A MAP is a living document; to keep it alive you need to:
- action the plan, with named individuals overseeing different sections
- keep the PCC informed of progress
- communicate what is happening and what you are learning to the whole church.
Reviewing your MAP
Reviewing your MAP after a year provides a useful reality check and a chance to celebrate what has been achieved and learned. It is often not until churches get to this point of reflecting on their experience that understanding and ownership of the MAP process really begins. It is important to stress that this isn’t about failure or success but about learning from what has happened so it can be applied to the next stage of the journey.
Review process
Doing a proper review process will make it much easier for the PCC to revise the MAP goals and action plan for the coming year. It may be helpful to plan the review process and MAP revision so that both can be shared at the Annual General Meeting.
What can we celebrate?
- How far did we achieve our goals?
- What did success look like?
- Where did other things happen that we had not planned for?
- Where do we sense the Holy Spirit opening up new possibilities?
What can we learn from what has not gone so well?
- Where did we not achieve our goals?
- What do we think were the reasons for this?
- Had we prayed, listened to God, one another and the wider community?
- Were we over- or under-ambitious?
- Were our goals truly SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, resourced and time-bound), and did people take ownership of the action plan?
- Were resources overstretched? Was there sufficient support?
- Were there sufficient reviews of progress at PCC?
- Was there adequate communication?
What does this mean for how we should revise our MAP?
- What are the priorities that we need to focus on for the coming year?
- What goals do we need to shelve for the time being as desirable but not achievable until other things are in place?
- Can we match people and resources to our goals and draw up SMART action plans outlining clearly what actions we need to take?
- Where do we need further training to develop our lay leadership?
- How will we integrate MAP into our PCC meetings?
- How will we communicate and celebrate our MAP with others?
