Life Plan Process: Overview

life plan

This is the final post in a series on LIFE planning. In this series, I am sharing with you the basics of a LIFE plan and why you need one by going through the details of my own LIFE planning process. Neither my plan nor my process are perfect. In fact, they are evolving from year to year. My hope is that you can take what I do (or even just parts of it) and use it to create your own plan.

Life Plan Variety

Life plans can take on all sorts of shapes and sizes. They can be fully contained on one page or they can consist of several documents. It really is not important how long or short, thick or thin these plans become.

The most important aspect of the life plan is whether it does its job. If it helps to guide you through life, assists you in maximizing your resources for the greatest impact, and keeps your focus on what you have decided is most important to you, then it has done its job.

I have described to you the components of my own LIFE Plan. You may not want to take this process and copy it for yourself. Some of you may think I go too far in planning. Others may think I do not do enough. Regardless, I hope you find the components of my process useful in helping you to create your own.

Now I want to go into more detail about how I actually develop, revise, and use this LIFE Plan in my life.

Off-Site Session

The first step in my process is the off-site session. I first started doing this session in mid December each year, but have since moved it back into November. Just like year-end budgeting or forecasting, you want to make sure you have plenty of time to fully develop the plans before the new year begins.

Much like my brainstorming session, I like to get away from any and all distractions for this session. Whether it is a hotel room, a cabin in the woods, or a private room in the local college library, I have always been intentional about getting away. I schedule a full day and make sure people know where I am and that I will not be answering the phone.

Prayer

The first part of my LIFE planning process is prayer. This is key to putting my mind in the right perspective and getting God’s wisdom. I do not want to make all these plans and then ask God to bless them and make them His will. I want His will to establish my plans.

Review of Prior Year

I begin my session by reviewing the prior year. The first document I use is the Yearly Audit [CLICK HERE for copy] from the C12 Group. This is a thorough, but also concise, review of the key components in the life of a Christian business owner or leader. It refreshes my memory and helps me to assess my performance during the prior year. I strongly recommend you use this.

The next document I review is my master LIFE Plan Document from that prior year. In this document, I have expanded on all of my thoughts, goals, and plans for the year. I review this document to determine what items were accomplished and may need to be deleted as well as to choose those items to be carried over into the next year.

Finally, I review my LIFE Plan Dashboard from that prior year. Which of my goals did I hit, exceed, or miss completely? I look for patterns of positive habits established or those I struggled even to start.

Prayer & Brainstorm

Once I have a decent feel for how I performed against my plan for that year, I begin praying and brainstorming about what needs to change and what needs to stay the same for the upcoming year. I ask God to direct my thoughts to those areas where He wants change in me.

I take notes on anything and everything that comes to mind. I really enjoy this time because nothing is off limits. I do my best to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to my heart and guide me. I do not want to come into this time with any preconceived ideas.

Prioritize and Review

From here, I prioritize what came out of the brainstorm session along with the plan from the prior year. I make the necessary revisions to the master LIFE Plan Document and save this draft.

I will likely make minor revisions and tweaks to this document over the next few weeks as I set goals for each area. As I do this, I also add the applicable goals to my LIFE Plan Dashboard and calendars. My goal is to have a set of completed documents by the end of December so I can start January with a clean slate!

Weekly Review

I have mentioned David Allen’s Getting Things Done in past posts. One of the best things I learned from Allen was the weekly review. Without this part of the process, it is easy to find yourself two, three, or four months down the road without having accomplished the first item on your life plan.

Essentially, the weekly review is a time I close my office door and plan out the next week. I review the prior week’s accomplishments, my known To Do’s for the upcoming week, my calendar, and my LIFE Plan Dashboard. I prioritize what needs to get done and lay out a rough idea of when I can work on each item.

I take this time every Saturday and would be completely lost without it. I am by no means perfectly efficient with my time, but the weekly review has brought me to a point where I think I am a 7 or 8 on a 10 scale.

