The Air Force first introduced the world to the scenario concept. It used scenarios in World War II to anticipate what America’s opponents might do and to prepare alternative strategies. Herman Kahn later brought the concept over into the business world and developed it further.
Scenarios are not plans but hypothetical sketches or stories of what an organization’s future could look like. It’s a disciplined method for imagining a church’s different possible futures, allowing individuals and churches to be proactive more than passive in dealing with the future. They help leaders prepare for whatever may happen.
Scenario planning is accomplished best in a team context. The various team members represent different perspectives that may add important insights and viewpoints to the overall process. With a team it is also easier to do the work of research and information gathering.
Scenario planning takes time to gather and interact over the material that makes up each scenario. Thus you must approach and use this tool with patience. If you hurry the process, the tool will not help you make good decisions about the ministry’s future.
Scenario thinking is more an art than a science. That means that it is more caught than taught, and some people will be better at it than others. Regardless, anyone can learn to do it with some proficiency. Though it is somewhat intuitive in its development, scenario building does have a recognizable process. In The Art of the Long View, Peter Schwartz outlines the following scenario-developing process. I would add that from a Christian perspective, a church should bathe the entire process in prayer and the regular study of God’s Word. Divine guidance is essential to any decisions that Christians make.
Step 1: Articulate Your Key Decisions
The first step in the scenario-developing process is to articulate key decisions that your ministry will have to make. Decisions are critical to your life and the future of your ministry. They shape life in the future. To a great degree, your life and that of your ministry is the sum of your decisions. Though various events that are beyond your control will affect your ministry, your decisions and reactions to those events are under your control and will affect your future as well.
Leading a church in the 21st century involves making numerous decisions about the ministry and its future. For example, a number of churches at the beginning of the 21st century are in decline. They face major decisions regarding their future: Should we continue to minister as now? Should we consider relocating to another community for ministry? Should we disband, sell our property and facilities, and give the proceeds to another ministry such as a church plant? Other churches are experiencing numerical growth. They also face major decisions regarding their future: Should we start a new S-curve now or next year? Should we expand our present facilities or move to a new location and build a larger facility at that site? Should we add new missionaries or start an aggressive program of church planting? Scenarios lead to a better awareness of a church’s future and to better decisions affecting that future.
You must articulate what decisions need to be made before you can make effective ones. Ask, What decisions will we have to make soon? What decisions will have a short- and long-term influence on the future of this church?
Several questions will help you articulate and make better decisions: Are you aware of the paradigms that inform your assumptions that, in turn, affect your decisions? What is your mindset and what are the church’s paradigms that affect your decisions? Are they flexible? For example, is the congregation locked into an old-paradigm ministry mindset or is it open to new paradigms for doing ministry? What questions should you be asking to make better decisions? You should ask both specific questions that affect your ministry and broad questions related to the world at large. Whereas the first affects your ministry in the immediate, the latter will affect it long term.
Step 2: Do In-Depth Research
The second step is to do in-depth research. This involves the team in gathering information that will affect your decisions. But what are you looking for and where should you look for it?
First, you look for trends and information. Schwartz suggests that you pay attention to the following topics.
- Science and technology are one of the most important drivers of future events. They literally shape the future. Consider new developments in physics, biotechnology, computer science, ecology, microbiology, and engineering. For example, e-mail has the potential to revolutionize communication within churches.
- Perception-shaping events influence peoples thinking. This concerns not necessarily what is actually happening, but what people perceive is happening. You glean this information from television, various polls, and by interviewing people.
- Music communicates what people are feeling. For example, are people listening to love songs or songs of anger and rage?
- New knowledge develops at the fringes. Do not ignore unconventional thinkers. People like Albert Einstein started at the fringes.
Second, you need to know where to look. I attempt to keep up with what is happening in the following general sub environments: society, technology, economics, the political/legal environment, and the philosophical/theological environment. Schwartz suggests that we specifically look in the following places.
- Remarkable people (those with a finger on the pulse of change). This would include writers, rock stars, computer scientists, business people, especially those who differ with you. These people may not be Christians, but that does not mean that they do not see the immediate future.
- Sources of surprise. Schwartz advises us to read books, specifically those in other disciplines. For example, a pastor could read Bill Gates’ latest book.
- Filters. Filters are primarily editors and news people. He suggests that we scan magazines and view CNN.
- Immersion in a different, challenging environment. Here he is referring to travel and living in another culture.
Seek to stay abreast of what other churches that God is blessing are doing locally and around the world. Ask which might be of help to you and your ministry.
