Church Consultancy Services
Organisational Health & Strategic Planning
Are you seeing your vision become a reality? Or do you feel stuck?… Lots of churches have participated in extensive work defining a mission statement and ‘vision’ but don’t feel like they’re making any headway and are not seeing this vision become a reality. This can be demotivating for leaders and teams.
Please get in touch to explore how I can help your church audit its vision, put in place a strategic plan for implementation and equip your leaders and teams to deliver termly and annual priorities.
I have worked with many churches, across the UK, and across many denominations, training senior leaders and managers, facilitating staff days and retreats and working with trustee teams on days away.
Programmes for 0.5 days, 1 day, 2 days, and beyond are available, depending on the context.
Operational Audits
My Operational audits cover systems, processes, buildings, I.T., Finance, H.R. & Communications. An Operational Audit is a valuable tool to equip you for greater impact. Conducted within the context of understanding your vision and priorities, I will assess and ‘stress-test’ your existing operational setup, clarifying whether it is ‘fit-for-purpose’ or whether adjustments needs to be made. This audit approach can also assess staff roles, quota and responsibilities.
The process usually consists of 1-2 days onsite review and interviews with a follow-up report and video conference. The report will make recommendations as to any changes which may be beneficial. These can remain as recommendations, or I can help support hardware installation, system migration and staff restructure.
Team Facilitation
Whether on a day-away, retreat or training morning, I love working with staff teams to help facilitate effective planning and healthy communication. Organisational health is crucial to the effectiveness of a church and a cohesive team is central to this health.
I would be delighted to help lead and facilitate the discussion with your team as we explore team culture, communication styles, roles & responsibilities, values, working with impact and planning strategically.
Financial Management
I have helped modernise and streamline the financial management, governance processes and software systems at many churches and charities. Effective and efficient financial management is crucial to the health of any church. I am experienced in reviewing processes and recommending and implementing change.
I am an experienced practitioner of church accounting and bookkeeping systems, payroll, gift aid reclamation and End of Year Accounts preparation.
Structural Review
The roles of Leadership, Governance and Management are so often misunderstood in church life. This lack of understanding may present a greater hindrance than you realise. Do the members of your trustee board, church council or PCC understand their role and responsibilities? How do you make and communicate decisions? How do the trustees work alongside the employed staff team, leadership, eldership and others?
This is an essential discussion for teams to grapple with and to agree a fruitful way of operation.
A full governance, leadership and management review should be conducted over 6-9 months as part of your trustees’ meeting agenda, but this can mainly be managed ‘in-house’ with an initial facilitated' ‘day-away’ and remote follow-up support.
Project Support
Do you need additional capacity, experience and skillset for a short-term or medium term project? Depending on capacity, I can support your church implement change, migrate systems, reclaim financial management, improve HR processes and support building projects.
I.T. Services
I am an experienced installer and practitioner of many of the core I.T. Services best suited for churches. I can advise and support migration to church management systems (for example Churchsuite), financial management systems (for example Expenseplus) and cloud administration services (for example Office365).
I can quote for short term projects (such as hardware or software upgrades) or ongoing support and maintenance. I am happy to remotely support cloud systems where appropriate.
Do get in touch to discuss your church’s IT requirements.
Training
I offer training on Church Governance, Financial Management, Strategic Planning, Line Management, Effective Administration and Communicating with Impact. Training can be provided for individuals, staff teams or for network and denominational organisations. Many of these training courses will be provided through UCAN (UK Church Administrators Network).