How can we develop Local Mission Plans to improve mission?
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How can we develop Local Mission Plans to improve mission?
3 November 2021
Major Matt Reeve, Head of Mission Support, hosted a recent webinar on implementing Local Mission Plans.
Corps leaders recently gathered online for a nationwide webinar to explore how Local Mission Plans can be developed and used by corps to enhance mission across The Salvation Army.
Local Mission Plans were introduced to help all mission expressions articulate how they can work to fulfil the Mission Statement: caring for people, creating faith pathways, building healthy communities and working for justice. It asks all mission expressions to identify a goal for each and actions to help achieve the goals and transform Australia one life at a time with the love of Jesus.
It asks teams to prayerfully consider: How do we care for people? What can we do to better create faith pathways for people? How are we building healthy communities and working for justice? How can we collaborate with others to do this? It is a simple way to give concrete expression to these missional statements.
Hosted by the Head of Mission Support, Major Matt Reeve, the webinar in October heard from four corps leaders: Captain Natalie Frame (Bayside, Queensland), Major Rebecca Inglis (Wollongong, NSW), Aux-Lieut Roderick Brown (Launceston, Tasmania) and Captain Annita Allman (Castlemaine, Victoria). It also allowed for a Q&A session.
A common theme among the guest speakers was the temptation, in their early days, to view it as a compliance task, or as Natalie admitted, “just something else we had to do”.
“But we were very quickly blessed and rebuked by our corps leadership team, who all had the attitude that this was an opportunity to do something well and to use it as a tool to focus on what matters,” she added.
“One of the things that really impacted me was when we were having an informal chat in our Area Leadership Team meeting with our Salvos Stores and Employment Plus managers and hearing them express how they had been through the process as well and how excited they were about it and how we [Bayside Corps] had been included in their planning.
“It was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me, that these guys were taking it seriously and how awesome it was that every mission expression in the country has had to do this.”
‘Focus’ is the key
Matt shared his learning that a meaningful Local Mission Plan involved consultation with corps members. This was key to missional engagement and keeping plans from being just an administrative task of the corps leader.
Rebecca articulated that, while it hasn’t always been smooth sailing, the benefits of the Local Mission Plan easily outweigh any problems.
“If I had to sum up the benefit of our Local Mission Plan in one word, it would be ‘focus’,” she said. “The need is huge ... and it can seem quite overwhelming and hard to focus on just a few things, but as our leadership team continually reminds us, ‘we can’t do everything, but we must do something’. So, with our plan, we try to concentrate small and focus on, ‘what are we going to do in the next 12 months?’” Wollongong Corps also developed a service series on the four elements of the mission statement.
Roderick shared the importance of reviewing and revisiting Local Mission Plans. “We are finding that it’s key to keep regularly reviewing and updating the plan, so it stays current – we review it at each of our bi-monthly leadership meetings to see how things are progressing and what may need adjusting. That can be challenging amongst all the tasks corps officers do, but necessary for the plan to have traction and impact.”
A great guide
Another recurring theme was the importance of communicating the strategic value of the plan beyond the leadership team to the broader corps. It was a point emphasised by Annita, who in a candid moment referred to her first plan as “horrendous”.
“We were all new to it, and nobody really understood what we were meant to do or what was expected,” she added.
Subsequent attempts have fostered a deep appreciation for the Local Mission Plan, which she now views as a “great guide to setting achievable goals”.
Her concluding advice to those still getting to grips with the Local Mission Plan was encouragement to see it as a flexible document that can be readily adapted to accommodate changing missional circumstances and start with small steps.
Local Mission Plans are a tool to facilitate mission and help corps members get on the same page – with a clear passion for mission and serving God in their community.
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