Not only am I more efficient, but I am accomplishing more in my LIFE plan than I would otherwise. I am reminded of the airline pilot who announced, “We are lost, but making good time!” My weekly review helps me to make good time and my LIFE Plan makes sure I am not lost!

Nothing More To See Here

life planFolks, that is basically all of the details of my own LIFE Plan. As I said before, it is not perfect, but it works for me. I hope you gained at least some small idea that will help you be more effective with the life that God has given you.

Even if your next step is to create a life plan as simple as the one shown here, then you are at least getting started! I cannot claim this one as my own, but I sure do love the drive and vision!

I will say again, if you have any questions, please feel free to comment or email me privately via the Contact Page.

How do you plan on a regular basis?

If you spent more time in planning (with God’s guidance), do you think you would be more effective?

What are the obstacles that keep you from doing a better job with planning?

Originally posted 1/31/12

What is Marketplace Ministry?

marketplace ministry

This post about defining marketplace ministry and why it is critical is part of a series of posts that come from the material I recently used to teach a small group of Christian business owners and leaders in Chandigarh, India.

The focus of this material is also the focus of this blog – God’s call for us to run our businesses as a platform for Christian ministry. Hopefully, after reading this series, you will agree that it is God’s will that we run His businesses as stewards with an eternal perspective. You should also have a better understanding of what this looks like in today’s marketplace.

My Story

As I began teaching the group in India about exactly what marketplace ministry looks like, I thought it would be helpful to start with my own story as an example. Hopefully, through reading about my experience, you will get a better picture of what I mean when I talk about marketplace ministry or Christian business.

As the oldest of three sons, I grew up working in the family’s automobile business. I always expected to eventually take over my father’s business, along with my brothers. About 12 years ago, I was in that very role – running the family business. I was enjoying what I was doing and could easily see it being my lifelong career.

My Awakening

That is precisely when I had a spiritual awakening. Through Bible study and prayer, I began to realize that I was only giving God 1.5 days a week. I was spending the rest of my time thinking about business, profit, and family.

Convicted, I went to my father and explained that I wanted to leave the family business to pursue work that would allow me to give God more of my time in actively living out my faith.

My Desires

I sincerely wanted to bring others to know Jesus, help others in need, teach what I was learning in my Bible studies, and to generally be a great disciple of Jesus. I just felt like I could not accomplish that while giving so much time to the business. So I began praying about how God would establish me in a career that would give me the flexibility to accomplish all He had put in my heart.

His Answer!

The crazy thing? It took nearly two years, but He showed me exactly where I was to accomplish all of this…in the very family business I was trying to give up!

In a brief period of time, God showed me how all of my desires for ministry could be achieved through the business I was already running. I just had to approach this business through His eyes, not the ones I had been using.

My Decision To Stay

I went back to my father and explained my revelation. He fully supported my request to stay in the business and apply this new vision. From that point until now, I have been giving my all to running a Christian business from an eternal perspective. My goal is to accomplish all God laid on my heart, but to do it through our family business.

What IS Marketplace Ministry?

One website defined marketplace ministry as, “The directing of evangelism and other Christian activities toward the secular marketplace.” I think the simplest definition is to be a disciple and witness for Christ in and through your work or business. A similar approach is having the attitude of being a full time minister in the workplace.

In a recent post, one of my readers sent me a comment that said my description of a Christian business sounded just like a description of the daily life of a normal Christian. I told him he was right…taking your faith to work should look exactly like what you do with your faith when you are in church or trying to reach others for Jesus outside of work.

Location is the only difference.

Why Is It Critical?

Folks, there are many reasons why marketplace ministry is critical. First of all, in the secular marketplace, the majority of the people you work with are lost and need Jesus. You will interact with many who will never darken the door of a church. Because they are on their own turf in the marketplace, they are relaxed and not spiritually on guard like they would be if you forced them into a church setting.

Not only are they more comfortable, but due to your relationship with them, you can have more influence on them than your pastor can. They trust you. They feel it is his “job” to push them toward God. With you, it is different in their eyes.

