Resources e-letter 20:6 - December 2020
And another pair of new sets of Training Notes just uploaded. TN128, Effective staff meetings, and TN129, Collecting data for mission. This e-letter also provides an overview of the three major Health-checks on the website.
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NEW: Effective staff meetings
Many church staff members tell me they find the weekly meeting frustrating in some way, so here is practical guidance to help make your staff meetings worthwhile.
Seven common frustrations are listed through the use of a case study. For example, meetings can seem a waste of time, take up too much time, or it may not be clear why some people are included and others excluded.
Seven practical ideas are offered such as:
- Define what you mean by ‘staff’
- Split into groups
- Have an occasional review.
The notes then suggest fourteen possible reasons for meeting. These include:
- Communication of information
- Discipleship training
- Planning the future
- Training/team-building sessions.
There is a final note on appropriate record keeping.
Training Notes TN128, Effective staff meetings, are now available without charge from the Training Notes index page of this website.
NEW: Collecting data for mission
Many churches fail to collect the data they need for wise decision-making. These new notes outline the kind of information churches could use to direct their efforts in mission. There are three parts. GDPR compliance is assumed throughout.
The first part outlines the information about each church member that can be useful such as contact details, family information and team involvements.
The second and main part explains nine types of general data worth collecting under the following headings:
- Membership
- Attendance
- Leadership and staffing
- Small groups
- Finance
- Life events
- Challenges
- The local community
- Other examples.
The third and final section provides advice on how to go about collecting data such as:
- Don’t do too much!
- Keep mission as the purpose
- Use interviews
- Don’t under-estimate the work of analysis.
Training Notes TN129, Collecting data for mission, are now available without charge from the Training Notes index page of this website.
Health-checks
As well as Articles and Training Notes the Resources section of the website includes three detailed health-checks.
For churches there is the Church Health Review, a means of undertaking a thorough assessment of the health of your church’s life. It involves testing under the headings of Godward, Usward, Outward, Leadership and Support. See HC2 for a summary and HC4 & HC5 for an introduction and the sets of questions and tests.
If you want a simplified version, see Article A35, Mapping your church – Practical planning tools, on the Articles index page.
For mission agencies and Christian charities there is the Christian Effectiveness Model. This has a similar structure to the Church Health Review and tests Validity, Choice, Excellence and Achievement. See HC3 for a summary and HC6 & HC7 for an introduction and the sets of questions and tests.
For individuals there is the Gift Assessment for Administrators. This again has a similar structure to the other health-checks and tests Aptitude, Fascination and Discipleship. See HC8 & HC9 for an introduction and the sets of questions and tests.
If you want a simplified version, see Training Notes TN115, Identifying gifts of administration, on the Training Notes index page.
Please ensure these materials are widely promoted in your church. Thanks for your interest in my website. May God guide you and others in all the decisions to be made in the present situation.