Expanding your reach (or marketing your ministry) is a lot like cooking. You may have purchased the best ingredients (technology, ideas, etc.), have the step-by-step instructions printed in front of you yet when all the preparation is over the dish falls flat. Where did you go wrong? Has this ever happened to you? Are you using the triple-threat approach to ministry marketing?

A lot of pastors run into this problem when attempting to expand their reach. Whether you have a team already in place, or you are in the process of building one, you need to fill three vital roles filled if you want your expansion efforts to flourish. These roles are:

• The Visionary

• The Strategist

• The Tactician

The Visionary is the person who sees the big picture. They know how they want things to shape up and are full of ideas -- they think big, dream big. Without a visionary, your ministry expansion efforts will suffer. Unfortunately, if all you have are visionaries on your team, you probably won’t get a lot done because visionaries aren’t very good with day-to-day details. They envision goals, not the nuts and bolts of how to reach their goals. So that’s why you need to also have...

The Strategist is blessed with the ability to hear a BIG vision and break it down into digestible pieces. The strategist looks at all angles and comes up with the road map that leads to the goal. In addition to developing the action plan, he/she often finds themselves reigning in the visionary whose usually attempting to accomplish 25-30 projects per minute. Visionaries, learn to trust your strategists and let them do what they do best - create strategies that will lead toward your desired destination.

Lastly, every Christ-centered leader desirous of expansion should have on his team a Tactician. The tactician’s role is to take the framework that the strategist has laid and "bullet-proof" it! A tactician’s core strength lies in their ability to "make things happen". Because of this innate ability to implement well tacticians are often known as "the hole-puncher"; the one who takes the plan and identifies the gaps or possible areas for improvement. He/she pokes holes in plans in the beginning so that the team can make it to the end.

Oh, and be assured that these three key people will bump heads on more than one occasion! It’s inevitable because they’re looking at the ultimate goal from three different perspectives. But you know what, when heads start bumping, the ideas start flowing and the plan tightens up and improves. So as long as you and your team respect and honor each other’s roles it’s all good.