So What?

My prayer is that you recognize where God has placed you in business and what He expects as a result of your efforts there. He is not going to grade you on your business success as the world does. Instead, God is looking for the eternal impact you will have as a Christian business owner or leader.

Commit right now to run your business with an eternal perspective. Commit to making an eternal impact on everyone you meet through your business dealings. Commit that you will no longer attempt to separate your business life from your spiritual life – instead acknowledging they are one and the same!

What is your view of marketplace ministry and Christian business?

Do you see the opportunity for your eternal impact in the marketplace?

Where are you on the path toward marketplace ministry?

Taking Action: Owner’s Manual For Life!

In my post on Action Plans in the series on Strategic Ministry Planning, I mentioned one piece of advice. That advice was to make sure there was at least one action step you could take starting the next day! Rather than focusing all of your attention on planning, I recommended taking action! I also told you in my last post (Are You Living The Story?) that I was committing to living the story more, rather than just telling it!

taking action

Taking Action

Well, in an effort to live out what I am blogging about, our team has made the decision to start taking action and move forward on an idea that has been lingering around here for quite a while. While this idea will not change the world, it may change just one life…and that’s enough, isn’t it?

If you remember, in my post on the Brainstorm Session in Strategic Ministry Planning I mentioned how the Buck Knives Company inserts a simple message from Al Buck in the box with every knife they sell. This message talks about how their company views God as their Senior Partner and encourages the reader to seek God for themselves. I think this is a great idea!

As an automobile dealership group, we retail and wholesale roughly 2,000 – 2,600 new and used vehicles every year. As our team looked for ministry opportunities (similar to that of Buck Knives) that would leverage this volume, we came across one idea that is very simple and cost effective.

Owner’s Manual For Life

Beginning now, we are going to start placing a copy of the New Testament in the glovebox of every vehicle we retail or wholesale. The unique thing about this New Testament is the cover (shown below). As you can see, each one is titled, “Owner’s Manual For Life.” That is perfect for a glovebox, right?

taking actionWe are still working on documenting the process for every employee involved, but I know this much: Each one will have a sticker inside the cover with a message from me to the reader, stating that I believe this book to be the most important book they will ever encounter. I will have a couple of phone numbers for them to call if they want help understanding what they are reading. These numbers will ring straight to my office phone or our corporate chaplain.

Sowing Seeds

These New Testaments will go to all of our retail customers. They will also go to other dealers who trade new cars with us for the purpose of meeting a customers request for color or equipment change. In addition, we will include a copy in the glovebox of every used vehicle we wholesale to another dealer for sale on their lot. The eventual audience will be widely varied and God only knows when and how the books will actually be found! It is our responsibility to sow the seeds.

We do not plan to review the presence of this book with the customers or the dealers. The New Testament will simply be placed in every vehicle during the prep process prior to going on the lot. The cost of these New Testaments is only $1.50 a piece! I think this is a phenomenal opportunity to literally spread God’s Word!

What do you think?

Is there a similar action you can commit to take today?

What are you waiting for?

Prayer In The Strategic Plan For Ministry

A new friend of mine asked me a simple question in his comment on my final post in my Strategic Plan for Ministry series. His question was simple, but convicting! My friend, Loren Pinilis (see his blog here), asked me how prayer enters the process of this planning. While this seems like an innocent enough question, it actually is a very penetrating question!

prayerI wish I could say that I had planned to address that separately or that I just assumed everyone knew that prayer was a continuous part of the process and therefore did not include it. Or I could be bold and say I was trying to draw someone in to ask that very question!

Confession

The problem is that none of these excuses are true. The simple truth is that I forgot! In a six-post series on being intentional about doing ministry in the course of doing business for the purpose of pointing people to God, I actually forgot to include anything about seeking God for guidance in the process! I left out the very One who knows all there is to know about ministry, business, and people. Are you kidding me?

Of course, now that I have done this, I have the perfect post material! How often do we do this exact thing? We plan, we strive, and we sweat the details of our efforts in every facet of our lives, but we often completely forget to seek His guidance ahead of time. Most often, we ask Him to bless our efforts once we have decided what we are going to do! This is insanity!

Why do we always seem to wait until we have run into an obstacle or crisis before we call out in prayer?

We are children of the Creator of the universe. He is all-knowing, all-present, and all-powerful. He wants to equip us “with all that is good to do His will” (Heb. 13:20-21). All we have to do is ask! There is nothing that exists that is not available to Him to use to accomplish His will (Psalm 24:1). So why do we so often forget (or refuse) to go to Him in advance? Why do we always seem to wait until we have run into an obstacle or crisis before we call out in prayer?

Role of Prayer

Whatever the answer, let’s take a look at how we should pray when preparing our strategic plan for ministry in and through our business.

Mission Statement

As we discussed, the mission statement tells why we exist as a company. If this statement is to be used for direction, to make decisions, and to inspire us, it only makes sense that God should guide us in developing it. Our prayer should seek guidance from Him on our direction (Proverbs 3:5-6). Trying to do this on our own, without seeking Him in prayer, could lead to wasted time and failed plans.

Mission Field

The mission field is effectively our target audience. We need to pray for a couple of things here. First, we need to ask God to identify those groups of people He wants us to minister to. Second, we should be praying that He will give us the right words and actions for effective ministry to these people. Finally we should ask Him to prepare their hearts to hear what He will say to them through our words and actions. (Colossians 4:3-4)

Brainstorm

As the Creator of everything we see (Colossians 1:16), don’t you think God is more creative than anyone else we know? As we go into our brainstorm session to gather ideas for ministry activities, we need to ask Him to expand our minds and spark our imagination so that we can come up with those ideas that will be the most effective in pointing others to Him.

Action Plans

Next, we need to pray for wisdom in choosing and prioritizing the best ideas from the brainstorm session. We also need to pray that God would lead us in laying out the action plans (Proverbs 16:9) and that He would grant success in these plans as well (Proverbs 16:3).

Accountability

Finally, we come to measurement and accountability for our plans. Because we will reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7), I believe we need to ask God for more wisdom. We need wisdom in determining what to measure and how to establish good accountability. Because ministry results are so hard to measure, we need to be especially careful here. This another area that could cause us significant trouble if were to do it on our own.

What other roles do you see prayer playing in this process?

Is prayer a vital part of how you run your business?

Are you willing to follow His guidance when He gives it – regardless of the cost?

Accountability – Step 5 In A Strategic Ministry Plan

This is the final post in a series of posts on creating a Strategic Plan for Ministry in your business. At this point, you should have a mission statement with an eternal perspective. You should have a well-defined mission field as well as a set of action plans for ministry activities that will help you to impact that mission field. Now you need to lay out the accountability processes to ensure your action plans are executed and achieve the results you desire.

Accountability

Accountability Reporting Example

Let’s take a look at an example to illustrate my point. An easy example for our company is the CCA chaplain program (Corporate Chaplains of America). We have a chaplain assigned to our company as a benefit to the employees. By permission, this chaplain speaks to each of our employees face-to-face at least once per week.

He is on call 24/7 and 365. He will meet with employees after hours for extended care sessions in person or over the phone, according to their preference. He performs funerals, weddings, and hospital visits. He prays for the company and every employee on a regular basis.

On an ongoing basis, I need to know whether this program is achieving the results I expect from it. Fortunately, CCA provides their own reporting process as part of the program. They send me a report via email at the end of each month that details the activities of the chaplain. A report like this makes it easy for me to determine whether the program is working or not.

Here is an example of their report:

accountability

Your Accountability Reporting

Your reporting may look very different. It may not be as formal or it may be more so. The format is not important. The accountability is. While each ministry activity will likely present its own measurement challenges, try to make sure there is some ability to track and measure the activities and the results (if possible).

