of that planning will tend to be excitement, ownership, and energy along with better plans.

So is “more” planning really necessary? I mean, is it not possible to add purpose and teamwork and be able to get better results from even less planning? Theoretically it is possible. Here is the problem: if you involve more team members in the planning, you are really also increasing the planning?

More planning will happen at least three times during the course of the work. These times will include

• group planning when done together in a meeting will often result in goals set, plans made, assignments, and reports of work done;
• individual planning when done to prepare for a planning meeting or to carry out assignments from a meeting; and
• cooperative planning when team members work together to prepare for or carry out assignments or work with other individuals or teams within the church.

Some ideas of planning meetings which might be required could include

• annual planning meeting to evaluate, dream, identify needs, prioritize, set goals, and make plans;
• regular update meetings to get training and hear reports of progress since the last meeting and determine next steps; and
• subgroup meetings where individuals meet together or with other church leaders to focus on assignments.

More planning will seldom become a burden when purpose and teamwork are involved. But additional planning will result as the team shares in the purposeful planning rather than allowing it to reside with a really small group of leaders. Don’t forget to seek God’s leadership for your plans! Make disciples. Be revolutionary!

Photo by Daniel McCullough on Unsplash