What to Know about a Comprehensive Church Consultation

 If you find your church in a place where you feel stuck or declining, you may want to consider investing in a comprehensive church consultation.  Such a consultation will help your church understand some areas that the church needs to address in order to get unstuck and start growing again.  A consultation is not a magic bullet, but it will take you down a path of discovery where you have a better perspective on where the church is currently at and where the church desires to be.  The consultation will be a process of self-discovery with some practical and intentional recommendations to move the church ahead.  As you can imagine there are many reasons why a church gets stuck.  It could be the ethos of the congregation, meaning they simply do want to change.  It could be the facility, meaning bad signage, not enough parking, first impressions, or confusing.  It could be a lack of attention on areas of ministry such as outreach.  It could be conflict among the leadership.  It could just be not really knowing the demographic of the people in the community.  It could be a lack of meaningful prayer among the people of the church and its leadership.  The point is there are a variety reasons why a church gets stuck, and I certain that a church consultation would be a meaningful and worthwhile investment.  

What Does It Involve? 

• A comprehensive church consultation will focus first on gaining perspective relative to patterns and trends within the church and within the community the church is wanting to reach.  This is done by gaining both subjective and objective data.  
• It would involve a complete demographic and psychographic study of the community.  This will tell you the patterns and trends of the people within the community and patterns and trends of certain thinking patterns.  This is very meaningful when determining what kind of ministries the church may need to consider to reach their community.  
• It also involves a comprehensive in church survey that will assess the health of the major areas of ministry.  You will be able to identify patterns that are either healthy or unhealthy.  It will reveal practices that have either been very helpful or sorely lacking.  The value of this survey is that it gathers a lot of information from the congregation to get an accurate feel for what they think about the ministry.  Even though this is subjective information, one's perspective is their reality.  The leadership will benefit from patterns that emerge and will spur on really good conversation about the reason for these patterns.  
• It would also involve a meeting with key leaders in both an interview setting and as a group to assess perspective about the church.
• It would also involve information from a "Secret Guest" whom I would choose to attend a service and evaluate your church.  This person would be someone who lives in your community and doesn't attend a church.  It is often really helpful to get an outsider's perspective.
• It would also include a facilities evaluation as well as a thorough evaluation of the website.
• It would also include an evaluation of the church's financial position including giving trends and budget realities.
• The consultation will also involve a meeting with the church leadership team to help clarify and define both the mission of the church (why the church exists) and unique vision (where the church would like to be).  This is THE most important part of the consultation.  These two aspects (mission and vision) define what I would refer to simply as Point B.  The perspective work I mentioned above is what I would refer to as Point A.  The goal of the consultation is to help the leadership team see what needs to happen to get from Point A to Point B.
• After gathering all the information and getting clarity on mission and vision, I would write up a final report with practical recommendations for the church to pursue.  I would also offer myself to present the final report to the whole church, if desired.
• If the church finds these recommendations helpful and would like help in the planning aspect of ministry, I offer a strategic planning facilitation service at an additional cost.  This would involve 2 six hour sessions no more than 10 days apart to identify the four major objectives that the church would need to focus on and two to three initiatives for each objective.  These plans would include measurable goals, assigned accountability, and deadlines to help the church manage the steps that need to be taken.  This is a long, exciting, and sometimes painful process, but you will find that it was well worth it.  

How Long Is This Process?

• This process would be about 6 weeks with the final report submitted two weeks after the final meeting with the key leaders.  It takes time to gather some of the information and to meet with all the key leaders.

What Does It Cost?

• A Comprehensive Church Consultation costs $2,200 plus travel expenses.  This includes my time, the tools I would use to get the data I would need (Know Your Community Report, Know Your Church Survey and Report, and Secret Guest Survey), as well as the materials I would need for the meetings and final report.  
• If the church desires help with strategic planning, the Strategic Planning Facilitation Service would cost an additional $700 plus travel expenses.  After the final planning session, I would submit within 2 weeks what I would call a playbook for the church to manage the plans made.

I hope this gives you an idea of what a Comprehensive Church Consultation would involve.  I look forward to possibly serving you and your church.