Over the past few posts we’ve explored how our mission guides our overall purpose and approach to how we carry out our day to day activities. There are so many ways in which we can go about “equipping leaders for service in God’s kingdom” that it’s helpful to prioritize some activities over others. Those priorities are documented in Winebrenner’s 2018-2023 Strategic Plan.
I was recently in a meeting with several denominational officials when the topic of “strategic plans” came up in the midst of that larger discussion. Someone mentioned how the use of strategic planning within the business world has so corrupted the topic that it makes it hard to take plans seriously. Noting that there may be those who are hesitant to think about theological education in terms of strategic planning, it may be helpful to think about strategic planning as simply being intentional about our priorities.
The following highlights our intentional (aka strategic) priorities for this season (2018-2023):
Collaborative Relationships
You can find multiple examples of Winebrenner’s collaboration on our InDepth blog. For the most recent entries, click on one of the following links:
Collaboration: Shared Services
Collaboration: Questions to Consider
Collaboration: Models & Next Steps
Contextual Education
For an example of three unique ministry contexts see:
Highlighting Collaboration: Voice of the Gospel Ministry, Kenya
Highlighting Collaboration: Great Lakes CGGC & Marion Correctional Institution
Highlighting Collaboration: Kingwood Church of God & the Allegheny Region Foundation
Community of Learners
The following provide more insight into what this looks like at Winebrenner:
A Community of Learners – Part 1
A Community of Learners – Part 2
Community of Learners – Expanding!
Cross-cultural Communities of Learning
Each of these provide evidence of Winebrenner’s commitment to fulfilling our mission through the lens of specific priorities. If there is a limitation in these, I would identify that Winebrenner is the sole educational provider for our partners. In a blog series several years ago, the following question was raised:
Could it be that we need to stop thinking about incremental adjustments in our operational and educational models and begin to think about disruptive adjustments that require integrated innovation and result in enterprise models that produce effective systems of theological education?
I resonate with that question. Next week we’ll explore how we can reorganize for carrying out our strategy in the years to come.
– President Dr. Brent Sleasman
– Image by Jeshoots.com from Unsplash/Adobe Spark