IARBC Strategic Plan Winter 2012

Executive Summary

Here is an update about the IARBC Strategic Plan.  Progress was made throughout December turning the priorities into strategies for several of the teams.  

The eight other men who agreed to serve on the Outreach Team were:  Bill Wright, Brad Hoff, Chuck DeCleene, Dan Fields, Don Collings, Duane Wessels, Jacob Saylor, and Mark Lounsbrough.   The Outreach Team made the following goals a priority for 2011-2012:

·         Goal 1 (Increase the Planting of New Churches in the State)
·         Goal 5 (Revitalize Statewide Evangelistic Youth Activities and Encourage Better Participation from All of
            the Churches of Our Fellowship) 

The approach was similar for both Goal 1 and Goal 5.  Our discussion centered on strategies which would work from the bottom up to reach these goals.  The resulting emphasis was on finding ways to train, encourage, and provide support services to local churches and the individuals in those local churches.  For every local church which reaches out and grows, these goals will be reached at a corporate level. 

Dave Peters is developing a strategy with the State Youth Committee designed to be held regionally and geared towards leadership development of our youth.  Gordon Hawkins is working on developing an additional section to the newsletter of the IARBC.  This section would be called “The Master’s Heart.”  It is dedicated to encouraging and equipping local churches in Outreach and Evangelism in their local church.  It will promote five areas of evangelism in our local churches.  First is prayer for church planting both future and present.  A second area will emphasize outreach ideas to inspire and challenge.  A third area will cover outreach principles to educate and train.  A fourth area will cover outreach news to inform and update.  The last area will focus on praise to glorify the work of God across the state.  The goal is to incorporate “The Master’s Heart” into the newsletter by sometime in April.  

Ministerial Care (Led by Dennis Reynolds and Joe Earle)

The eight other men who agreed to serve on the Ministerial Care team were:  Dick Dayton, Greg Baum, Dennis Sanders, Tim Capon, John Woodford, Justin Lundberg, Jeff Newman, and Ben Hartwig.  The Ministerial Care team made these goals a priority in 2011:

·          Goal 17 (Provide Effectively for the Needs of the State Representative in His Ministry)
·          Goal 18 (Strengthen and Multiply World‑wide Disciple‑making (Including Both Evangelism and
            Edification)
·          Ongoing goals (Build Fellowship Among Our Pastors and Wives, Welcome all New Pastors to the State,
            Provide for Pastors Who May Incur Debt Beyond Their Control)

This team also divided into sub teams charged with the same tasks particularly for these objectives: 

·         17a Identify personal and ministry needs of the State Representative through an annual evaluation.
·         18a Identify and promote Missionaries sent out by churches of the IARBC. 

This team last met on April 3, 2012. Dennis Reynolds led the team in identifying those areas of annual review critical to assessing the ministry needs of the Iowa State Representative.  He is currently researching salary structures of other State Representatives and other Pastors in the State of Iowa and will evaluate the gathered data while also taking into account such factors as years in ministry and cost of living in the county of residence.  His sub-team is developing a questionnaire which will allow the State Rep to communicate his needs to the team annually.  This information will be funneled yearly to the Council of 10.  Joe Earle reported on the use of the IARBC web site to identify and promote Missionaries sent out from within the Sate Fellowship. He has begun collecting information on missionaries sent out from the fellowshipping churches and posting that information on the IARBC web site.  At this central location local missionaries can easily be identified and prioritized based on the needs of churches looking to schedule missionary speakers.  The team is also planning a welcome dinner for the new Pastors in the state at the Annual Conference to be held at Maranatha, as well as some regional dinners throughout the State.  

Church Health   (Led by Tim Moore and Garry Moore)

The eight other men who agreed to serve on the Church Health team were:  Scott Owen, Stephen Moore, Will Hatfield, Jeff Duffy, Jeff Holub, Troy Weigert, Mike Augsburger, and James Reynolds.  The following are the priority choices for this team:

·         Goal 9 (Enhance Relevance and Effectiveness of Ministries of the IARBC)
·         Goal 13 (Perpetuate and Extend Our Biblical Heritage as Fundamental Baptists)
·         Goal 14 (Provide Opportunities for Additional Pastoral Training)

They divided into sub teams to ask questions and find solutions to objectives:

·         9a (Appoint a Women's Ministry Coordinator and align all Ladies Ministries with the IARBC's Mission
           and Vision statements)
·         13c (Develop a succession plan for the State Representative which will perpetuate our position.)
·         14a (Establish a pastor's book club)
·         14c (Develop and implement a continuing mentoring ministry to younger pastors)

Last meeting was February 24, 2012 for the purpose of following up on strategies for objectives 9a, 13c, 14a, and 14c.

