Goals give direction. They take those lofty, pie-in-the-sky mission statements and make them measurable and predictable (at least as close as you can get). If you aren’t setting goals in your ministry, you’re missing out. Big time. Here’s some proof if you need convincing.
Our call is ultimately to be holy. But how do we do that when God alone is holy? We begin to dispose ourselves properly to God’s grace by living a life of virtue. And we grow in virtue incrementally, with diligent effort every day. And if you want to accelerate that growth in virtue — focus on 1-3 virtues, find practical ways to live them out, and track your progress.
This is spiritual goal-setting at its finest. So why not apply this to our ministry and professional lives?
Convinced? If so, and you want to properly set goals for your ministry and professional life in 2023, here’s where we would start.
First, reflect on the following questions (and write down your answers too!):
Second, it’s time to write your goals. It’s essential to take your responses to the above questions and turn them into concrete and attainable goals. That’s why we recommend using the SMART goal approach to goal-setting. Here’s how SMART goals work:
Let's break each of these down.
Without being exact with what you're trying to achieve in your ministry, it's difficult to outline the steps you need to take to make progress. A specific goal is one that you could share with your boss or peers in 10 seconds that would clearly explain what you're trying to improve.
It's crucial that your goal is trackable and numeric. Many ministries simply say that they want to grow their attendance at events or the number of small groups but they don't specify how much they'd like to grow each. As soon as you attach a number to your goal, you'll be able to track how far you've come since you set the goal and how far you have left until you reach it.
While aiming to do everything humanely possible to turn your ministry into the place for students to be, it's important to keep these goals realistic. If your ministry has historically gained 10 small group members per month, aiming to grow your small groups by 1,000 members next month would be drastic, to say the least. You should never set a goal that you or your team become discouraged by and loses motivation. Instead, set your team and yourself up to succeed by creating goals that are realistic.
Ask yourself why you're setting the goal that you are. How is it going to contribute to my professional life? How is this going to impact our students/team/campus ministry directly? Ultimately, in the context of your work as a campus minister, the professional goals you set should be tied back to ministry impact. If it's not, consider how you can change or adjust your initial goal.
The final aspect of the SMART framework is one of the most important: setting a timeline for meeting your goal. Without a timeline, you won't be able to determine whether the smaller changes you're making are keeping you on track toward achieving your ultimate goal. Setting a timeline is also key for aligning with your team. When you're increasing the number of events you're doing, for example, you'll need to make sure your core team and ministry staff (if you have one) have the bandwidth to actually execute.
To make it simple for you, here is a template you can use to write your SMART goals:
(I or accountable party) will (action word/s) (object of the goal) by (time) for the purpose of (relevance/results).
Here are a few examples of SMART goals using the template format above:
FREE Resource: Newman SMART Goal Template
Now that you've set your SMART goals, evaluating each goal with a series of questions can ensure you remove any obstacle that will keep you from reaching your goal. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself when evaluating SMART goals:
FREE Resource: Newman SMART Goal Template
Now you have everything you need to set your SMART goals for your ministry in 2023. If you’d like to discuss your goals with other campus ministers, joining a Newman Small Group is a great way to gain greater clarity about what you’re wanting to accomplish as a professional in 2023. >>