Two critical processes determine church health: the strategic process, which focuses on defining the goals and purposes of a church, and the operational process, which focuses on developing the programs and procedures of a church. These processes are distinct yet interrelated.

Church strategy concerns such crucial matters as devising church outreach plans, developing ministries to meet congregational needs, determining budget priorities, and equipping lay leaders to carry out the church's mission.

Operations processes are needed to implement strategy, such as visitation programs, secretarial support, and formal and informal communications.

Strategy: Doing Right Things

The strategic process is the goal-determining process. To be effective, strategy must be:

• Christ centered. Goals must reflect God's will for the church.
• Clearly communicated. Goals must be visible to all in the church.
• Consistently constructed. Effective strategy must develop goals that are consistent with one another and appropriately prioritized.
• Consciously committed. Goals will be actively endorsed by church members only if they are personally relevant and participatively developed.

Operations: Doing Things Right

The operations process concerns goal implementation. The church engages in group and individual actions to generate and apply resources. Efficient operations should reflect several criteria:

• Quantity. Are enough time, effort, and resources being applied?
• Quality. Are the right actions being taken with a view to excellence?
• Timing. Are steps being taken when they should be, in the order they should be taken?
• Cost. Are resources being used at the planned rate and in reasonable proportion to anticipated results?
• Accountability. Are actions being taken by the right people?
• Feedback. Are the results of actions being collected, analyzed, and utilized to improve future performance?

Strategy and Operations: Four Positions

To simplify, we can relate strategy and operations on a grid:

For the sake of illustration, we have created four situations showing various combinations of strategic and operational strengths and weaknesses.

Position 1. This church exhibits both effective strategy and efficient operations. Simply put, the church knows what it wants to do and does it well.

Position 2. This church operates with great efficiency but lacks meaningful strategy. Such a church is not always easy to recognize because it is active and efficient. Committees meet, classes are held, budgets are developed, programs are implemented. But in some way the church has a problem with its sense of direction. Maybe its outreach effort is halting or rudderless, or considerable controversy surrounds budget priorities, or certain ministries undermine what other ministries are seeking to accomplish. To say that a church is strategically ineffective does not necessarily mean it is completely lacking a sense of direction. It may be that:

• The church is pursuing so many goals that none receives adequate attention.
• Goals are not communicated clearly or regularly.
• Goals are not reviewed from year to year.
• Goals are not really relevant to the average church member.
• Goals are unrealistic in terms of available resources.
• Goals are trivial or unchallenging.

Position 3. This church has an effective strategic position but is inefficient in reaching and sustaining that position operationally. Operational problems can stem from a variety of causes:

• People. Too few, too many, poorly trained, unmotivated, misplaced, or uncooperative.
• Timing. Action too late or too soon, action improperly sequenced.
• Communication. Too little, too late, too much, wrong kind.
• Organization Structure. Too loose, too rigid, too complicated.
• Control. No standards, no follow-up, no corrective action.

Position 4. This church has neither effective strategy nor efficient operations—it lacks both vision and vitality.

Churches in position 4 may well be characterized by sleepy indifference or arrogant blindness. For example, leaders might be locked in a paralyzing power struggle that saps the congregation's productive energies. Or massive resistance to needed congregational change blunts every effort to grow. Or so few congregation members volunteer their time (or money) that ongoing ministries begin to fall apart.

Principles of Positioning for Church Health

The framework provided by the strategy-operations grid suggests a number of key principles of church health:

The Principle of movement. It is not accurate to say that a church has "arrived" at any one of the four grid positions. Rather, churches should be seen as moving deeper into a present position or moving toward a different position. A church cannot rest; it is a body in motion.

The Principle of gravity. There is a natural tendency for all churches to slide toward strategic ineffectiveness and operational inefficiency (position 4). Movement toward position 1 requires active and continuing leadership. Position 4 movement is the natural result of inattention and inactivity.

The Principle of momentum. Movement from position 1 to position 2 (that is, toward strategic ineffectiveness) occurs as a once-viable strategy is pursued without reexamination or redirection. Strategies are effective because they are compatible with environmental conditions. As conditions change without a corresponding change in strategy, strategy becomes increasingly ill suited for the environment.

The Principle of inertia. Movement from position 1 to position 3 (that is, toward operational inefficiency) occurs as once-viable operations are left unchanged because of the difficulty in altering "the way things are done here." Failure to revitalize operations as conditions change leads increasingly to the wrong things being done by the wrong people at the wrong times.

The Principle of mutual effect. Inefficient operations are likely to erode strategic effectiveness, and ineffective strategy is likely to erode operational efficiency. Put another way, position 2 and position 3 churches are likely to become position 4 churches. Operational inefficiency frustrates strategic accomplishment, thus threatening the commitment to strategic goals. Strategic ineffectiveness makes operational efficiency meaningless, rather like working hard without a goal.

The Principle of myopia. Insiders often have a tendency to misread church problems because of observer bias. Those most involved in church operations commonly perceive operational inefficiency as a symptom (or poor strategy) rather than as a problem. The same is often true of those most involved in strategy.

The Principle of missubstitution. There is a tendency to compensate for strategic ineffectiveness by substituting increased operational activity. There is also a tendency, though less pronounced, to try to remedy operational inefficiency by examining strategic effectiveness issues.

The Principle of entropy. A church which is both strategically ineffective and operationally inefficient will become increasingly less directed and less active unless leaders strive to reestablish the church in a radically new form. Small adjustments to position 4 churches are almost always doomed to failure.

Ten Practical Guidelines for Church Health

The following practical guidelines can be of great assistance to churches seeking to do right things in the right way:

1. Clarify the "why" of church programs and activities before the "how."
2. Derive congregational goals and priorities with maximum participation of members. Remember, participation breeds commitment.
3. Do not equate talking about a problem with solving the problem.
4. Avoid "paralysis by analysis" that stems from incessant committee meetings, routine, and the status quo.
5. Periodically reevaluate the importance and fruitfulness of all entrenched programs and meetings.
6. Hold congregational leaders accountable for results achieved, not hours served.
7. Do not allow new ministries to undermine established ones unless this reflects an agreed-upon strategic plan.
8. Continually remind congregation members of church goals, strategies, and priorities.
9. Avoid going in too many directions at one time. Successful strategy execution demands prolonged commitment, frequent recharging of energy, and considerable patience.
10. Most importantly, unceasingly ask God to guide and direct the church's goals and priorities through enthusiasm born of the Holy Spirit.