Administrative Board Reviews Strategic Plan in August

The Administrative Board of Brighton First charged a Strategic Plan Task Force with creating a strategic plan for our church, informed by our mission and vision. The Task Force submitted a draft of their proposal to the Administrative Board in July for review. The Administrative Board will discuss the plan, make changes as needed and approve the plan.

The three major goals of the proposed 2-Year Strategic Plan are Know God-Inviting and welcoming all people into the congregation; Love God-Helping people to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ; Serve God-Sending people out into the world to serve in Christ's name.

The process through which the strategic plan was developed is based on the work of Richard Rumelt, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. The group began with a "diagnosis" of a problem, determined a guiding policy and created a group of coherent actions that would lead to addressing the diagnosis.

John Phillips and Vince Killewald served as part of the
Strategic Plan Task Force

The three main goals set for in the strategic plan are: 1. Create a Culture of Invitation and Welcome at Brighton First. 2. Create a system at Brighton First in which people of all ages have the opportunity to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. 3. Send the people of Brighton First out into the world to serve in Christ's

The final content of the Strategic Plan will be determined by the Administrative Board. When this is accomplished, the plan will be shared with the congregation.

Completing the Strategic Plan is an important part of fulfilling Brighton First's commitment to completing the recommendations of the Vital Church Initiative Consultation Report.

Administrative Board Reviews Strategic Plan in August

The Administrative Board of Brighton First charged a Strategic Plan Task Force with creating a strategic plan for our church, informed by our mission and vision. The Task Force submitted a draft of their proposal to the Administrative Board in July for review. The Administrative Board will discuss the plan, make changes as needed and approve the plan.

The three major goals of the proposed 2-Year Strategic Plan are Know God-Inviting and welcoming all people into the congregation; Love God-Helping people to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ; Serve God-Sending people out into the world to serve in Christ's name.

The process through which the strategic plan was developed is based on the work of Richard Rumelt, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. The group began with a "diagnosis" of a problem, determined a guiding policy and created a group of coherent actions that would lead to addressing the diagnosis.

John Phillips and Vince Killewald served as part of the
Strategic Plan Task Force

The three main goals set for in the strategic plan are: 1. Create a Culture of Invitation and Welcome at Brighton First. 2. Create a system at Brighton First in which people of all ages have the opportunity to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. 3. Send the people of Brighton First out into the world to serve in Christ's

The final content of the Strategic Plan will be determined by the Administrative Board. When this is accomplished, the plan will be shared with the congregation.

Completing the Strategic Plan is an important part of fulfilling Brighton First's commitment to completing the recommendations of the Vital Church Initiative Consultation Report.

Strategic Plan Development Team Holds First Meeting

Under our Vital Church Initiative plan, the chairperson of the Administrative Board has been charged with leading the development of a strategic plan for our church. John Phillips, our chairman, has called the Strategic Plan Team together and outlined a process for moving forward.

The team is meeting every Tuesday night for the next two months. Their goal is to have a strategic plan outlined and prepared to present to the full Administrative Board in July.

At their first meeting, the team discussed the objective of the group, resources they will use and their experiences in strategic planning.

John Phillips led the team through an exercise based on Richard Rumelt's book, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. The team was asked to offer a "diagnosis" for a condition that connects our community and our church, to consider guiding principles that would shape our problem solving and to list comprehensive actions that could be taken to change outcomes.

The team created the "diagnosis": there is a growing number of people in our community who have no affiliation with a church and those people are not likely to come through Brighton First's doors. They team determined that their guiding principle would be: Brighton First congregation members are called by God to do ministry outside the walls of the church. The team suggested several coherent actions from effective marketing to relevant ministries to equipping congregation members to offer invitations.

The exercise was not intended to create strategy immediately, but to offer practice in the process.

If you are interested in learning more about our Strategic Planning work, contact John Phillips. Members of the Strategic Planning Team include: John Phillips, Sherry Parker, Dan Welton, Vince Killewald, Cheryl Colloton, Marsha Ikle, Ron Matkin, Bill Thorsen and Olivia Karaska.

Richard Rumelt suggests in his book, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, that there is
a core content for any effective strategy: diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent actions.

Strategic Plan Development Team Holds First Meeting

Under our Vital Church Initiative plan, the chairperson of the Administrative Board has been charged with leading the development of a strategic plan for our church. John Phillips, our chairman, has called the Strategic Plan Team together and outlined a process for moving forward.

The team is meeting every Tuesday night for the next two months. Their goal is to have a strategic plan outlined and prepared to present to the full Administrative Board in July.

At their first meeting, the team discussed the objective of the group, resources they will use and their experiences in strategic planning.

