Six Strategic Checkpoints for Growth and Impact

Allan Kelsey, Gateway Church

Does your church have a clear strategy?  Why your church staff culture depends on these six, strategic checkpoints.

Fact: The health of your staff culture—and quite likely your church’s ultimate ministry impact—will rise or fall, flourish or decay based on how you respond to these Six Strategic Checkpoints.

In fact, they might be the six most important inroads to take your employee engagement and workplace culture to the next level.

Leave it to Allan Kelsey, Executive Strategic Pastor at Gateway Church (Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas) to pinpoint all six, beginning with . . .

1. The Current Challenge: Face it Together

“To build a healthy culture and improve our employee engagement,” says Allan, “it’s not just that we know where we're going, but it’s that we know how we’re going to get there together.”

What staff culture challenge are you facing right now? Write your initial thoughts, below. . . .

2. Your Goal: Unity

Says Allan, “We’ve come to agree that being 80% correct with 100% unity is way better than 100% correct with about 80% unity. Helping all our teams know 80% of what the right thing to do is next creates a lot of natural energy, forward momentum, and unity."

Given the fact that Sustainable Strategy is one of the eight drivers of a healthy, flourishing culture, why is unity so necessary in your planning? Your thoughts . . .

3. Key to Execution: Create Strategic Clarity

“At Gateway, We’ve evolved from a single church entity to a multi-site campus and we needed to bring strategic clarity to who does what on our team. This has required each campus to care for the people, develop a core of team building, and maintain community. Meanwhile, our central team remains committed to developing content to ensure our communication is clear, concise and consistent throughout each of our campuses."

What unifying strategy clearly points to improved employee engagement and an overall healthier, flourishing culture? Your thoughts . . .

4. Ideal Strategic Process: Prayer Before Planning

With a look of humble confidence, Allan says, “Our strategic process begins with prayer and submission to God. Then we look at the previous six months; look at the results. We assess the good and bad, get clear about what today’s circumstances look like and then make new plans around some shared objectives for the next six months. It’s the common objectives for all 11 campuses that feed our engine of change."

Your thoughts . . .

[shareable cite="Allan Kelsey"]"Being 80% correct with 100% unity is way better than 100% correct with about 80% unity."[/shareable]

5. A Theory of Change: Hearing, Believing and Obeying God

“We believe churches can sometimes put the cart before the horse if they strategize and then ask God to bless it. The sequence really matters. We should wait on Him and hear what, where and why He wants to go, then put our best thinking against those instructions to create the strategy. Sometimes our learnings and God’s leading can occur simultaneously, but you need to be able to walk away from your strategic planning and honestly say;

'For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to…'(Acts 15:28).

“Gateway’s theory of change that drives outcomes is the simple process of HBO--hearing, believing and obeying God, which advances Intimacy with God. Consequently, if an equipping class is not advancing people in their intimacy with God through HBO, then we don’t do it."

What is God saying to you in how you start your strategic planning process?

6. Your Distinctive Advantage: Don’t Go Alone

“Currently at Gateway, we have tremendous scaling challenges,” says Allan.  “Even with great resources, we lack ready talent. Because we need rapid deployment, we keep 'pinching' talent from across the organization to invest their healthy DNA in our new campuses. Such scattered pilfering is not sustainable, so we’re working on a model called '+1.' Mid-level (and up) leaders doing meaningful, learning-related work shouldn’t go it alone; they need to bring a '+1' colleague with them. We’re trusting such proximity induction will accelerate readiness for our next, emerging leaders."

What’s the memorable word, phrase, or number (like ‘+1’) that can instantly point everyone to your distinctive plan and/or targeted results? Thoughts . . .

A big thank you, Allan—and the vibrant, growing ministry of Gateway Church and Senior Pastor Robert Morris—for demonstrating how these six strategic essentials and practical encouragements can equip and inspire your staff to advance the work of God’s church here on earth.

It's Your Turn

What colleague or fellow leader at your church would you like to send this post, along with your thoughts?

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