At last year’s AGM (2021) we presented and approved our new Mission Statement. This year (2022) we’ll be presenting our approach to Strategic Planning.
Strategic planning is one way that a larger church like ours is able to communicate the priorities we have for the season ahead. This helps us to make sure that we are stewarding what God has given us to work with even as we anticipate God’s provision for that plan.
Strategic planning draws upon:
the history of God's work in our midst
the vision for the future given to us by the Lord and as agreed upon by core leadership
the present possibilities as modeled by other churches and organizations we want to learn from.
Our history includes what we were doing last week as well as what has been done from the beginning.
The visions for the future come from prophetic work and from following trajectories. The core leadership (Ministry Council and Senior Pastors) are responsible to notice and confirm the visions; they aren't necessarily the originators. But they need to practice an openness to seeing and hearing from the Lord.
We want to learn from other churches without depending on them. Whatever we are doing has to be right for this time and this place. We don't want to re-invent the wheel, but we also need to make sure that whatever we do in terms of policy and programs is fitting with our history and vision.
Actually when you think about "don't reinvent the wheel" there's billions of variations of the wheel in terms of size, configuration, and function and so many different contraptions that use wheels.
Youth and Senior Dessert Night
Think about our Youth Ministry. Churches all across North America have youth ministries. But each youth ministry is different. There’s no one right way to do youth ministry and even as churches learn from one another, there’s no standardization. Even if something is working really well in one place, it doesn’t mean that is what we have been given to do at Hillcrest. And if we are looking elsewhere we still need to make sure that whatever is happening is translated for our setting and is aligned with our Mission, our Drivers, and our ongoing Strategic Planning.
This is constant, because every practice that we take up changes us. We are constantly adjusting our effort and shifting our focus in all our ministries. We use strategic planning to stay on trajectory and to keep the organization in alignment with the work we have been given to do. This is why we talk about our Strategic Planning rather than a strategic plan.
There is no final strategic plan for us to follow, but rather a direction that we have been given—a direction we believe is from the Lord. And even as we follow that direction we will make constant shifts and adjustments to that direction.
Pancake breakfast 2019
One example of this is the Stampede Pancake Breakfast. Last fall as we were budgeting for 2022, we decided that we would not do the Pancake Breakfast. We weren’t sure where COVID restrictions would be and we were looking to balance our revenue and expenses. However, several weeks back, we asked ourselves—before the Lord—whether we couldn’t do the Pancake Breakfast this year after all. After exploring our options and making sure that it was still feasible, it was decided that we would go ahead and do the Pancake Breakfast in 2022.
If you are interested in helping out with the Pancake Breakfast (financially or as volunteer) please call our office to give us your details. More information will be coming out in the weeks ahead.
It is not easy to reverse a course and we don’t want to be doing that often, but we’ve been learning to pivot quite a bit during the COVID restrictions. In all our pivoting we’ve been asking ourselves, what has the Lord given us to do in the past? What is he asking us to do in the future? What are other churches doing? What does that mean for us right now? In this time and place? That’s the way we do Strategic Planning.
In it all, and overall, we pray. We pray that the Lord would lead and guide us in our planning. We pray and look for the Lord’s provision for the programs and events He has given us to do. We watch for good fruit as people join in our Mission and our work is multiplied throughout Medicine Hat and beyond.
In His service,
Pastor Glenn
Our Mission: https://www.hillcrestchurch.net/our-mission
General email: info@hillcrestchurch.net
Personal email: glennr@hillcrestchurch.net
Mailing address: 3785 13th Avenue SE, Medicine Hat, Alberta T1B 1J2
Office phone: (403) 526-4010