9a    Tim Moore and Scott Owen worked at laying a foundation to appoint a Women’s Ministry Coordinator and align all Ladies Ministries with the IARBC Mission and Vision statements.  The strategies they employed included: 

·         Identifying the names of potential leadership who could serve as a ministry coordinator.
·         Conducting a survey among a variety of pastor’s wives in the fellowship.  The survey was geared to gain a 
          better understanding of the priorities of Women’s ministries and ways to get more women involved 
          connected to IARBC women’s ministries. 

The team identified a person of interest as first priority.  The survey will be used by the new Women’s Ministry Coordinator to help develop ways to enhance the women’s ministries of the IARBC.

13c    Gary Moore and Jeff Holub met several times with Joe Hayes and interviewed him while identifying key issues for developing a succession plan.  Jeff began by conducting research on models followed within our national state fellowships as well as models used in the secular arena.  He found a model from the Russell Reynolds Associates in an article “A Practical Guide to CEO Succession Planning” which would fit the advice his research uncovered and was easily adaptable to the criteria of the IARBC.  It follows a step by step process of identifying several candidates and narrowing the field based on the ranking of the following priorities: 

·         Testimony and Character
·         Biblical Worldview
·         Training and Education
·         Ministry History
·         Relationships
·         Administration
·         Business Aptitude
·         Vision and Strategy
·         Fit to Situation
·         Interest and Desire

Jeff is currently developing a questionnaire which would draw out the information about each priority from the succession candidates.  

14a    Tim Moore, Mike Augsburger, Troy Weigert, and Will Hatfield are working on developing a book club for Pastors.  Tim and Mike have taken the lead on this because the Ill-Mo fellowship under the leadership of Bernie Augsburger has developed something similar.  At this point the team has focused on the structure of such a club and not the content.  At this point a similar model is being developed with a State Representative led, area fellowship implemented reading and discussion of a common book.  This team is currently ironing out more logistics with a goal of a fall implementation. 

14c    Gary Moore, Stephen Moore, and Jeff Duffy are working on developing and implementing a continuing mentoring ministry to younger pastors.  This team has identified two potential interpretations and implementations.  One would involve fellowship between pastors already in ministry, the other would take place in a local church between the pastor and young men considering ministry.  Jeff Duffy has developed a list of topics that would aid fellowship between pastors already in ministry.  No strategies have been identified to encourage local church involvement with prospects.   The former interpretation may be passed over to the Ministerial Care Team who has a similar objective. 

Governance  (Led by Bruce Thompson and Doug Farrell)

The eight other men/women who agreed to serve on the Governance Team were:  Bob Sauser, James Maxwell, Christy Moore, Linda Albertson, David Tebbenkamp, Phil Betz, Sandy VanLoon, and Miles Grismore.  On April 3^rd, this team met again and continued asking questions and finding solutions to objective c of the 25^th goal (Review Governance of the IARBC and Revise for Current and Future Ministry Needs According to the Implementation of the Strategic Plan and clarify the relationship of the organization and ministry of the IARBC with IRBC, FBBC, and Alpha Women's Center).  Phil Betz, Dr. Maxwell, and Linda Albertson were again all present to participate in the discussion.  Each organization was asked to interact with these questions:  How has the existing relationship worked to this point?  Has it worked well?  What accountability do you want the IARBC to provide to your organization?   What accountability do you foresee yourself giving to the IARBC?  If you could dream, what would you like the relationship to look like in the future?  Phil Betz was assigned some further research to confirm who owns the camp.  Based on the information gathered and the opinions expressed, the next step is to develop strategies to strengthen the ties of each organization with the IARBC including the wisdom of following through with objective A: Modify/Amend/Change Association By-Laws to make governance provision for:

·         An IRBC representation on Council (non-voting)
·         An FBBC representation on Council (non-voting)
·         An Alpha representation on Council (non-voting)
·         A reciprocal representation of IARBC Council Member on the IRBC, FBBC, and Alpha Boards 
          respectively (non-voting).

This team also plans to tackle Objective:

·         B2) Include the Mission statement in the By-Laws; and
·         B3) Rename and update the present constitutional statement of purpose at the 2012 Annual Conference. 

Finance  (Led by David Strope)

A team of four has been assembled so far and the plan is to prioritize goals for the 2012-2013 year.