John Phillips led the team through an exercise based on Richard Rumelt's book, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. The team was asked to offer a "diagnosis" for a condition that connects our community and our church, to consider guiding principles that would shape our problem solving and to list comprehensive actions that could be taken to change outcomes.

The team created the "diagnosis": there is a growing number of people in our community who have no affiliation with a church and those people are not likely to come through Brighton First's doors. They team determined that their guiding principle would be: Brighton First congregation members are called by God to do ministry outside the walls of the church. The team suggested several coherent actions from effective marketing to relevant ministries to equipping congregation members to offer invitations.

The exercise was not intended to create strategy immediately, but to offer practice in the process.

If you are interested in learning more about our Strategic Planning work, contact John Phillips. Members of the Strategic Planning Team include: John Phillips, Sherry Parker, Dan Welton, Vince Killewald, Cheryl Colloton, Marsha Ikle, Ron Matkin, Bill Thorsen and Olivia Karaska.

Richard Rumelt suggests in his book, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, that there is
a core content for any effective strategy: diagnosis, guiding policy and coherent actions.

Administrative Board Begins Development of Strategic Plan

On Tuesday, May 10, Brighton First's Administrative Board took action to develop a strategic plan for the ministry of our church. Board Chairman, John Phillips, described the resources to be used and outlined the process. Several members of the Administrative Board volunteered to be part of the writing team. The Board also suggested other church members to invite to the team. The Strategic Plan Development Team will have its first meeting on Tuesday, May 17.

John Phillips, Chairman of the Brighton
First Administrative Board and his wife, Kris

Why develop a strategic plan? The Vital Church Initiative Consultation Report states, "Strategic planning is key to seeing your ministry direction become a reality.  Your strategy helps you to accomplish several things: (1) to explore your ministry community and identify who you are most likely to reach; (2) design a process that will mold them into Christ’s disciples; (3) to mobilize the congregation, developing and aligning volunteers to maximize disciple‐making; (4) evaluate your facilities in terms of reaching your target; and (5) develop a stewardship plan for resourcing your goals."

In other words, the strategic plan gives our church direction and that direction helps us determine allocation of resources, leadership and discipleship training needs and building needs.

The Administrative Board, at John Phillips recommendation, has chosen to use the book Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard Rummelt as a guide for strategy development. Rummelt suggests that every effective strategy has, at its heart, fundamental content. John Phillips explains the three main elements needed in these notes from Rummelt's book:

"A diagnosis defines or explains the nature of the challenge. A good diagnosis simplifies the often overwhelming complexity of reality by identifying certain aspects of the situation as critical. A guiding policy deals with the challenge. This is an overall approach chosen to cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis. A set of coherent actions are designed to carry out the guiding policy. These are steps that are coordinated with one another to work together in accomplishing the guiding policy. Good strategy is not just "what" you are trying to do. It is also "why" and "how" you are doing it."

The goal is to have a draft of the strategic plan ready for presentation at the July meeting of Brighton First's Administrative Board. If you have any questions, please contact John Phillips.

Administrative Board Begins Development of Strategic Plan

On Tuesday, May 10, Brighton First's Administrative Board took action to develop a strategic plan for the ministry of our church. Board Chairman, John Phillips, described the resources to be used and outlined the process. Several members of the Administrative Board volunteered to be part of the writing team. The Board also suggested other church members to invite to the team. The Strategic Plan Development Team will have its first meeting on Tuesday, May 17.

John Phillips, Chairman of the Brighton
First Administrative Board and his wife, Kris

Why develop a strategic plan? The Vital Church Initiative Consultation Report states, "Strategic planning is key to seeing your ministry direction become a reality.  Your strategy helps you to accomplish several things: (1) to explore your ministry community and identify who you are most likely to reach; (2) design a process that will mold them into Christ’s disciples; (3) to mobilize the congregation, developing and aligning volunteers to maximize disciple‐making; (4) evaluate your facilities in terms of reaching your target; and (5) develop a stewardship plan for resourcing your goals."

In other words, the strategic plan gives our church direction and that direction helps us determine allocation of resources, leadership and discipleship training needs and building needs.

The Administrative Board, at John Phillips recommendation, has chosen to use the book Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard Rummelt as a guide for strategy development. Rummelt suggests that every effective strategy has, at its heart, fundamental content. John Phillips explains the three main elements needed in these notes from Rummelt's book:

"A diagnosis defines or explains the nature of the challenge. A good diagnosis simplifies the often overwhelming complexity of reality by identifying certain aspects of the situation as critical. A guiding policy deals with the challenge. This is an overall approach chosen to cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis. A set of coherent actions are designed to carry out the guiding policy. These are steps that are coordinated with one another to work together in accomplishing the guiding policy. Good strategy is not just "what" you are trying to do. It is also "why" and "how" you are doing it."

