Have you given much thought to what your church will look like in five years. In the not so distant past organizations used to talk about doing a twenty year plan, but things are changing too quickly to try to think twenty years ahead. We can think out about five years . What will your church look like five years from today? Approximately how many people will be attending your services? What services will you offer five years from now? What will the immediate community around your church look like in five years? Who will you be reaching? The list of questions could go on and on, but are you asking these kinds of questions?
In my workshops I often tell the participants that their churches are today what they decided five years ago, ten years ago, and even twenty years ago what they would be. It may not have been an intentional plan that people had for their churches, but they made decisions years ago that continues to impact their churches today. I then tell them that their churches will be five years from now, ten years from now, and even twenty years from now what they decide today that they will be.
Unfortunately, my experience has been that most smaller, bivocational churches have little vision for their future. They are focused on surviving today and most aren't interested in thinking too far ahead into their future. The result of such thinking is that five years from now those churches will look very much like they do today only they will be a little greyer and there will be fewer people. Is that really God's plan for His church?
Of course, having a vision isn't enough. There must be action on the part of the church to make that vision come to pass. There has to be some intentionality on the part of church leaders to set and reach achievable goals. There also has to be widespread agreement from most of the congregation that these are the right goals. Such agreement will make it more likely that a majority of the church will get behind them.
Let me ask again, what will your church look like in five years?
1 comment:
Thanks for your blog - I find it interesting and thought-provoking. I hope our church can include more of our neighbours in five years (or less). I must put some thought into how God might want to do that and ask Him to show me and my church what His plan would look like for that. Thanks
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