You should have some sort of reporting for every ministry activity on your action plan. If you cannot measure it in some way, then you need to decide whether it is worth doing or not. This is not to say that you are not to do anything that you cannot measure – there are certainly exceptions. It is more about making sure that there is accountability built in to every part of your plan.

Too often, companies come up with a great idea, begin a process or initiative, and never build in accountability. Without a clue as to whether it is effective or not, they forget about it until something goes wrong or someone leaves. This is simply not being a good steward of your resources.

Measuring Ministry?

There are a couple of challenges I will note about measuring ministry. First of all, we are not able to save anyone. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. While we may count the number of times someone turns their life over to Christ during one of our activities, we certainly cannot take credit for that. We are simply celebrating!

Second, we cannot truly know the condition of any individual’s heart or whether that condition has improved in a measurable way. To attempt to measure life change or improvement is not something I recommend. I think you get it, but measuring ministry is very difficult.

As a result of these challenges, we will most often revert to simply measuring our activities in ministry. As an example, look at the chaplain’s report. We do not attempt to measure the effectiveness of the chaplain’s prayer for our company and individual employees. We simply measure the number of times he prayed. We do not attempt to measure whether his care sessions had the intended effect. We can only count the times he had them.

I think you get the idea. When dealing with the heart and spiritual matters, measuring is difficult. At the same time, we cannot just leave our efforts to chance! Therefore we do our best to discern the right activities, maintain our focus on the right purpose, and then measure our efforts. We leave the results to God.

Do you currently have any sort of ministry results reporting?

If so, do you review it as often and with the same intensity as you review your financial reporting?

I won’t ask a third question…that last one hurt too much!

Action Plan – Step 4 In A Strategic Ministry Plan

action planThis is number 4 in a series of 5 posts about how to create a Strategic Plan for Ministry in your business. So far, we have created an effective mission statement with an eternal perspective, identified our potential mission field, and had a brainstorm session about how we will do ministry in the course of doing business. Now we will turn our attention to the laying out of the action plan.

Best Ideas

Now, I am assuming you have already completed your brainstorming session from last time. Depending on your preference of using a smaller team of key managers or a larger group of employees, you need to gather your team together again. Taking the list of ideas generated in your brainstorm session, the group now needs to sift through and find the best ideas, making sure they are in alignment with your mission statement.

Ideally, those that are the easiest to implement with the greatest impact should come first. You can also consider which ones are the most exciting in order to get the most buy-in from the stakeholders.

Categorize the Ideas

Once you have narrowed the list down to those that are the best fit for your current circumstances, you probably want to group them according to which of the three facets of ministry is appropriate (Evangelism, Discipleship, Service), as well as which mission field category applies (Employees, Customers, Suppliers/Vendors, etc.).

While it is not necessary to evenly distribute your activities across these categories, it is good to make sure you are not ignoring any of them.

Create the Action Plan

So you have a list of your best ideas sorted into the appropriate categories. Now it is time to create the plan to actually do them! A typical action plan should cover three elements:

    Task– What will be done and by whom?
    Timeline– When it will be done?
    Resources– What is required for it to be done?

Once you have laid out the action plan for each of your ideas, set some goals for the results. Don’t be shy!

Measurement Challenge

At the same time, you need to remember that by definition, the eternal spiritual impact we are attempting to make is sometimes difficult or impossible to measure, making it tough to set goals. Much of what we are doing is actually just “sowing seeds” and pointing people toward God. We cannot save anyone. Nor can we change their hearts. Even if heart change is a goal, how would you measure it?

Because of this challenge, it is my recommendation that you lean toward setting goals based on activity. If one of your action plan items is to place small new testament Bibles in your waiting area, then just measure how many are taken. If you are teaching a weekly Bible study for employees, then just measure attendance. In this case, you could take it a step further and measure how many of those in attendance go on to lead their own study! Either way, be careful how and what you target and measure. Stay true to Scripture!