The goal is to have a draft of the strategic plan ready for presentation at the July meeting of Brighton First's Administrative Board. If you have any questions, please contact John Phillips.

Vital Church Initiative Implementation Team Reviews Past Year

T-shirts with Brighton First's mission
statement logo have just arrived!

The Vital Church Initiative (VCI) Implementation Team met on Wednesday, April 20. The team began their meeting with a point-by-point review of the consultation recommendations (see consultation report in PDF form at link on right side of this page). Brighton First's Church Conference voted to adopt the recommendations on April 19, 2015. The team began by celebrating what the congregation has been accomplished over the past year.

This is a partial list:

• Hosted a goal setting workshop and a worship workshop.
• Sent church leaders to various workshops.
• Wrote and adopted vision and mission statements based on our core values.
• Improved communication of VCI progress with Pastor Sherry's blog
• Began work on a mission alignment audit that will be completed this summer
• Reconfigured staff positions to accomplish vision
• Staff completed study and workshop covering "The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team" and have more training planned.
• Hired worship consultant Rev. Cathy Townley
• Made adjustments in worship preparation and leadership to create spiritually moving and transforming worship in all worship services.
• Hired worship leader Mike Tooman to develop a new band-led worship service for 11:00 Sunday mornings, with preparation through the summer and the launch of the service in October 2016.
• Created a Worship Design Team to guide all aspects of worship.
• Created a Hospitality Taskforce led by Larry Job that wrote a plan for hospitality.
• Created a Hospitality Team, led by Olivia Karaska, and implemented intentional improvements in Sunday morning hospitality.
• Created a Discipleship Team, led by Karen Wagg, to create and implement a discipleship program. 
• Hired Director of Discipleship Bob Fuchs to support and guide development of intentional discipleship program
• Completed an all church study and worship series "Just Walk Across the Room"
• Preparing to launch worship series "The Art of Neighboring" worship series in May.
• Introduced a Spiritual Gifts Inventory created by Rev. Loretta Job to the congregation. Over 100 people have completed the inventory and shared the results. The inventory will be used with new members and attendees. Results of the inventory have been entered into a database.

Even with these many significant actions toward vitality, the VCI Implementation Team knows there is still much to do. Critical tasks left to be done include planning and implementing

ongoing leadership training, creating a strategic plan for the church, launching a new worship service and offering significant community outreach events. The VCI Implementation team is committed to seeing these tasks completed within the next year.

If you have questions, please talk to a member of the team: Bob Fuchs, Karen Wagg, Dan Welton, John Phillips, Kris Phillips, Sue Urban, Chris Attarian, or Sherry Parker-Lewis.

Please keep the VCI process in prayer. Through the work accomplished and the ministry to come we are committed to knowing, loving and serving God in the name of Jesus Christ.

Vital Church Initiative Implementation Team Reviews Past Year

T-shirts with Brighton First's mission
statement logo have just arrived!

The Vital Church Initiative (VCI) Implementation Team met on Wednesday, April 20. The team began their meeting with a point-by-point review of the consultation recommendations (see consultation report in PDF form at link on right side of this page). Brighton First's Church Conference voted to adopt the recommendations on April 19, 2015. The team began by celebrating what the congregation has been accomplished over the past year.

This is a partial list:

• Hosted a goal setting workshop and a worship workshop.
• Sent church leaders to various workshops.
• Wrote and adopted vision and mission statements based on our core values.
• Improved communication of VCI progress with Pastor Sherry's blog
• Began work on a mission alignment audit that will be completed this summer
• Reconfigured staff positions to accomplish vision
• Staff completed study and workshop covering "The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team" and have more training planned.
• Hired worship consultant Rev. Cathy Townley
• Made adjustments in worship preparation and leadership to create spiritually moving and transforming worship in all worship services.
• Hired worship leader Mike Tooman to develop a new band-led worship service for 11:00 Sunday mornings, with preparation through the summer and the launch of the service in October 2016.
• Created a Worship Design Team to guide all aspects of worship.
• Created a Hospitality Taskforce led by Larry Job that wrote a plan for hospitality.
• Created a Hospitality Team, led by Olivia Karaska, and implemented intentional improvements in Sunday morning hospitality.
• Created a Discipleship Team, led by Karen Wagg, to create and implement a discipleship program. 
• Hired Director of Discipleship Bob Fuchs to support and guide development of intentional discipleship program
• Completed an all church study and worship series "Just Walk Across the Room"
• Preparing to launch worship series "The Art of Neighboring" worship series in May.
• Introduced a Spiritual Gifts Inventory created by Rev. Loretta Job to the congregation. Over 100 people have completed the inventory and shared the results. The inventory will be used with new members and attendees. Results of the inventory have been entered into a database.

