As the year winds down, it is an opportunity to pause and refocus on your ministry and direction of the church through prayer, obeying God, and dreaming dreams of what is to come in 2024. Here are three quick and easy way to focus your ministry in the new year.
- Focus on what works locally.
Do not allow someone else’s success to dictate your definition of success. How often have you looked at a church’s social media page from down the street, seen the ‘amazing’ things happening on their campus, and asked, ‘Why not here, God?’ Or what about when you read another pastor’s social media post and instantly get envious of their ‘success’? Know this truth: God has not forgotten about you or your local church. He has called you for a time like this to lead your local church back from the abyss of decline into a period of reawakening.
Realize that what may work at one church, even in the same town, may not work in your current assignment. Focus on what works locally, but be willing to assess the needs of your local community (church family, and neighborhood) and help connect them with the broader community. Lead your church to specialize in an area. Sure, you may want a multigenerational church, but if you do not have it today, lean into what you have and can do best. The church might not have a lot of children, but it has a lot of senior members. Why not become the best senior church it can be? This may mean looking at infrastructure that takes out steps, so it is easier for members to get in and out of the church, host hymn sings, take day trips that are open to the community that seniors would want to attend, develop small groups geared to the desires of that age group, add large font to bulletins and signage, etc.
Churches get caught up trying to catch the younger group and miss a large swath of the population that needs a substantial church home. If you have a younger age demographic in your local church, you might lean the other way with new playground equipment, incredible children’s wings and classrooms, and creative outreach activities geared towards the younger set. Either way, find out what is working and focus on that.
- Focus on who you are trying to reach.
The preparation season is as important as the promised season you hope to lead the church into. Preparation is foundational work that strategically positions the church for future advancement and creative opportunities that will impact the community and ministries of the church. As you narrow your focus on who you can reach today, begin to lay the groundwork for a future shift that will help the church move toward a more multigenerational model. That may mean saving funds for a future remodeling of currently utilized areas—setting aside funds for a forthcoming children’s pastor or senior adult pastor, depending on what side of the generational gap your church is on and to begin to dream dreams again of what the church could be in the future.
Many churches get into trouble because they lean too far to one side of the generational gap and are unable or sometimes unwilling to progress toward the middle to find balance. Use the final weeks of this current year to rethink strategies that will lay the foundation for a future realigning of the church. Do not rush this process, and make sure you include multiple layers of staff, board members, and lay church members in the dreaming process. Evaluate the community demographics, neighborhood needs, future desires and vision of the church when you are thinking through the following steps. Keep an eye on what could happen twelve to twenty-four months from now. Plan what resources must be brought forth, setting aside funds, space, and other resources to move the idea into action and be prepared for what God will do with the church’s faithfulness.
- Focus on the core values of the church.
Who the church is today is as important as who it will be tomorrow. Knowing God’s call on the church, the community it was birthed into, and the reality of the ever-shifting landscape within a community’s social, economic, and spiritual fabric is a crucial component to living out the core values found in the statements of belief of the church. The church’s values are as important as its mission and vision statement. The statements provide direction, but only the values lived from them clarify the call God is leading the church. As change happens in and out of the church, there could be a tendency to retreat from the value set found in God’s Word. Do not shrink back from the church’s biblical mandate to lead others to Christ by preaching the gospel, seeking God’s forgiveness of sin, and allowing the work of the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of those in and out of the church.
God has an incredible plan for the local church. As the world moves closer and closer to a post-Christian world, the local church will have to adhere to its core values to stay true to God’s Word and the calling placed on the church’s mandate from God. As you help the church walk through these final days of the year, help to reinvest in the values found in scripture by praying, seeking God’s will, working together, and investing in others outside the church’s walls.
2024 can be an incredibly fruitful year of ministry if you help the church refocus now to believe again tomorrow.