Expanding SWOT for the Church

SWOT analysis is ubiquitous. This planning and decision-making tool is used in so many different professional environments, it is widely understood by church members. However, from my point of view as both a consultant and a working minister, SWOT needs to be expanded to direct attention to not only what is known, but what is only dimly seen through eyes of faith.

What Is SWOT?

First, a definition for those who aren’t already familiar with SWOT analysis.

SWOT is an acronym for a four-quadrant method of evaluating the status of an organization or group. The letters refer to internal Strengths and Weaknesses and external Opportunities and Threats. SWOT can be used to identify your team, business, or project’s best work, locate your opportunities for growth or innovation, and recognize elements that hold you back.

A SWOT analysis was suggested recently in the mid-sized congregation where I serve as interim senior minister. As the pastor search committee began to interview potential candidates, it realized that while it had a clear understanding of the congregation’s Weaknesses and Threats, its grasp of its Strengths and core identity were not as well developed.

The internal Weaknesses included flat membership, an aging congregation, heavy dependence on the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers for stewardship revenue, and less-than-buzzworthy programming for children and youth. Sound familiar? If so, the main external Threat might sound familiar too—the ongoing decline of the former Protestant Mainline as successive generations disaffiliate from the institutional church.

The congregation’s Strengths and core identity were less clear to the leadership, beyond a shared commitment to continuing as a “purple” church with traditional music and liturgy. `

The members of the search committee are all professionals of one kind or another, so the chair proposed a “T” chart focused on the Strengths and Opportunities portions of SWOT to get beyond the group’s preoccupation with Weaknesses and Threats. I was concerned, though, that the traditional approach to Strengths and Opportunities might not uncover some elements of the church’s life and context that I found most hopeful and interesting.

What SWOT Misses

For example, a traditional SWOT analysis is not likely to surface Opportunities that exist beyond what I think of as the development horizon—events or developments that may one day become important but are presently so far from the organization’s work that a standard SWOT analysis might miss them.

My experience with development horizons began 15 years ago when, as a nonprofit executive responsible for a network of food pantries, I started reading articles in Harvard Business Review about the importance of data. We had just started collecting information about our clients—not because we wanted to learn anything specific, but to keep track of who, in a city of 500,000 people, had visited one of our food pantries in any given month.

As we collected information, we realized that the database we were using for this purpose—designed for learning about homeless people—didn’t work as well for food pantries, so we contracted with a local software developer to create our own database. Then a former board chair—recently retired as a corporate chief information officer—expressed interest in learning about data visualization. We wrote him into our privacy agreements, allowing him to create interactive graphs, maps, and charts about what kinds of people were using our food pantries and why.

The development horizon for our work was the idea of using data. We thought vaguely that data would someday be important for us, but the topic would be unlikely to surface in a standard SWOT analysis. We knew business corporations used data—but in ways that seemed miles beyond what we could hope to achieve, we thought.

Nonetheless, we said “yes” to every opportunity to progress in gathering and understanding data, and ultimately developed a level of competence in data analytics and data visualization exceeding that of much larger nonprofits. The value of recognizing a development horizon—like the possibility of using data—is that you develop skills and insights beyond the ones you currently require.

Expanding SWOT

You could force-fit the development horizon concept into the SWOT model. Our lack of data competence was a sort of Weakness, and you could say our lack of awareness exposed us and our clients to Threats. But “development horizon” is a better name for the learning we did not yet know we had to do.

Congregations, too, can find their own development horizons by making it a practice to notice concepts that seem totally unrelated to their present work but that spark curiosity and seem to have potential impact. In my experience, this approach gets you farther than exploring Weaknesses and Threats.

Sometimes Strengths and Opportunities can be too indistinct to show up in a traditional SWOT exercise. The most exciting aspect of my current congregational work is a potential Strength—emerging spiritual renewal. At this point I can barely articulate how God seems to be renewing the life of this congregation is. I mention it only to people who I think are spiritually mature enough not to laugh at me! I cannot provide convincing quantitative or qualitative evidence! Nonetheless, I sense the quickening of the Spirit every time I walk into the sanctuary.

This hazy sense of becoming something rather than already being something might not be claimed as a Strength. And yet this is precisely the kind of thing a church should talk about when it reflects on its identity and future course. Congregations can make themselves ready by creating a communal practice of noticing where God seems to be beckoning.

The practice of communal noticing “development horizons” or “spiritual becomings” is not obvious or easy. Even those of us who work at noticing God’s presence through prayer, meditation, painting, or journal writing tend to focus on our own lives, not the life of an institution. What may be required is communal stillness—like a regular prayer meeting or a focused prayer vigil. Whatever practice we choose, the church needs more than SWOT analysis. It needs to look for its development horizons, for those places where it senses that it and the Spirit might be becoming one.