Step 3: Look for Driving Forces
The third step is to look for driving forces. They are the specific trends or factors that will influence the outcome of events. We have little control over these driving forces. Some examples are a key person’s vision, interest rates, new technology, unsaved people’s response to attending church, and others. Two kinds of driving forces will affect your ministry
The first is predetermined elements. These are predictable or inevitable trends or events. For example, demographic studies inform us that another baby boom will occur in the United States during the first 12 years of the 21st century. By 2012 the annual number of births may exceed 4.3 million. The question for the church is: What kind of church will reach these people in the year 2020?
The second driving force is critical uncertainties. They are unpredictable events and trends that tend to blindside us. You wake up in the morning and discover that they have happened unexpectedly. Examples are the gift of a large sum of money to the building fund, the resignation of the pastor, or the conversion of the village atheist.
Determine which forces are significant or most important to your situation and will influence your people and church events. Which trends and events will affect the church and which will not? Will they have immediate or long-term effects or both?
Step 4: Develop Scenarios
The fourth step is to develop several scenarios, hypothetical sketches in the present of what the church might look like in the future. They describe how the driving forces (trends and events) may behave, based on how they have behaved in the past and realizing they could act differently in the future.
Here is how a typical scenario session works. A scenario-developing team comes together for a day or two after having done their research on the particular decision they are facing. Schwartz suggests that they wrestle with the following questions:
- What are the driving forces?
- What is inevitable (predetermined elements)?
- What is uncertain (critical uncertainties)?
- How about this or that scenario?
Construct two or three scenarios. You should limit the number of scenarios because people can handle only so many. Ask, What would happen if … ? Mix equal amounts of prediction and imagination with your answers. Keep in mind that the primary purpose of this exercise is not to develop accurate pictures of the future as much as to gain a deeper understanding of the forces, trends, or events that will affect your future. Show how different plots handle the same forces. Finally, be open to diverse points of view.
For example, the church I pastor is a revitalization effort located in an older, changing community. None of the members live in the community, and the church over the years has failed to have any impact on the people who live there. A large, low-income housing project sits just south of the church’s property. A gang of young kids who live in the housing project is systematically damaging the church facilities, and nothing can be done to stop them.
A growing number of churches who find themselves in a similar situation sell their properties to ethnic churches (who are better suited to reach those who have moved into the community) and relocate to an area closer to the epicenter of where the congregation lives. Last year I began to ask our people if they believe that the future of the church is at this location. All said they believe that it is not. Then I suggested that we consider relocating the church closer to where our people live. This would involve purchasing property in a new, growing area. Then we would meet most likely in a nearby strip mall until we could afford to build a new facility on the property All this is contingent on the church growing while meeting at the new site.
The first scenario is the worst case. Here you ask: What if the worst happens? For us the question is, What if we relocate the church and we fail to grow? The answer is that we would not survive. For us to meet expenses and build a new facility, we would have to expand our giving base considerably. That means new people would be needed.
The second is the best-case scenario. What if the best happens? What if we relocate and things go very well? What if we grow, construct a new facility on the land, and reach many people in the area for Christ? Our research indicated that this was a real possibility. We knew of no churches in the Dallas area who had relocated and died. All had done relatively well. The answer in all likelihood is that we would become a Christ-honoring church that would reach people for him.
The third is the status-quo or “surprise-free” scenario. In our case, it asks, What if we choose not to relocate? What if we decide to stay in our present facility in our present community? Our research indicated that though the church was experiencing some growth, it was transfer growth, and the church would soon begin to lose a number of its established people who were driving long distances to attend the services. They said, “If the church doesn’t move, we will have to leave.” The church would probably last a year.
Schwartz has identified several types of scenarios. One is winners and losers—if somebody wins, then somebody has to lose. Another is challenge and response—there will be problems but we will view them as challenges and, somehow, we will survive them. A third is evolution—that involves slow changes in one direction, either in growth or decline.
Step 5: Consider the Implications
The final step in building your scenarios is to consider the implications of the decisions. Ask, How does our decision look in each of the scenarios? Does it look like a good decision in only a few but not all scenarios? Also, ask, What are the implications and consequences of each variable? For example, should we decide to relocate, who will and will not move with us?
Only time will tell which is the more accurate scenario. Now all that remains is to make the decision. Ask, What are we going to do? In light of what we have learned from our scenarios, what decision are we going to make?
From Advanced Strategic Planning by Aubrey Malphurs. Used by permission of Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, copyright © 1999. All rights to this material are reserved. Materials are not to be distributed to other web locations for retrieval, published in other media, or mirrored at other sites without written permission from Baker Publishing Group. http://www.bakerbooks.com
