Strategic Planning for Sunday School

Written by Joe Morrow

To keep Sunday School relevant and effective in a changing world, the Sunday School Council needs to take responsibility for planning for the vital reaching, teaching, and caring ministry of the church. However, planning the way we have known it may be inadequate today.

Planning today must be strategic - Planning must provide an overall direction for the Sunday School. Strategic planning engages the 20 percent of the actions that produce 80 percent of the results. Strategic planning discovers those key windows of opportunity that permit the best to be accomplished with available resources.

Planning for action - The purpose of strategic planning is to change minds so that new perceptions of reality form. The new reality will allow Sunday School leaders to envision new possibilities. Too many planning reports gather dust on office shelves rather than being used as guides for accomplished ministry. The effectiveness of ministry must be evaluated by results, not intentions. Strategic planning is valuable only when effective ministry results.

Planning Processes - This process uses known data (usually Sunday School and congregational statistics and community demographics) to project possible future trends. This is a good planning process to some degree; but if it is the only one used, strategic planners may miss some important information.

Consequence forecasting - Strategic planners using this method anticipate positive and negative consequences of any projected external event and attempt to identify the implications of the event. In many communities, businesses are downsizing or relocating, expressways are being built, and new suburban housing units are being developed. All of these events, as well as others, directly or indirectly affect churches and their Sunday Schools in given communities. Thus, alert Sunday School leaders forecast consequences in their strategic planning efforts.

Futures positioning - In this effort, a Sunday School Council clarifies its mission and determines how the Sunday School will accomplish ministry best in a changing world. For example, more people are unable or unwilling, for a variety of reasons, to come to a church building on Sunday morning. More people are also searching for positive relationships.

Wise Sunday School leaders, using this aspect of strategic planning, could shift paradigms for the Sunday School. Bible study groups could meet in homes throughout the week rather than just on Sunday. These groups can focus in a more leisurely setting with a longer time to meet.

Scenarios - A scenario is simply a story with a possible outcome. After the Sunday School Council collects the pertinent data on church and community, the information is given to a creative writer or a team of creative writers who are responsible for producing two or three possible scenarios on the future of the Sunday School in the context of the congregation and community. Scenarios can engage Sunday School leaders and members at a deep level. They put the facts in terms many people can understand - story forms.

Planning Principles - Effective strategic planning using a variety of processes allows the Sunday School Council to recognize and understand events and changing conditions in the church and community and make appropriate action plans. If the endeavor is to succeed, strategic planners will also honor several principles.

Plan to minister for the right reasons - The Sunday School’s goal is not to become the largest church in town. Our competition is not Christians of other congregations; rather, our competition is our secular culture of unbelief. Our mission is to call folks to Christ and the church.

Blend Sunday School planning into the church’s strategic plan - Planning for the church and for all church organizations may happen at various times but must never be at cross purposes. A church, as the body of Christ, has a ministry system in which the components are interdependent; what affects one affects the others.

Ensure coordination of the goals set by the strategic plan. If evangelism is a top priority, Sunday School leaders need to prepare for training teachers, care leaders, and outreach-evangelism leaders and for the assimilation of unchurched persons into classes and departments.

Provide the leadership essential to successful implementation of the strategic change - Leadership is the key resource to any human activity, secular or spiritual. Leaders give vision, direction, guidance, and communication for people on journey together.

Build accountability into the strategic plan - Every goal must have a person responsible for the accomplishment of that goal by the needed time with the necessary human and physical resources for support. Regular checkpoints in the plan allow natural evaluations of the progress made and midcourse corrections to be projected.

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