As I've said before in these videos, every one of the seven board practices is the precursor to being able to do the next board practice well. The board first needs a dynamic understanding of the congregation's vision and mission in order to ensure that all the assets of the congregation are used for the fulfillment of that mission. From that it captures institutional wisdom in the form of policy so that it does not have to make the same decisions and have the same conversations over and over again. To do that, the congregational board needs to be regularly studying what is happening in the congregation through a practice of congregational assessment. Taking all of this that allows the board to do good planning for the long term goal of fulfilling the congregation's vision and mission.

This is the fifth congregational board practice: planning for the future. There are two kinds of planning for the future. The first is the long term planning for the congregation's assets and resources to ensure that those assets and resources are available to support the fulfillment of the congregation's vision and mission for decades to come. Some examples of this are when the board leads the congregation through the development of a 20 year building maintenance plan to be able to have the financial resources to replace parts of the building when it's time to do so. Another example might be the development of a legacy giving program for the congregation to help congregation members to plan for the congregation's future through giving gifts in their wills to the congregation.

A second kind of planning for the future is much shorter term and it involves the congregation's programming, ministries and mission. When I teach this workshop in person for congregational boards, I share with them a model of a three year rolling strategic plan. Each year, the board develops a fully designed plan for the next year. A partial plan for the year after that, and a set of goals for the third year out. Then when a year completes, the congregational board assesses the year that just passed, fully designs out the partial plan from that next year, and turns the goals from the following year into the beginnings of a plan and adds a new set of goals for the third year. This way, planning for each year is an integrated part of the work of the Board, not just something a task force does every five years.

This allows the board to adapt the plan as the situation changes, and to always have at least two years of planning for the future available. The congregational board relies on its vision and mission, discernment conversations in order to -- in order to grow its understanding of how to use the assets of the congregation to fulfill the vision and mission. And its understanding of where the congregation is, to develop this plan every year.

Now if this work seems daunting, and that usually is something somebody says to me in a workshop at this point, don't worry. Boards do not have to do all this work of planning for the future by themselves. Your congregation staff will be a tremendous support and partner to the board in developing this kind of a rolling three year plan. The board will also be working with the committees and the ministry teams and can even create a standing committee of the board to assist the board in doing this kind of planning every year. And the congregational board can reach out to a series of other relationships to support their work in planning for how to fulfill the mission. And that is the next practice of a congregational board.