When starting an online ministry, whether it’s a local church website or social media evangelism, taking time to plan the ministry is vital. Too many times, efforts are begun with great enthusiasm and soon fade out. Part of this is due to a lack of planning and setting the proper processes in place to help it succeed. Here is an online ministry worksheet you can use to help get started.
1. Know who you are.
This is probably the most fundamental step in defining your ministry. What skills do you have? What are your weaknesses? What time availability is there for the people involved? It’s critical that you be honest with yourself at this point. There’s no use putting down abilities that just don’t exist. This is not a wish list.
2. Know what you want to do.
Start with a single broad objective. It might be evangelism, encouragement, or teaching. Based on step one, define what skills you can contribute to that overall objective. Once you have the broader vision in mind, write down smaller objectives that fit within it. They might be social media evangelism to a specific group of people, encouraging the poor, sick, and lonely, or posting hymns online. Whatever areas you want to focus on within the big picture, write them down.
3. Know your audience.
In marketing terms, this is called your target market. In ministry terms, it’s simply the people who will benefit from your ministry. Consider who the typical person is and what characterizes them. For example, if your local church is in a high income community, your audience is different from those who are in a poor community. Or maybe your focus is mainly on children instead of adults. The more detail you put down as to whom you are trying to reach, the easier it will be to know how to accomplish your goals.
4. Know how you want to accomplish your goals.
So you know who you are, what you want to do, and who you’re trying to reach. With that important information in hand, you can now list all of the channels you will use to achieve your goals. How will your ministry use the internet? List as many options as you can. It doesn’t mean you will try all of them, but it will help to focus the vision as you explore the options.
5. Know what the plan is. There needs to be a plan of action.
This is where many ministries fail. They try to do everything all at once without understanding the process involved. Take steps that you can accomplish and break them down into smaller tasks. Delegate the responsibilities in a way that makes sense to each of the contributors. It’s better to start doing a few things really well than to try to do a lot of things with mediocrity.
6. Know how to track results.
This might sound a bit odd, but it’s the last step in the cycle. Put mechanisms in place that give you feedback on your efforts. It could be simply emailing your followers a short survey to fill out, or the use of Google Analytics to monitor the visits to your website. You can be as creative as you want here, but the goal is to get as much feedback as possible. The bottom line is that planning is important.