After these key rocks are in place, you can begin to consider the big rocks of your church.
Think about the larger areas of focus for your ministry. What does your church need to grow in right now? Are you trying to develop a leader in a specific ministry or invite more people to your services?
Once you decide what these big rocks are, you map them out into categories of what needs to be done yearly, quarterly, monthly, or weekly. Here are some examples of things that gp into a one year plan.
Church Planning: Make One Year Plan
Yearly or quarterly
- Spiritual Life: Pull away for solitude and prayer on a silent retreat.
- Relationships: Get away on vacation with your spouse without your kids. If you don’t have a lot of money for this, send your kids to a friends house and stay home.
- Health: Schedule your annual physical exam.
- Church Planning: Hold 4-6 large events. Your main job as a church planter is to gather people!
Monthly
- Spiritual: Engage in practices like fasting and having larger chunks of prayer time.
- Relationships: Have a date night out with your spouse.
- Health: Go on a hike.
- Church Planning: Hold smaller social events like parties, potlucks, and other gatherings.
Weekly
- Spiritual: Have daily time with God for prayer and worship.
- Relationships: Pray for your spouse and kids. Stay home with your spouse one night a week.
- Health: Plan healthy meals and get into a regular sleep routine.
- Church Planning: Find a niche activity where you can meet and spend time with people outside of your church like a gym, bowling league, or book club. You’ll also need to develop weekly rhythms for preaching and discipleship. Don’t reinvent the wheel though. Borrow from what already exists.
In my experience, a church planter’s week should look something like:
- 20 hours of meeting with people
- 4 hours sermon prep
- 4 hours for your church service
- 12 hours for admin, planning, and events
There are no short-cuts to an intentional life or church planning. It may take you some time to build a one year plan for yourself and get it all onto your calendar, but then you’ll be on your way to a purposeful year that reflects your values and goals.
View additional resources from Multiply Vineyard here.
This article on making a one year plan originally appeared here, and is used by permission.
