Brighton First Adopts Two-Year Strategic Plan

On Tuesday, September 13, Brighton First's Administrative Board adopted a two-year strategic plan. The Administrative Board celebrates this important step forward in the ministry of our church. The strategic plan lists specific coherent actions that will be taken over the next two years in the areas of communication, discipleship and community outreach.

In March 2015, Brighton First adopted the recommendations of a Vital Church Initiative Consultation Team. One of the findings of the team was that the church had no specific, cohesive plan in place to move its mission forward. The recommendation, under the leadership of the Administrative Board Chairperson, was that a Strategic Plan Task Force be established to create a plan.

Vince Killewald and John Philips work on strategic plan.

The Administrative Board appointed John Phillips to lead the Task Force in May 2016 and agreed to the members who would be part of the team. John Phillips took the model of strategic planning from the book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard P. Rumelt and adopted it for our use. The team identified several possible diagnoses, identifiable conditions that were keeping Brighton First from fulfilling its mission. For each of the diagnoses, the task force discussed a guiding policy and a set of coherent actions that would address the diagnosis.  While each of the possibilities the team considered had merit, the task force determined to work in three major areas: Communications, Discipleship and Community Outreach.

The strategy writing team was composed of John Phillips, Chairperson of the Administrative Board, Pastor Sherry Parker-Lewis, Dan Welton, Bill Thorsen, and Ron Matkin (administrative board members), and Marsha Ikle and Vince Killewald from the congregation at large.  The team met seven times to work on the strategy and collaborated between meetings using Google Docs, each authoring parts of the plan.

The first goal of the church’s strategic plan is to create a culture of invitation and welcome through clear communication. The second goal is to create a system at Brighton First in which people of all ages have the opportunity to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. The final goal is to send people out into the world to serve in the name of Jesus Christ through intentional relationship building in the community.

In the blog posts that follow, I will offer most specific information about each goal of the strategic plan.