Churches love “strategic plans.” They gather a committee, hold a retreat, and begin with real hope and energy. Yet these efforts usually slip, again and again, into two familiar traps. Some parishes produce a document that is neither “strategic” nor a “plan.” They produce a statement so carefully worded that it ends up saying nothing at all. Others jump straight to planning without ever establishing a strategy. They assemble a list of programs and investments—a preschool, a contemporary worship service, a thrift shop—each sensible on its own terms, but lacking any clear thread that binds them together. The church feels busy, yet somehow unchanged.
I spent the last year helping St. Francis in the Fields in Harrods Creek, Kentucky, develop a strategic plan. From the outset, I was convinced that the issue was not planning but the order of operations. Too often parishes try to decide what to do before they have discerned who they are becoming. The strategy must come first.
Strategy is a set of choices. It asks a parish to decide which of the many good and necessary things it could do will become its distinctive way of pursuing the Great Commission: to make disciples of all nations, through sacrament and formation. The mission is already given; it applies to every church. But there is more than one faithful way to embody it. Strategy is the work of discerning a parish’s particular vocation within that shared mission.
For a choice to count as strategy, though, it must be a real choice. Parishes often avoid real choices, because genuine decisions expose tradeoffs or disagreements we would prefer to keep in the background. They declare that they will become “a community that welcomes everyone” or “a place all can call home,” but those aren’t real choices. One simple way to test whether something is really a choice comes from Roger Martin, the secular business thinker, whose work on strategy I applied to the parish context: if the opposite of your choice is not immediately ridiculous, then you may be making an actual strategic choice.
For instance, a parish might choose to prioritize embodied, liturgical worship over digital outreach; the opposite choice, leaning heavily into online ministry, may be equally faithful. Strategy requires selecting among multiple viable paths, reflecting Paul’s insight about the “varieties of gifts.” The body is rich in possibilities, and faithfulness may take different shapes in different places.
At St. Francis’, this meant wrestling with a deceptively simple question: What is our particular way of living into the mission we’ve always had? After months of conversation and prayer, the vestry chose a clear answer: to be the best place to engage deeply with the richness of Great Tradition Christianity. That choice is not universal; it is not meant to be. It reflects our parish’s strengths, its people, and the needs of its community. Another parish, even nearby, might make different decisions. That diversity is a gift of Anglicanism: we do not believe our exact approach is the only right approach.
Once that vision was named, other decisions unfolded naturally. A strategy becomes concrete not through slogans but through a set of reinforcing choices: how a parish will worship, form Christians, engage its community, steward its resources, and welcome those who come with different backgrounds or expectations. Each choice informs, and is informed by, all of the others.
Some have raised concerns about importing “business tools” into church life, and those concerns are warranted. A parish that chases corporate-style metrics will quickly lose its bearings. If the purpose becomes boosting Average Sunday Attendance for its own sake, then the parish will be tempted into gimmicks. We joked at St. Francis that we could double our ASA by giving away free iPhones at the door, but that joke carried a point: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
Our rector, Fr. Clint Wilson, set a firm standard: the only proper goal for a church is faithfulness. It is not quantifiable, but it is recognizable: in worship, in formation, in the shape of our lives. Attendance and giving matter, since faithfulness bears fruit, but they cannot be what we optimize for. If the goal is right, the business tools of structured thinking, clear governance, and thoughtful prioritization serve the parish, rather than distorting it.
A coherent strategy for a parish is rooted in its gifts, aligned with the unmet needs of the community it exists in, and is honest about its limits. When a parish establishes a clear and coherent strategy, it gains freedom. It no longer tries to be all things to all people. It knows what it is called to do and what it is not called to do. Programs have rationale, rather than inertia. Ministries reinforce one another, instead of competing for attention.
Strategic planning, done well, is not the intrusion of ill-fitting corporate systems into the church. It is a disciplined form of Christian discernment. It asks each parish to name its particular gifts, to make real choices among many good possibilities, and to build its common life around those choices with clarity. In that posture, a parish is freed to listen for what God is doing in its midst and to align its life with that call. Strategy, done properly, is an act of stewardship. It is an offering of attention, imagination, and hope, so the parish can respond faithfully to the work God has entrusted to it now.
Joshua White is a Guest Writer. A corporate strategy consultant advising Fortune 500 clients on growth strategy and organizational transformation, White is a member of St. Francis in the Fields, Louisville, Kentucky. He led the parish’s Strategy Working Team and contributes to newcomer engagement. White's wife Barbara is associate rector of St. Francis' and they have three children.
