Developing Your Plan

Team Retreat or Workshop: Developing a Plan

With your first team meeting behind you, your next step is to facilitate the team workshop or retreat to develop the elements of your plan.

Basically, your retreat should utilize the key elements of an asset-based approach:

Scripture Reflection: This will be an important Team building exercise and provide outstanding foundational reflections for your Theological Statement. Gospel Based Discipleship is an excellent resource for this reflection, or a simple  exercise in which members are asked to share the passage from Scripture that best illustrates their sense of call to ministry. You can find more on this on the Theological Grounding page.

Gifts Discernment Exercises: Share your passions, hopes, dreams, experiences – by facilitating a conversation that is based in “I” statements, reflection, and personal sharing. Choose a few of the Gifts Discernment exercises that you think participants will enjoy and that will help them understand the process you are engaging.

Asset-Based Approach: Take a bit of time to teach about the asset-based approach and how it is different from the needs based approach.

Asset Mapping: Use the Individual Asset Map section to help Team members develop their maps. Then, develop an Asset Map of your Leadership Team. This will help everyone understand the process and outcomes and guide later conversations about roles and responsibilities.

Initiative outline with task assignments: With asset maps in hand, you will want to facilitate a conversation with the goal of developing an understanding of the following:

• Who is participating in this process? Are you incorporating your entire community? Just a particular ministry area?
• What are the boundaries of your community? How deeply into the community will you research?
• Who is doing the work? Who is writing the plan? Who is facilitating the wider gifts discernment work? Who is working on communications? Are you working in smaller groups or is the whole Leadership Team involved in planning and executing each stage of the process. Use your Individual Asset Maps to guide this decision making.
• What is your timeline? How long do you want to engage this process? One season? One year – two to three years?
• What are your objectives? Can you identify 3-5 goals for your initiative? Ideas include:
  • Raise awareness among members about the concept of gifts and call
  • Build a disaster preparedness and response plan
  • Feed 100 homeless people in our community three times a week
  • Host an after school tutoring program for youth who need it
  • Deepen your involvement in your local community
• Action Steps. What is your to-do list for realizing your objectives? Be as specific as possible. Considering:
  • Who is going to write the final plan?
  • Who is writing the Theological Statement?
  • What is your process for editing and feedback?
  • Who is going to present your Plan to the wider community – and in what way?
  • Who is responsible for each element of your plan?
  • How often will your Team meet?
  • How will subcommittees report back?

Writing Out Your Plan

Your Leadership Team has met and done their planning work. It is time to start putting pen to paper – or fingers to keyboard – and begin writing out your plan. As you undertake this part of the process, be open and flexible. Your plan will evolve as the process unfolds.Here is one shared ministry plan. While the specific format of each plan can (and should) vary by circumstance and faith community, you will want to include the elements listed above.

Most importantly, place your theological statement at the very beginning of the plan. It is the foundation on which your entire plan will rest and will serve to remind you and your faith community that the center of this initiative is your connection to God and your understanding of giftedness.

Your plan can be formatted in any number of ways. You can see in the examples that your plan can be organized chronologically or based upon objectives. What makes sense to you based upon your experience of your faith community? What organization style flows naturally from the style of your faith community?

You do not need to have every detail of your initiative in place before you start writing this plan. For example, you may not know the exact date or format of your gifts discernment workshops. However, you can add gifts discernment as an objective and workshops as Action Steps.

This does not need to be publication-worthy prose. It can be bulleted lists, outline-style, or even dates on a calendar.

Additionally, this plan will grow and change as you further develop your initiative. Make this a living document that can be easily revisited and amended as your initiative expands.

Celebration

Now is the time to share your plan with your wider community. Can you wrap this into a liturgical setting in some way?

Regardless of your timing, celebrating the completion of your plan not only reinforces and recognizes the good work of your Leadership Team but also reminds your faith community about the process and that this is an intentional, integrated approach to a new way of engaging mission and ministry.