How to Set Ministry Goals that Lead to Growth

At the end of the year, one of my favorite things to do is to look back at the year that was and the year to come. What were my wins and losses? What worked? What didn’t? What curveballs did I knocked out of the park and what ones slipped by? It usually takes a few hours for me to go through it all, but my overall effectiveness as a leader and minister has increased every year since I started this practice over 10 years ago.

While I could talk about setting personal goals, for this post, I want to focus on setting ministry goals. I’m indebted to Dale Hudson’s blog post on ministry goals he wrote way back in 2013. I’ve used his questions and framework every year since I read it.

While you can do this exercise after planning your calendar and budget for the year, it’s better to have your goals in mind as you plan for the next year. If you want to have your most effective year yet, you need to have these three tools in hand: your calendar, budget, and goals. If you’ve already planned out your year and budget, don’t worry. If I learned anything during the Pandemic is that nothing is set in stone. You can always make changes that better suit what you want to accomplish. All you have to do is PIVOT!

1. Three Big Wins

The problem with goals and new year’s resolutions is that sometimes we make them way too complicated. I love SMART goals as much as the next person, but before you can really hammer those out, you need to have an idea of what you want to accomplish.

So first, imagine if the world was flat and all the obstacles were out of your way. What would be three big wins you’d love to see in your ministry next year. These are different than the other things I’ll list in the post. These are big picture ideas or changes you need to make in your ministry.

For example, back in 2020, my big three wins were:

What events need to be cut or reworked for maximum effectiveness in 2020?
Develop time for the team to dream big for the next year.
Mentor Others to take my place.

Even though the pandemic hit three months into that year, looking back I accomplished all three of these goals. Granted, success looked way different than what I imagined in December of 19, but sometimes God has different plans for us.

2. Improve Your Numbers

I think every ministry should track 5 numbers, attendance, guests, small groups, milestones, and discipleship. I talk about why here. But just knowing your numbers doesn’t guarantee your success. You also need to decide what success looks like with your numbers. Do they need to go up? Down? Stay the same?

For me, I usually look for a 5%-10% increase in attendance every year. I don’t hit it every year, and thinking about it now, I rarely do. But just having something to shoot for outside of extreme circumstances (looking at you 2020) helped me to grow. One thing I’ve learned over my years, God will only give you enough people that you can handle.

“God will only give you enough people that you can handle.”

Because I planned for 10% growth, that higher number had consequences for other numbers as well. If I have more kids, then there will be more in small groups, which means I need more small group leaders. If I have more kids in small groups, then I should have more kids getting saved and baptized and so on.

There are a couple pitfalls that you should look out for when setting these number goals.

First your goal is too high. We get all excited and full of faith and think our numbers will double in the next year. Unless you’re working with less than 10 people in your ministry, that’s really tough, almost impossible.
Second, your goal is too low. While setting it too high is optimism at its best, setting it too low is cynical. Have a little faith and believe that God will send you more. A healthy thing grows. As you improve the health of your ministry, it should grow too.
Finally, and if you’re reading this post this probably isn’t you, you don’t set a number at all. If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time. Take a risk and set a number. You may hit it, surpass it, or miss it completely. That’s just more information for next year.

If you want to set a realistic number goal, your best tool is to look at the numbers from last year. Did it go up? Down? How much? Why? What changed? Can you repeat it? Should you repeat it? Once you take these considerations into account, then you can set a number goal. Don’t worry too much about not hitting it unless your job depends on it. These are just numbers and a prayer. I like what Pastor and Author Mark Batterson says in The Circle Maker.

“Pray like it depends on God. Work like it depends on you.”

— Mark Batterson

Do your best. Work hard. Trust God with the rest.

3. Improve Discipleship

I mentioned in the previous point that one of the numbers to track is milestones. Again, an idea I got from Dale Hudson, if you’re in kidmin you should subscribe to his blog. Milestones in the ministry context are markers that every believer should have. When I was in kidmin, my milestones were salvation, baptism, baptism in the Holy Spirit, and serving. Other milestones may be giving, leading someone to Christ, or going on a short-term missions trip. Whatever makes sense for the age group and community you serve.

While I track these milestones on my dashboard, it’s not enough. I need to have processes that facilitate people marking each one. For many churches for adults and students this means Growth Track or something like it. When I was in kidmin, I had baptism classes, camps, VBS, and kids leadership team. Each one of these helped move kids along my four milestones.

So, when thinking about your goals, think about your discipleship processes. Do you have any? What can you add? What can you do to make the existing ones better? What can you do to get more people to engage with what you offer?

In each of these steps, try to stay away from the how question for as long as possible. You can kill a great idea fast. Right now, you’re just working with what you’d like to see happen. This is the vision phase of planning, not the implementation. You don’t have to have all the answers and all the details hammered out yet.

If you’re familiar with the Working Genius Framework from Patrick Lencioni these steps are squarely in WID, Wonder, Invention, and Discernment. “How” questions live in the final three, GET, Galvanizing, Enablement, and Tenacity. This is why you need to have your calendar and budget handy. After you’ve set your goals, they help you answer the how questions.

In other words, your goals tell you where you’re allocating your energy. Once you’ve figured that out, you can use your calendar and budget to allocate your time and money. You’ll find everything is aligned.

Setting goals doesn’t have to be hard or scary. They can be fun and faith building. As you pray and seek God’s guidance for the next year, put some faith-filled numbers in there and ask Him to show you how you’re going to do it. Because these numbers aren’t just symbols on a page. Each one represents a soul. A person growing closer to Christ. Which is what ministry is all about anyway.

Happy planning!