MLTP Ministerial Project Plan – Due 16 September

Length: 2000 words

Due: 24 September

Rationale: All faith-based organisations, whether parishes, dioceses, or specific ministries, will benefit from a planning process that develops explicit statements about the identity, mission, vision, culture, and strategy of the organisation. This exercise requires students to present a ministerial project plan that engages with each of these elements.

Task description:

It is important to note that this is a hypothetical exercise – you are not being asked to actually impose this plan upon your parish leadership team or a ministry. It is intended to get you to reflect upon and think about your real-life ministry experience and/or your parish, but it is just an exercise for you alone (To create a mission plan or a ministry action plan is a team exercise in reality).

There are 6 parts to this Mission Plan:

1. Identity and Mission

2. Discipleship definition

3. Culture

4. Vision

5. Strategy

6. Strategic priorities

For this plan, compose answers to the following questions:

Identity and Mission

1. Create an identity statement for the parish/ministry.

2. Does the parish/ministry have a mission statement?

3. How would you evaluate the mission statement in the light of the lecture materials on mission statements?

4. Amend the current mission statement or create your own mission statement for the parish/ministry in the light of the lecture materials.

5. Provide a rationale for the mission statement you have created.

Discipleship definition

6. How would you define discipleship for your parish/ministry?

7. Explain the rationale for your definition.

Culture

8. What do you think are the core values of your parish? What are they and why did you choose them?

9. How would you operationalise those values into concrete behaviours?

Vision

10. If the current limitations on personnel and finance weren’t an issue, what do you dream your parish/ministry would look like ten years from now? To organise that vision, some of the headings you might include are: worship, mission, formation, community, ministry, and administration. Write down what you dream of here. [Note that some of these headings might not be applicable to some ministries. You may need different headings].

Strategy

11. What are the key strategic ingredients you need to include and be intentional about to achieve your vision?

Strategic Priority (Goals)

12. What’s the most important goal(s) to achieve over the next twelve to eighteen months in your parish/ministry?

13. Why? What’s your rationale for selecting this goal(s)?

Final Questions

Conclude your exegesis by responding to the following questions:

14. What was challenging about developing the parish/ministry plan?

15. What do you think are the benefits of such a plan?

16. What are the potential issues with your plan?