Strategic Staffing
Clarity about vision and values has many benefits. One advantage is direction about ministry strategy and planning through a comprehensive ministry action plan. Another is allocating limited financial resources strategically. A third benefit is aligning hiring decisions and staffing with church vision and strategy.
Several items help build a forward-thinking staffing plan:
- Task Charts – Prioritize ministry areas with a view towards current and future staffing needs
- Ministry Models – Consider conventional and creative organizational staffing models
- Process Diagrams – Build ministry process flow charts to better understand current and future staffing needs
Task Charts
Creating a comprehensive task chart of age divisions, ministry areas and key priorities is a logical place to begin any analysis of a church’s staffing and resources plan. Identify important areas and then evaluate how well the organizational plan for staffing and budget lines up with that list.
Ministry areas are not necessarily on the same level (or tier), of course. This is true for a variety of reasons, including available financial and personnel resources, as well as facility, location and demographic considerations. Identify important ministries and place those items in order of priority on the first tier, second tier, third tier and so on. Here’s a sample task chart to illustrate the point:
Ministry Models
There are many useful ways to organize staff and ministry programming. What works effectively in one environment will differ in another context. To help jumpstart creative thinking, take a look at some sample organizational ministry models below:
Process Diagrams
Diagramming ministry process and flow is a useful tool for understanding the “who, what, when and where” of a church’s strategy plan. Process differs from church to church and from context to context. Find two sample process diagrams below: