So you feel uncertain about the future and it is unclear how you should lead your church forward? You desire to future-proof your church? This is completely understandable because the future is seemingly vast with no clear indications of what is going to happen. This puts pastors and ministry leaders like you and me on our heels trying to navigate through the fog. Well, it is time we get ahead of the curve and start looking through the fog. This way we can gain an understanding of what the future holds for us and our churches.
You can future-proof your church through
- Framing
- Horizon Scanning
- Trend Analysis
- Scenario planning
- Choosing a Preferred Future
- Strategic Planning
- Implementation
Introduction
Do you remember the photography company Kodak? What about the movie store Blockbuster? The cellphone company Nokia? I am sure you have heard of Atari, right?
If none of these names ring a bell for you it is because they no longer exist. Those that still exist are irrelevant existing in small niches in a corner of the world. If you have heard of these companies, then you know how successful these companies were at one time. They were all worth millions of dollars and most of them were industry leaders. They were the ones setting the market trends and leading the way in innovation.
However, all of them fell victim to a lack of strategic foresight. All were unprepared for major industry shifts. They became mesmerized by the present by being too focused on the immediate needs here and now. Every one of them was ill-prepared for the future and the changes in their industry. Their lack of preparation sunk them. It forced them to close their doors or slink into the shadows of irrelevance.
A similar list could be compiled of churches. I am sure can think of a church in your community. A church that fell victim to a change they were not prepared for. It may have been a shift in the community, a change in ministry styles, or even an adjustment to how people lived their lives.
However it may happen, churches all the time fall victim to a lack of strategic foresight. They may not close their doors the way companies do. Instead, they fall into ineffectiveness and exist within a community that is unaware of their existence. I hope this isn’t where you are with your church, but if so, don’t lose hope.
Strategic foresight is a skill you can develop and there are tools you can use to prepare yourself. There is an unknown future you are guaranteed to walk through. You can cut the fog though by pairing strategic foresight with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In that, there is an incredible opportunity for you to make a dynamic impact in your community.
What is Strategic Foresight?
Strategic foresight is an emerging field of study being widely used by companies, governments, and nonprofits worldwide. At this point though, the ministry world uses it sparingly and lacks a complete understanding of its application.
In his article, Strategic Foresight Andy Hines gives us this definition of strategic foresight:
“Strategic foresight is a process that learns from the past, uses the present to determine critical issues for the future, and then visualizes the future in multiple ways to positively influence the present and the future.”
In other words, strategic foresight is designed to give leaders the ability to see what plausible futures are in front of them to be equipped for success. As pastors and ministry leaders, you and I are responsible for the people God has entrusted to us to lead. By having a clearer picture of the future, we can better prepare followers to be ready for it. We can help position them to prosper. This way they can be effective for the cause of Christ by thriving rather than surviving.
Learning from Blockbuster
Strategic foresight is not about predicting the future, but it is about seeing the possibilities for us to prepare for. For instance, Blockbuster was at its peak when Netflix came on the scene. Blockbuster was positioned as an unstoppable force in the movie rental industry by dominating for over a decade.
When Netflix entered the market, it had a leaner business model. They used the US Postal system to deliver movies to customers. Customers could keep movies as long as they wanted. When finished they dropped them in the mail at no extra charge and received another movie days later.
The demise of Blockbuster began when Reed Hastings received a $16 fine for a late return on a movie. He felt this was a terrible customer experience. He knew there was a better way to serve people in their movie-watching desires. Hastings decided to leverage the incredibly cheap media rate of the US Postal Service and started sending movies to customers. People no longer had to come to a brick-and-mortar store to browse the aisles. Most of all, Reed Hastings saw the value in using the subscription model rather than individual pricing and late fees.
To make matters worse, in 2000, Blockbuster had the opportunity to purchase Netflix for a mere $50 million. Instead, they decided not to purchase it. At the time, Blockbuster executives didn’t feel there was a future in the mail-order model for movies. They felt streaming movies would not replace renting movies from a store.
Today, Netflix is one of the largest companies in the world and sits atop the streaming movie industry. On the other hand, Blockbuster filed for Bankruptcy in 2010 and today one store remains open in Bend, Oregon.
Netflix had enough strategic foresight to see where the movie industry was going, and Blockbuster did not. A once unstoppable force in the at-home movie industry no longer exists except for in one small town in the northwest.
How Does This Relate to the Church?
If you live in any size town, you can get in your car right now and drive around and see a number of churches that are dead or dying. My guess is, if you were to look at the history of those churches, there was a shift that happened at some point that they were either not prepared for or decided to ignore.
Was it the move from singing hymns to singing worship choruses?
Was it the decision to double down on Sunday School rather than introduce small groups?
It is possible they wholeheartedly believed they could get by with volunteers and limited the number of paid staff members.
No matter what city you go into, there are churches existing as a shell of their former selves. Large buildings stand with sanctuaries built to hold a couple of hundred people. Yet, Sunday after Sunday a small handful of seats are warmed for the worship services. It is heartbreaking to see, but a difficult reality we must face.
God’s unfailing love and change are two unshakable truths every church can count on. As pastors, we know our churches and ministries will face change. The question is, will that change catch us off guard or will we be prepared for it? Is it possible to future-proof your church?
Strategic Foresight for the Church
When 2020 began, almost no one had any inkling of what would take place in March. No one was prepared for a pandemic to engulf the world and send us into a complete shutdown. On March 8, 2020, most churches unknowingly held their last live service for months, and some for over a year.
In the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic, we have watched thousands of churches shut their doors permanently. Many were not ready to weather the storm of such a global event. Churches were ill-prepared for the societal changes that followed the pandemic. Their ministry models were unable to adapt to the changes in people’s lifestyles.
Even today, undercurrents leading to the future are present in churches and ministries. Churches are walking into a future they do not understand even though there are signs of what is to come. Trends are impacting today, yet we don’t see them or do not know what to do with them. Trends such as the subscription mindset, the discipleship deficit, the Dave Ramsey effect, the shrinking building model, and the remote staff trend are some examples of trends shaping the future we are moving towards.
What strategic foresight equips you and me to do is keep our heads up looking across the horizon. It allows us to see in the distance what is coming, so we can prepare now. It allows us to make strategic decisions today based on the reality we are going to live in tomorrow. This makes us more agile, innovative, relevant, and forward-thinking. It also makes us better financial stewards, intentional disciplers, resource managers, and vision casters as we lead our churches and ministries.
How to Future-proof Your Church
For most people, the future feels like an unknown reality they are walking into with blinders on. When it arrives and the blindfolds are removed, they are left to scramble to make sense of their new reality.
For those prepared for the future, they are like travelers climbing to a high point to see what is coming. With the ability to see what is ahead on their journey, they are able to prepare for the challenges ahead. They can chart a different course to avoid calamity, or even decide on a new adventure altogether.
As a pastor or ministry leader, how do you go about preparing your church for the future?
How do you position your church to be a wise traveler? How do you chart a course to accomplish the mission the Lord has entrusted to you?
Allow me to provide you with a seven-step framework you can lead your church through to prepare for the coming future. This seven-step future analysis will allow you to reach a higher vantage point, peer across the terrain that lies ahead, and see the possible challenges. You will be equipped to make intentionally informed and strategically sound decisions to guide your church into the coming unknown.
Framing
Once you reach a higher vantage point to chart your course in front of you, you need to understand the terrain that stands between you and your destination. Primarily, those issues right in front of you. If you look too far to the right or to the left, or behind you, you are focusing on issues that are irrelevant to your journey forward. This is called framing.
When you frame your perspective, you are narrowing down the broad field of possible issues to those you need to be concerned with.
For instance, are you trying to understand how the giving habits of your congregation may change?
Do you want to know how the demographics in your community will evolve in the coming years?
Is your focus on the role technology is going to play in your ministries?
By framing your perspective and giving it boundaries, you begin to eliminate factors that are irrelevant to your focus. This allows you to zero in on the factors that matter most for the questions you are asking.
Horizon Scanning
Once you have framed your analysis field, it is time to identify the issues that may be a factor in how your journey forward is going to go. Is there a mountain sitting in front of you? A river? Is there a forest that looks dark and gloomy? Any of these could be challenges and even threats to your journey.
Navigating into the future is similar. You have to identify the issues that could become obstacles or threats so you can begin to prepare to overcome them. This is called Horizon Scanning.
Horizon scanning is how you identify trends in the present and understand how they will play out over time. For instance, how will the shift to e-learning change the way your congregation, both your current and your future congregation, approaches discipleship? Will they want to experience discipleship through an online e-learning format rather than a classroom setting?
When conducting horizon scanning, there are seven areas you want to look into using the acronym STEEPLE: social, technological, economic, environmental, political, legal, and ethical.
By choosing an area, for instance, economics, you will look at how trends in this area may play out over the next several years. For instance, if you were pastoring in the 80s you would have heard undercurrents that people were no longer making purchases solely using cash. Instead, they were using plastic cards that provided them with money. They were called credit cards.
If in the late 80’s you would have looked forward through horizon scanning into the 90s to see how credit cards could impact the way your congregation would give to the church, you would have identified a trend that would change giving in profound ways.
Today, right now, there are hundreds, even thousands of trends that exist that seem to have nothing to do with the church, ministry, or religious organizations, but will at some point have a profound and significant impact on us. Those who can recognize them today will be better equipped to navigate the terrain in the future.
Trend Analysis
As you sit on your high vantage point and identify the trends that may impact your forward progress, you may naturally begin to ask, “what would happen if these trends intersect with one another?”
What happens if the river on your left runs to the right and begins to wind up the mountain? At that point, you would not only be faced with crossing the river or climbing the mountain but you could be faced with having to deal with both. Or, what if the meeting of the river and mountain resulted in a waterfall that left you with an impassable waterway and an unclimbable cliff? You would then be forced to find another route that could cost you valuable time and resources.
We need also to be mindful when navigating the future. We don’t want to waste time and resources because something comes our way that we are not prepared for. Especially if in hindsight we know the situation we are facing was avoidable if we had looked ahead and prepared.
By taking the trends we identified in the horizon scan and playing them out, we are able to understand the trend trajectories and how the future is going to be shaped.
Scenario Planning
It is now time to create the probable futures to prepare for by developing a strategic plan. We are going to do this by using scenario planning. Of the churches that practice traditional strategic planning, they project out past trends and fail to recognize the unpredictable nature of the future.
Scenario planning, on the other hand, is not built on historic trends projected forward but makes uncertainty part of the plan. By combining imagination, intuition, and rigorous analysis you can see a collection of probable futures to prepare for.
In the scenario planning phase, you are going to take the trend analysis you performed and begin to develop a number of future scenarios that are most probable based on the trend analysis. You can develop as many future scenarios as you want to, but for the sake of time and resources, I would suggest developing three or four.
You are going to have two primary scenarios. The first is the ideal scenario where everything goes ideally. The second scenario would be the catastrophic scenario where everything goes wrong. Your other two scenarios are going to be variations of the first two that would fall in the middle.
Once you have identified your four scenarios, you will write short narratives for each. You will need to write no more than a few paragraphs to give a clear understanding to everyone on your team of what the future scenario will look like. You want to make sure when it comes to the strategic planning stage, everyone can read the scenario and have a clear picture in their mind of what that future will look like.
Once you have your four distinct probable futures captured in scenarios, you are ready to pick your favorite.
Preferred Future
If you have followed the process properly, right now you should have four probable future scenarios in front of you. One is the ideal scenario, one is the catastrophic scenario, and the other two fall somewhere in between the first two.
At this point, it is time to begin planning for your preferred future. Often times this is the ideal future unless one of the other three scenarios represents the future you most desire. Regardless of which future you choose as your preferred future, you are ready to start planning for it.
Strategic Planning
As mentioned earlier in this article, too often what is called strategic planning is the act of projecting out historical trends to deduce what the future is like and then putting together a plan for that. We don’t want to do that, which is why we have put the work into building the scenarios.
Instead, what we mean by strategic planning is the act of identifying the gap between our current reality and the preferred future we have identified. Seeing the gap, we then craft a plan that will get us there. This means we have to account for the possible obstacles and challenges we think we will encounter based on our horizon scanning and trend analysis.
This step requires a team. My hope is that you have a team around you and you are able to facilitate a conversation, and even debate, to build a strategic plan for the scenarios you have developed.
Gather your team together for an extended period, or for a series of meetings spanning a month or more, to develop a strategic plan to prepare for the four probable futures.
Begin by choosing one scenario and asking if this is for sure the future we are moving towards, what steps we need to take, and the decisions we need to make to move into this future successfully. As a group, define what success means for you and your church, and begin to work backward from the probable future to your current situation. Walk through this exercise until you have a strategic plan for all four probable futures.
Implementation
Now that you have a strategic plan put together for your probable futures, it is now time to implement the plan. This is where your probable future comes into play. You can’t implement a strategic plan for all four scenarios, at least you can’t fully implement a plan for all four. You can implement contingencies and safeguards for the three scenarios you aren’t preparing for, but your ideal scenario is going to be the one you are going to intentionally move toward in your implementation.
Ask yourself, who on your team is going to be responsible for ensuring the strategic plan is being carried out? It can be the Lead Pastor, but my suggestion is that the Lead Pastor provide oversight, but someone else is responsible for making sure it is happening. You can choose an Executive Pastor, another staff pastor, a board member, or even someone in your congregation who is familiar with overseeing such a project.
What are the day-to-day decisions that need to be implemented in order to get the church on the trajectory toward the preferred future? There may not be a lot, but I am sure there are some day-to-day activities, processes, and systems that need to be changed, developed, and created to get your church moving toward your preferred future.
Conclusion
Getting your church prepared for the future and making it futureproof is not an easy task, but it isn’t a hard one either. It will require leaders to look up from the frantic pace of the everyday demands and interruptions, but it will also have a greater impact on the church and the community it serves than putting out all the daily fires.
As a pastor and ministry leader, I hope that it is clear how vital this practice can be, and how beneficial it is for you to practice. Follow the steps lined out in this article and you will be well on your way to making your church futureproof. You will be able to insure it is making an impact on the Kingdom of God for decades to come.