If you’re like me, December/January is a time to evaluate the last year, and to set goals for the next year. If you live in the youth ministry world, this might happen in August, too (I usually assess twice a year – August and January).
I found myself at the whiteboard again this past week, looking at the potential for growth in another year of student ministry. But if you’re like me, you might not know where to start. In fact, most of our goals, like our new years resolutions, fade away during the hustle and bustle of the year.
So I started a new system of goal-setting this week. It’s not revolutionary, overly-intellectual, but it helped me zero in on some time-specific goals. This process shouldn’t be organization-specific. It’s pretty transferable. So, here are six steps to outline that process. The first three will be available today. The last three will be published tomorrow.
1. What is the mission of your organization? This should be the first question you ask yourself at the beginning of any goal-setting process. If you can’t “clarify the win” early, you’ll start picking a bunch of ‘really good’ ideas that would be fun to chase after. This is the time to drill down on the mission and vision of your organization. For me, prayer is a non-negotiable in goal-setting for a couple reasons. First of all, I’m asking God what He wants for His people (not what I want). Secondly, He may decide that you are off-mission. Sometimes, we need a healthy reminder. This is so important. I’m afraid a bunch of youth ministries decide which fun events they want to do, so they can have a full calendar. If the goal of your youth ministry is to have fun events and nothing else, then you’ve hit the bingo. This is also important because wasting time means wasting money, and today, who can afford to waste money?
2. What are the dreams that you have for your organization?It’s really easy to say that you want to make more sales, up the attendance, or boost the market share. In fact, let’s just call those ‘givens.’ When you daydream about what ‘could be’ in your organization, why not shoot for that? I’ll tell you why – it’s scary, and darn near impossible. But the other guys are dreaming it. Your competition (church people, I’m not talking about churches. I’m talking about what fights for their attention) is dreaming about what’s impossible. For those of us in the church leadership world, why do we strike the impossibilities from our list? God, Who created this universe, called you to be an agent of change. So far, I haven’t seen Him be a minimalist. He’s got HUGE plans for us! Why not take Him up on it?
3. What worked last year? What didn’t work? What needs tweaking? What needs trashing? This is time for brutal honesty. We all inherently feel like our ideas are good. After all, they are our ideas! The problem with that mindset is that other people have to buy into them. If you’re in business, you need people to buy your product. If you’re in nonprofit, you need people to believe in your mission and methods. If people don’t buy what you’re selling, you have to take a hard look in the mirror and admit that the idea may not work. Still other times, you may feel a deep commitment to an idea, and feel it needs some time to mature. Whatever the case, don’t hold onto a dead or dying idea. Ideas have shelf lives just like food. you wouldn’t eat rotten food, would you? So why would you embrace a rotten idea that could hurt you in the end?
Part 2 coming tomorrow…