Church Ministry Plan in Church Administration

A church is a fellowship of persons who have received Christ. They are attempting obediently to live the way of Christ. They are attempting faithfully to work with Him to bring others to God.

The purpose of church is to be the design of relationships for this fellowship. How can a church move toward realizing its purpose? How can those of the fellowship we call church progress from where they are to where they think God wants them to be? How can a church live His way more obediently? How can a church work more faithfully with Him to bring others to God? How can a church truly be the church of the living God?

This is the ministry of a church. Work Plans of a Church In other chapters we have seen how important it is for a church to clarify its purpose and determine its objectives. We have identified a church’s purpose and objectives as the great ends toward which a church should work.

They are the “softly-lofty” areas of church administration. They represent a church’s ideals, its guiding lights. They are vitally important. But these lofty ideas and ideals must be translated into specific plans in order to have the most value. The “softly-lofty”” must come in contact with the “nitty-gritty—the everyday world in which we live.

That is what a church ministry plan—a church program—should do for a church. It should help a church to do what it should do to move toward its objectives and its purpose. That is what this chapter is about. Careful study of this chapter should help you to grow in your knowledge of what is involved in developing a church ministry plan. You should also be better able to do a more effective job of leading your church to plan its ministries.

A Good Plan Is Effective and Efficient

You could add numerous other questions as you think of making a dream trip. Your questions and the answers to them could be called a plan. Your plan could be as simple or as complex as you choose. If the plan enables you to go where you want to go with maximum effectiveness and efficiency, it is a good plan. Your trip could be all you hoped it would be. A church should be on the move. It should be trying to become what God wants it to become. In this sense it is on a trip. There needs to be a plan for this trip. Questions about why, where, who, when, how how many, how well, at what expense, and other such questions should be asked and answered as part of the church’s plan. This plan is more than just a trip plan—it is a plan for ministry. Some call it the church’s program.

A Program Is What You Do

A church program is what you do as an expression of your awareness of and commitment to the church’s purpose and objectives. It should be planned in relation to the needs of persons, both in and out of the fellowship. It is what a church does to be obedient to Christ in trying to live His way and to be faithful in working with Him to bring persons to God.

The Church Calendar Is the Map

The visible map for this trip is the church calendar of ministries—the church calendar. Admittedly, there is much more ministry going on in most churches than is placed on the church calendar. There should always be those ministries of spontaneous response of individuals and groups, even the whole church, to the needs of persons. But no church should just sit back and wait for its ministry to happen by accident. The church has a commission. The church has His command and His gifts. A church must seek His guidance and use His gifts intentionally in ministry.

The Ability to Plan Is a Gift of God

One of the good gifts of God is the capacity to anticipate the future, and to decide, under His will, what we intend to do in that future. That is an implication of James 4:13-17, which concludes by saying, “Whoever know what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (RSV).

We are made in His image. We have personality. We have potential for eternity. We have the capacity for moral discernment. We have the ability, like Him on a limited scale, to plan—to think in the future tense.

What animals can do by instinct, people can do by intent. Whoever fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Avoid Presumptuous Planning

To be sure, people must not be presumptuous in planning. The Bible has much to say about presumptuous planning, and all of it is condemned. But to fail to plan so as not to be presumptuous is not of God. To refuse to plan and then pretend that this refusal is an expression of faith in His power to accomplish His will and way is a cope out. From the human standpoint, to fail to plan is to plan to fail. People don’t control God by their plans, but they do limit His control by not planning.

Values of Planning

A person might ask, “What value is it to plan ministries? What are some benefits of planning versus not planning?” Let’s mention several values of planning.

Planning Leads to Progress

Planned ministries can lead to progress instead of mere repetition. It can help a church move toward its objectives, and not just go round and round doing all the same things every year for no better reason than that it is time again to do them. There are some things which need to be done repeatedly, seasonally, year in and year out. But there are some other things waiting to be done which will not be accomplished without planning. Planning can help make those repeated ministries take on more appeal and meaning for more people.

Planning Builds Continuity

Planned ministries can help build in continuity in the church’s program. There is so much fragmentation, so much discontinuity in so much of life! Many of the ministries of a church can be planned and conducted in such a way as to have both progress and continuity which people need. Here we are not advocating stagnation but stability. For example, a church needs to plan for continuing ministries in education—Bible

teaching and learning, membership training, leader training, missions education, and others. These ministries need as their main “diet” to follow continuing curriculum plans. Temporary, short-term curriculum should only be supplementary, not the main course. Otherwise you are always starting and stopping, like repeatedly cranking your car in the driveway and never getting out to the street.

Planning Reflects Unity

Well-planned church ministries reflect unity. There is a variety of gifts. But these gifts are to be exercised and used in ways which are complementary, not competitive. Our diversity of gifts can be magnified in power when expressed in planned unity—not uniformity— unity! The various tasks of a church need to be planned to be supportive of one another. For example, those who are responsible

for leading a church to proclaim the gospel to believers and unbelievers can have better results if those responsible for training people to witness are planning and working intentionally to complement the proclaiming task.

Planning Develops Leaders and Members and Brings Others to Christ

Properly planned and conducted ministries develop leaders and members, and bring others to Him. While working together in planning, leaders get to know and to love one another more. It is in planning, as in praying, that we share our burdens, our hearts’ desires for the fellowship and for the lost. As And most would agree that more of the lost are won to Christ through intentional witnessing than are won by accident.

Leaders in Planning

The Pastor

Who should lead in developing a church’s ministry plans—its program? The pastor has the primary individual responsibility, privilege, and sometimes burden of being the one person to whom the church looks for significant guidance in the life and work of the church. The vast majority of churches—approximately two-thirds in the Southern Baptist Convention—have only the pastor, with no other staff. There is no way the pastor can be absolutely excused from the responsibility of leading in church planning. But, similarly, there is no way for the whole responsibility to be placed rightly on the pastor. The pastor must be an influencer of the planning but not the lonely doer of it all.

The Church Council and the Pastor

Lead in Planning Church Ministries

In most churches which have planned ministries, the Church Council is the group with whom the pastor works to lead in developing the plans.

This Church Council brings together leaders of the major church program organizations—Sunday School, Church Training, music ministry, Woman’s Missionary Union, Brotherhood, and the deacons. In some churches, key committee personnel, as well as some staff leaders, are related to the Council. Together these leaders, with the help of the pastor, study the needs. They propose major goals and plans

for meeting them. Then they relate their individual program organizations to the planning process by leading their planning groups to do detailed planning to support the church’s broad goals.

Planning Is Hard Work

This kind of planning involves a lot of work. The pastor, staff members, church program organization leaders, committee chairmen and members, and many others will spend great amounts of time if they are to have an effective church minis-try plan. But remember, they will also likely see far more accomplished as a result of their planning than they would without it. And they will experience personal growth and development in the process. There often is a feeling that a great part of the work is finished with the completion of the planning. That is an accurate notion. Although much work remains after planning is initially completed, a major part of the work of ministry is accomplished when good plans have been made under His will.