resourcing environments
A strategic plan for Southwood’s next advance
God has indeed blessed Southwood, and we desire to continue extending that blessing throughout our city. In 1986, four families recognized the need for a PCA church in southeast Huntsville. As they grew, they envisioned becoming a multi-staff, multi-ministry church with potential growth of around 1200–1500 members that would then multiply. If we fast forward 24 years and now consider Southwood as she’s established in Jones Valley, we have over 1800 members, an Easter attendance of 1400 people, a budget of $3M dollars and facilities that simply cannot accommodate the needs of our congregation and community. With prayer and thanksgiving we say: Great is God’s faithfulness throughout all generations! Over the past couple of years, we have embraced a vision and mission for Southwood that is founded in the Scriptures and aimed for the glory of Jesus Christ.
Vision – To advance the Kingdom of God in our lives, homes, church, community and world.
Mission – To turn everyone we meet into fully devoted followers of Christ.
Environments – Sunday, Small Groups, and Serving.
In recognizing our growth over 24 years and the boldness of God’s vision for our church, we must begin to resource our environments even further as they are essential to fulfilling our vision and being faithful to our mission.
The environments of Sunday, Small Groups, and Serving are critical to Southwood’s long-term growth and maturity. In a year of great transition, the Elders and the Strategic Planning Committee have taken a comprehensive look into the needs and opportunities of Southwood as we plan towards the next 10-15 years of advancement. This comprehensive look and development of a strategic plan calls us all into a renewed commitment—a renewed commitment of partnering together for the advancement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in and through Southwood. Each Southwood member is committed to advancing that kingdom by living fully devoted lives together in Christ. In order to continue to do this well, we need to establish the additional resources necessary, and those resources include people as well as the necessary space for them to grow. In order to reach more and more lives with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and seek to establish these lives in discipleship, our staffing, leadership and facilities must grow!
Staff: new pastoral positions
As a relational church with a huge heart for children, youth and mercy ministries, we believe a strategic staffing initiative is essential to pastoring our members and caring for our guests. As we’ve considered the needs of our membership support and leadership development, we must provide new staff to equip, resource and support our members. Excellent leaders who have a match for the DNA of Southwood and a practical understanding of the Gospel of Grace will be essential for equipping our members to advance God’s Kingdom and live as fully devoted followers of Christ. The strategic staffing growth plan includes the following positions in addition to our next Senior Pastor (active search committee):
Discipleship Pastor (Active Search)
• Recruit, train, resource and support our leadership and staff.
• Implement a fully developed philosophy and methodology of cultivating and educating our members to become mature, fully devoted disciples of Christ.
• Ensure a consistent approach and curriculum for discipleship in our children, youth and adult departments using the environments of Sunday, Small Groups and Serving.
Assimilation Pastor (Active Search)
• Facilitate new members’ class and pastor new members through their first year to enfold them into the church.
• Oversee adult Sunday school hour for the purpose of assimilating members.
• Create and maintain connecting spaces for guests and visitors.
Serving Pastor (Active Search)
• Oversee all serving opportunities through local, national and foreign missions.
• Engage, recruit and train our members in serving.
• Develop a master plan for church planting/site extension.
New Church Plant Pastor (Future Search)
• Intern for 2 years with the intent of expanding Southwood to another area of our community.
• Pastor among our flock to support all environments under the oversight and care of our Serving Pastor.
• Take the lead in the identification of our new church sites, and work with the staff and Session on the identification of site and members.
Facilities: expansions and renovations
Here’s the beautiful reality of God’s providential work among us: Southwood has a real growth estimate of our Jones Valley campus that needs to accommodate up to approximately 2200 members. In addition to this, we have a goal of 30% guest attendance in Sunday worship services. With the right approach to facilities and staff/leadership development, all this could be accomplished on our existing Jones Valley campus through three worship services.
Currently though, we require additional facilities to accomplish the mission God has given us here already and to prepare for the vision we believe He is calling us to in future years. Phase one will begin immediately and consists of retrofitting some existing facilities space: The Library will become a Guest Information Center; an outdoor sitting area will be established adjacent to this new guest center; the fountain will be moved to a new outside garden, allowing for this vacated space to become our Atrium for hospitality; the Tower will be modified to include comfortable seating for fellowship. Construction of additional new office space will be located behind the current offices. Phase one will be targeted for completion by December 2010. With current cost estimates of $500K, we believe it will be fully funded through this year’s current tithe projections. Southwood currently has no debt, and we do not anticipate any new debt for phase one.
Phases two and three are targeted for completion in 2015. These phases will include building a new children’s wing, adjacent to the Northwest side of the Sanctuary (window side), to include secure check-in; retrofitting Fellowship Hall C (closest to the Library) to become a café/connection space; renovating the current children’s space for adult assimilation/small groups; renovating the Sanctuary to improve lighting/sound and the Sunday worship “experience”; and expanding the Lodge to accommodate our stated growth. The very preliminary rough cost estimates for Phases II/III are a combined $5M, with much more planning, estimating and communication to be forthcoming over the coming year.
Church Planting: extending our reach in Huntsville
Here’s another wonderful reality of God’s providential work among us: Southwood must extend itself further into the greater Huntsville area seeking to gain a greater presence throughout our city and not limited to our Valley. While being good stewards of our existing Jones Valley campus, its membership, staff, leadership, and budget, we must also engage in intentional and proactive church planting. Since we are serious about being the church in the community for the community, we must target members who are ready, willing and able to establish a church in their own backyard. The bottom line is this: We desire to turn everyone we meet into fully devoted followers of Christ, so we’re committed to planting churches that pursue that same mission and reach even more people throughout our community.