S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Of course, you need to make sure your action plan goals are S.M.A.R.T. goals as well!

    Specific– Determine exactly what will be done, when it will be done, who will do it, etc. and write it down.
    Measurable– Make sure you can measure the activity. If you cannot, how will you know if you accomplished it?
    Attainable– This does not mean to set the bar low, but to make sure they are realistic.
    Relevant– The goals need to be in alignment with your mission statement. They need to be important to you.
    Timely– You need to have a time frame or a target date. Open-ended goals are soft.

Start Now!

One hint here…though it is not set in stone, this is great advice. As the leader during this process, you need to encourage the group to agree on at least one or two action items that you will start tomorrow. Don’t lose any of the momentum you have built up to this point. Do something! You will gain a boost if you will be sure to do this.

Once you have set these goals for each idea on your final action plan, you are ready to move on to the last step in this process – determining the accountability process of measuring and monitoring the results. See you next post!

Are moving through the process with me or are you thinking this might be something for next year? Or the next year?

If you are, how is it going so far? Do you have some exciting goals?

Are you inspiring your people in a way that excites them?

Brainstorm Session – Step 3 In A Strategic Ministry Plan

brainstorming

This is number 3 in a series of 5 posts that outline a process for creating a strategic plan for ministry in your business.

So far in this series, we have crafted a mission statement that states, from an eternal perspective, why our business exists. We have also counted the various categories of people that will come into contact with our business on some level and identified them as our mission field.

In this post, we will look at how we, in the course of doing business, minister to those in our mission field in a way that impacts them for eternity.

Buck Knives Company

Probably the best example I can come up with is the Buck Knives Company. For decades, they have integrated the Gospel message into the course of business by including a small, printed Gospel testimony (pictured below) in the box with every product. As a result of years of doing this, they have multiple vertical file cabinets filled with letters and notes from customers that were touched by these Christ-centered messages.

ministry in business

So the question you must ask is this:

What is the true product of the Buck Knives Company, the knife or the Gospel message?

Let me ask you this…which one will last longer?

Brainstorm Session

This example from the Buck Knives Company aims to impact customers. What about employees and their families? What about your suppliers & vendors or any other groups we came up with when we identified our mission field? Well, that is what this step is all about. We have some brainstorming to do!

It is time to gather your team. Depending on your preference, you can include a large group of employees or you can start with your key people (that are bought in to the mission and vision). Depending on your size, you might even break into several groups. Either way, the point is to engage the participants in a creative session to determine opportunities and processes to minister to others while doing business.

This is a time for free-flowing ideas, not critique. That can come later.

Taking the three-fold definition of ministry I gave you in the last post (evangelism, discipleship, and service), encourage the participants to come up with ideas for each of the categories. You also may want to list the various mission field categories we identified last post (employees, customers, vendors, etc.) to help generate ideas.

The participants need to feel comfortable offering any idea that comes to mind, without the fear of rejection. This is a time for free-flowing ideas, not critique. That can come later. Any and every idea needs to come out. While one idea may later be scratched from the list for some reason, it may generate another idea that is a winner. Let them flow!

Expand Participation

While this is certainly a simple step in the process, don’t overlook it. Even if you start with your key people, I encourage you to later bring everyone into the process. You will likely get some ideas that would never have surfaced otherwise. Plus, you get much better buy-in when everyone is involved.

Now that you have your list of ideas, keep them handy. We will look at what to do with them in the next post. If you are interested, here is a list of 101 ministry ideas from C12 Group that you can use as thought starters. Feel free to implement any of them as well, but don’t use this list as an excuse to skip your brainstorming session!

Have you done this before? What were the results?

If not, are you willing to try it now?

When are you going to schedule it?

An Effective Offsite Brainstorm

offsite

After reading Loving Monday by John Beckett, I was blown away at the various ways he was able to integrate his Christian faith into his business.  I began to think about how I could do the same thing with our business.  As I prayed about it, I began to get a flood of ideas about how to integrate my faith into our business.