In last month’s Focusing the Vision article, we asked the question, “Can we help you discover the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of accomplishing your vision?”  This month I want to take this question a step further.

Over the past several months I have been asking churches: 1) What are your key vision issues, 2) What are your plans to address those issues, and 3) How can the association resource you in addressing those issues.  As churches have answered these questions my response has been two-fold:  1) Respond directly to specific requests or suggestions for resourcing key issues, 2) Provide training and ‘think tank’ events to help with the top two key issues churches have identified - evangelism and leadership development.

Now I want to propose the next stage which will go a little deeper.  If it has been a while since your church has formally done an internal health assessment, or if maybe your church has never done such an assessment, I want to offer the opportunity for your church to do an assessment sometime in the next year and one-half.  This offer includes any or all of the following:
•    Serve as a consultant for an assessment
•    Coordinate with partners outside the association to serve as a consultant for an assessment (MWBC, NAMB, others)
•    Provide financial assistance for costs involved with an assessment
•    Provide coaching for outcomes resulting from an assessment

If it has been three years or more since your church has had an internal assessment I want to encourage you to seriously consider scheduling an assessment sometime in the next year and one-half.  Even if you have done an assessment more recently but it was not related to assessing church health, a health assessment could still be beneficial in identifying areas in your church that need attention to increase the health and growth of the church.

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