The best ideas and strategies come from leaders and teams closest to the people being served and the ministries deployed to meet their needs. Think about that for a moment. While we often make strategic ministry decisions around the conference table, consider that a better way is to create strategy and generate ideas with volunteers, key leaders and teams who make ministry happen every week.

It’s not that big picture, top-down leadership doesn’t matter. It’s still a vital part of the way churches create vision, clarify direction and build out Great Commission strategies for evangelism, discipleship, missions and worship. But it shouldn’t end there.

In fact, a key observation of my 30 years in ministry is that most churches don’t fail on mission and vision. Instead, most churches struggle and often stagnate on strategic ministry execution. And execution success or failure rests with the front-facing teams who do most of the hands-on work and implementation of nuts-and-bolts ministry.

Empowering leaders and volunteers to make ministry happen is a paradigm shift for many leaders. Execution with less control or oversight isn’t always pretty, and it’s usually done in a way you wouldn’t do it yourself. But that comes with the territory. This is the “mud” of day-to-day ministry—an analogy for how laborious, challenging and messy it can be to implement those Big Ideas that mobilize the church to go and make disciples. There’s no question that it’s a glorious calling, but the mud remains. Ministry can be messy.

Enter a strategy planning process that often tells instead of listening. Nilofer Merchant says it this way:

As we all know, simply telling people what needs to be done is rarely enough to produce action. Yet that’s exactly what many organizations often do in the strategy process. Creating excellent strategy depends on collaboration throughout the organization.

Collaboration and collaborative leadership take many forms, but some of the most important are organizational strategies and tactics—everything we do (and don’t do) to achieve our missional objectives. So how do you foster a spirit of collaboration as you make strategy in the mud? Here are a few tips:

• Lead By Asking Questions — Peter Drucker said: “The leader of the past knew how to tell – the leader of the future will
  know how to ask.” Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
• Ask for Strategic Input — Most Big Idea strategy development happens at higher levels of leadership, but don’t neglect
  input from others. Collaborate with leaders and volunteers to allow for strategic ideas to bubble up from the bottom of the org chart. Ask them: “What does your team believe they can accomplish?”
• Collaborate with a Cross Section of Leaders — Devolve as much authority for developing ministry tactics as you can. The most effective action plans develop in departmental groups, volunteer teams and hands-on serving ministries.
• Delegate Execution Decisions to Ministry Teams — Ask departmental ministry teams and key volunteer leaders to develop the action plans for accomplishing your mission, vision and values. Place a high value on bottom-up leadership, strategy development and execution.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Create strategy and generate ministry ideas with volunteers, key leaders and teams who make ministry happen every week. And for maximum ministry impact, delegate execution to ministry leaders nearest the people being served.

Resources

• The New How by Nilofer Merchant
• Improv Leadership by Stan Endicott and David A. Miller
• Mind the Gap by Clint Grider
• The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling
• “Have the Courage to Ask” by Marshall Goldsmith
• “Scoreboards & Accountability” on Big Ideas Blog
• Ministry Execution on MinistryActionPlans.com
• The4DisciplinesofExecution.com
• 4DXbook.com

   
Sources

Nilofer Merchant, The New How: Creating Business Solutions through Collaborative Strategy (Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, 2010), 32.

Marshall Goldsmith, “Advice on Getting from Here to There” (Business Week), Accessed March 5, 2025, https://marshallgoldsmith.com/articles/advice-on-getting-from-here-to- there.