| New Church Development10 Best Development Practices
By Dr. Montfort C. Duncan Jr.,
Executive Director, New Church Development
 Regional
bodies that are starting new communities of faith have discovered
there are 10 best practices for sustaining a robust, healthy
congregational development plan. In my last column I shared the first
five practices. Below are practices six through 10.
 CAPABLE
LEADERSHIP – Experienced leadership capable of guiding
congregational development efforts. Capable leadership is essential to
successful efforts. This is an area where the United Methodist
conferences struggle as much as the other denominational groups.
Nobody even reaches a score of five (out of 10), so there is
significant work to do here. Elements of capable leadership include
people that are well trained for the task and available. Practices
seven, nine and 10 are all related to this practice directly. Give
attention to them and the leadership capability score will rise.
DEMOGRAPHIC
ANALYSIS – Vision for congregational development and ongoing
planning are informed by regional demographic analysis. The low score
on this practice is curious and worthy of attention given the fact
that any annual conference that took the Percept survey is a licensed
client with access to demographics for their region. This is also
speaks to capable leadership. For leaders to lead, they must be
skilled in the use of the tools at their disposal. It is not likely
that many leaders have been trained in the use of the demographics,
though free training is available. It is also possible that even
leaders who have been trained have not integrated demographic analysis
as a tool for planning.
FINANCIAL
SUPPORT – A minimum allocation of 10 percent of the program
budget for congregational development with a propensity to increase
the percentage. Successful efforts require money. Often the 10
Practices scores for financial support mirror closely the scores for
evidence of a strategic plan, goals and measurable accomplishments.
This is somewhat true for the United Methodist conferences, though
they are more likely to provide financial support than have a
strategic plan. What would happen if better and more strategic plans
were developed? Would it allow for greater focus of financial
resources on congregational development? This is something to explore
in more depth. There may be a policy issue here. A plan without a
commitment to adequately fund it will fail. But funding without a
clear plan may as well. The practices work together.
DESIGNATED
STAFF – At least one professional staff for whom Congregational
Development represents 50 percent or more of his/her portfolio. This
practice is another side of the capable leadership practice.
Professional staff with a significant portfolio committed to
congregational development is essential for successful efforts to
occur. While it can easily be argued that this also hearkens back to
the need for a plan, this is also one of those practices where the
conference as a whole demonstrating some vision assigns a staff person
to actually lead the planning efforts. Where this does not exist in
annual conferences, consideration might be given to how to reallocate
staff time in this particular direction.
COMMITTEE
PREPARATION – An intentional process faithfully implemented to
prepare congregational development committees. This is the final
practice that addresses the leadership issue. The research suggests
that no tradition is doing a particularly good job of preparing people
to serve on congregational development committees. The Focused do
better than most, but even they are weak. Though better than the other
traditions, the United Methodists are not doing well here. Logically,
if these are the people who will develop the plan and implement it,
they need effective preparation. This data would suggest that a robust
effort will require a more formal preparation process for those who
will serve. The United Methodists’ low score here means that there
is a great deal of work to be done to improve the evidence of this
practice.
This Percept study applies to both the Florida
Conference’s offices of Congregational Transformation and New Church
Development. We are committed to improving our scores on these 10 Best
Practices that we might have a strong, robust effort in congregational
development in the Florida Annual Conference.
|
