To have forward momentum in ministry, we need alignment. As long as there is sideways energy, there will be constant drift, or even a tug of war between team members and departments.

Alignment might sound simple, but it can be difficult to achieve — and even harder to maintain. Where do you start? Alignment begins with consideration of six key areas.

1. Community

Your community is your mission field. If you spend your budget on programs and strategies that don’t appeal to the people you’re trying to reach, you’ll see minimal impact.

Design outreach with the people in your community in mind. And welcome everyone who comes.

2. Goals

A ministry’s goals often reflect the team leader’s personal interests. While this may sound fine on the surface, it can lead to each church team having a different set of priorities.

To achieve goal alignment, a church needs to answer this foundational question: In what areas do we have to see results to achieve our vision? The answer will reveal the key result areas — points that are critical to vision fulfillment.

For example, to reach its vision, a church might need to see results in evangelism, discipleship, generosity, missions, marketing, and leadership development. These would be the key result areas. Therefore, to ensure alignment with the church’s vision, every goal set by every team member within every department would need to align with one of these key result areas.

If the goal falls outside of a key result area, it’s likely pulling you off mission.

3. Strategy

Organizations create strategies to fulfill their mission and realize their vision. Unfortunately, sometimes those same strategies drive people in opposing directions.

To create strategic alignment, answer the following questions: What are our “wins”? What strategies will help us achieve the wins? What do we need to measure to ensure the strategy is achieving the win?

For example, if you identify “cultivating community” as one of your wins, a strategy for achieving this win might be small groups. Then, you might measure your number of groups, the number of people enrolled in groups, and the stories of connection you’re hearing as a result of the groups. All three — the win, the strategy, and the measurements — are aligned.

You can’t declare a vision to go one direction and then spend money to go a different direction.

If “releasing leaders” is a win, your strategy might be to create a leadership pipeline. Then, you might measure your progress by counting the number of volunteers and leaders in the pipeline, as well as stories of impact made by these leaders. Again, there should be alignment of the win, the strategy, and the measurement.

4. Staff

If you have a clear vision and a clear strategy, but you don’t staff the strategy to reach the vision, you’re not likely to gain much momentum. Somebody has to own the strategies and systems that move you toward the vision.

Create an organizational chart that shows every staff member, who they report to, and what they are responsible for doing. Then compare this chart to your vision and strategy. Is there alignment? Are the keys to vision attainment embedded in the responsibilities of the team? If not, what changes are in order?

5. Funding

It takes money to do ministry, but there is often a mismatch between the vision we describe and the allocation of our resources. You can’t declare a vision to go one direction and then spend money to go a different direction.

This can be difficult, because sometimes it means you have to defund one ministry to allocate resources toward what’s most important. Other times, you have to give disproportionately to different departments to reach a goal or make strategic progress toward the vision.

When creating a budget, the goal isn’t to be fair. The goal is to fund the vision. Be sure the church’s money is aligned with the church’s mission.

6. Communication

Imagine being in an organization where everybody spoke a different language. Eventually, teams would fall apart because there would be too much confusion. That’s what happened at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9). When alignment in communication was removed, everything halted.

In ministry, everybody needs to use the same terminology. Words matter, and language creates culture.

Put together a terminology guide that describes how you communicate from the platform, and terminology that helps you clearly communicate your vision to your community.

For example, every team member should use the same language to describe programs. Every staff member should refer to guests the same way from the platform. Furthermore, everyone should use the same terminology when receiving the offering.

Again, language creates culture, and if there isn’t consistency, misalignment creeps into the vocabulary of the team.

Alignment isn’t restricted to these six areas. But aligning these areas goes a long way toward creating a church that is moving the same direction toward the same destination.