When is “Good Enough”…Good Enough?

As a church ministry, time and resources are sometimes scarce. Now that you’ve established your ministry’s contracts and SLAs, new things are going to come up. People will, once again, be tugging at you to do something new, create a new ministry offering, or expand your weekly duties. At this time, one of several possible things can happen:

1. The request is taken in, research is done, a plan is formed, and then you implement this new offering with care, making sure that you have the proper staffing
2. The request is taken in, you assemble your team and find someone that has an extra hour, and you begin the new offering
3. The request is taken in, and then quickly forgotten

All of these are possible responses, but often it is one of the last 2 that are selected. Why? Before we did our ministry assessment, it would be easy to see why – we don’t have the time and resources. Now, we shouldn’t have an excuse right? So, how should a ministry process a new project or offering? Here are some tips:

1. Assess the criticality: Low, Medium, or High? How essential is this new offering or project to the staff? Visitors?
2. Assess the long-term investment: Short term, Medium term, or Long term? How long with this live – one day, one weekend, one month, or years?
3. Assess the SLA: should it function properly occasionally, most of the time, or always? The closer to always, the more of an investment it may be
4. Assess the delivery schedule: when time allows, sometime soon, or yesterday? The sooner it is required, the less likely a quality delivery is possible

Once you’ve done this assessment, hopefully with other stakeholders involved to obtain their input, you can determine what level of attention to give. You can also determine if you need to recruit of volunteers, outsource some of the work, or utilize your existing infrastructure. Either way, you now have a more controlled way to grow your ministry, and you have taken the necessary steps to determine what “good enough” really means for everyone involved.

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