Goal Setting and Evaluation Is Our Goal!

This week Bob Fuchs, Director of Discipleship, told me that he and Missy Setty, Director of Children's Ministries were discussing their goals for 2017. While this may seem like a typical conversation for church staff members, it actually indicates a change in the way of thinking for staff and leadership of Brighton First.

In 2015, when our church agreed to hire an outside consultant team to review our ministry, one of the concerns that the team expressed was our lack of direction and specific goals. At that time the staff and leadership worked faithfully to accomplish tasks and to create programming and events. And yet, there was no intentional effort to set specific goals for the ministries, to assess the accomplishment of those goals and to plan for the future based on results.

Thanks to the Vital Church Initiative Consultation and the recommendations that the consultation team brought to our church, we are working to be more intentional about setting measurable goals and using the desired results to measure the effectiveness of what we do. In addition, our goals are being informed by the mission and vision for our church.

In goal-setting training, leaders have heard that SMART goals the the most effective. Goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound. We've also determined that before goals are measured that it is important to know who the "stakeholders" are for a particular program, class or event. If we are assessing whether or not we have reached our goals, we need to ask the right people.

So for example, as we prepare to introduce our annual stewardship education program this fall, what are our specific goals and how will we know we've reached them? How do we know that we've made a measurable difference with our "stakeholders", congregation members? The same is true with programs like Vacation Bible School ("stakeholders" are children and parents) and Adult Small Groups (class members).

Tony Robbins, an author and motivational speaker writes, "Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible." The practice of setting goals will allow us to move forward in effective ministry.