Even with these many significant actions toward vitality, the VCI Implementation Team knows there is still much to do. Critical tasks left to be done include planning and implementing

ongoing leadership training, creating a strategic plan for the church, launching a new worship service and offering significant community outreach events. The VCI Implementation team is committed to seeing these tasks completed within the next year.

If you have questions, please talk to a member of the team: Bob Fuchs, Karen Wagg, Dan Welton, John Phillips, Kris Phillips, Sue Urban, Chris Attarian, or Sherry Parker-Lewis.

Please keep the VCI process in prayer. Through the work accomplished and the ministry to come we are committed to knowing, loving and serving God in the name of Jesus Christ.

Brighton First Administrative Board Reviews Its Purpose

There are three primary purposes of the Administrative Body of Brighton First. The most essential purpose is to guide the church, holding all programs, ministries, missions of the church accountable to the mission and vision of our church, "Know God. Love God. Serve God". Two other purposes of the board are to act on behalf of the Church Conference (meeting of all church members) when it is not in session and to approve the annual financial budget of the church.

As the name implies, the Administrative Board, is called to do administrative work. It votes to fill church officer positions when the church conference is not in session. It reviews a monthly treasurer's report and adjusts budget when necessary. The Administrative Board, which meets 9 to 10 times per year, also hears reports from chairs of committees and boards, as well as the lead pastor.

If not careful, the Administrative Board can lose sight of its primary task, and spend the majority of time during meetings hearing reports of what has happened and what is planned in the near future. This does not leave time and energy for the group to thoughtfully consider the church's mission and to hold church ministries and missions accountable to it.

Over the last few months, John Phillips, the Administrative Board chairman, has been asking church officers to submit written reports for the review of the board before the meeting. In theory, this will cut down on the time given to reports during the Administrative Board meetings. There is time on the agenda for clarifying questions and for the required actions of the Administrative Board, but the majority of the time can be given to accountability to mission and vision.

At the March meeting of the Administrative Board, its members discussed a format for making sure our church is accountable to its mission, its primary function for each meeting. It is only when we join together in clearly pursuing one goal, to make disciples for Jesus Christ through knowing God, loving God and serving God, that we will move forward as a unified, vital church.

Essentially, the Administrative Board will be moving for an administrative body that hears reports of the current work of the church, to a body that reviews progress through measurable goals and expects long term goals and accomplishments to share one vision and bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to our community and beyond. Please pray for the Administrative Board as it makes this transition.

Brighton First Administrative Board Reviews Its Purpose

There are three primary purposes of the Administrative Body of Brighton First. The most essential purpose is to guide the church, holding all programs, ministries, missions of the church accountable to the mission and vision of our church, "Know God. Love God. Serve God". Two other purposes of the board are to act on behalf of the Church Conference (meeting of all church members) when it is not in session and to approve the annual financial budget of the church.

As the name implies, the Administrative Board, is called to do administrative work. It votes to fill church officer positions when the church conference is not in session. It reviews a monthly treasurer's report and adjusts budget when necessary. The Administrative Board, which meets 9 to 10 times per year, also hears reports from chairs of committees and boards, as well as the lead pastor.

If not careful, the Administrative Board can lose sight of its primary task, and spend the majority of time during meetings hearing reports of what has happened and what is planned in the near future. This does not leave time and energy for the group to thoughtfully consider the church's mission and to hold church ministries and missions accountable to it.

Over the last few months, John Phillips, the Administrative Board chairman, has been asking church officers to submit written reports for the review of the board before the meeting. In theory, this will cut down on the time given to reports during the Administrative Board meetings. There is time on the agenda for clarifying questions and for the required actions of the Administrative Board, but the majority of the time can be given to accountability to mission and vision.

At the March meeting of the Administrative Board, its members discussed a format for making sure our church is accountable to its mission, its primary function for each meeting. It is only when we join together in clearly pursuing one goal, to make disciples for Jesus Christ through knowing God, loving God and serving God, that we will move forward as a unified, vital church.

Essentially, the Administrative Board will be moving for an administrative body that hears reports of the current work of the church, to a body that reviews progress through measurable goals and expects long term goals and accomplishments to share one vision and bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to our community and beyond. Please pray for the Administrative Board as it makes this transition.