SWOT ANALYSIS

What is a SWOT Analysis? It’s a study done to figure out the strengthens, and weaknesses of a business and/or organization, as well as, figuring out what opportunities they have and what the threats to the business could be.

Below you will the SWOT Analysis completed for South Memorial Christian Church.

I have split the analysis up for an easier read.

Strengths:

After speaking with members of the church, many have been there since the church first opened just over thirty years ago.

The church offers many different services to the community for free, such as, shelter, help with bills, food, and counseling. All without expecting anything in return.

 The church is family-oriented having various learning classes for each age group, from kinder to adults.

Weaknesses:

In the past few months, the leadership of the church as changed. This can be seen as a weakness because the members were used to one leadership style and with a younger pastor and owner the style is changing.

Currently there are only a handful of volunteers that help with the upkeep of the church as well as any events the church host. As such, many are starting to feel tired and burnout with these efforts.

Another glaring weakness is the fact that since many members have been there from the beginning, they are aging. Under the old leadership style many of the younger members ended up leaving to find another church or just leaving churches altogether.

Opportunities:

Thanks to the internet and social media there is a chance to reclaim and gain new members. As researched millennials rely heavily on social media, they use it to keep up with any and all news. They use it to share interesting post and they use it to watch and/or listen to others while in various places, even across the globe. (AdParlor. n.d.)

A great chance for the church to be able to reach out to the community is to continue to host events, but open it to the public. For example, the church at a valentines’ day event, but only for the members of the church. Opening such events to the public is an opportunity to let the community see what the church is about in a fun, less formal way.

Another opportunity is going to conventions. There are some conventions that are willing to give up a free space or a space at a reduced cost to non-profit organizations. There are even some church members, the pastor included, who enjoy going to various conventions. This could also be a chance to network with other groups and pass out fun trinkets to people to garner interest.

Threats:

There are many competitors out there for churches. Churches can go against others of the same faith or compete with others of different faiths. Millennials are more open to jumping around religions until the find what they are looking for. This means that they can be Baptist and then turn around and start practicing the Mormon faith.

An outside threat that cannot be helped is construction. Although there is generally no construction work on Sundays; crews will often leave their equipment there and in some cases leave the roads blocked for when they come back on Monday. This is the case for the clients’ church, as due to construction their main entrance is blocked. This is a problem as those who may be trying to visit won’t know about or how to get to the second entrance therefore having them leave. This can cause frustration and have the visitors not wanting not to go back again.

 One of the biggest threats, however, comes from a lack of religious beliefs. Many millennials have had enough of organized religions, but are spiritual. They still believe in God, but are looking for more of an answer to “where we go when we die?” then the basic heaven and hell or a nice sugar-coated answer. In addition to this, they don’t want the traditional let’s sit and talk in my office, they are looking for more open space. Millennials are doing yoga and meditating as a way to focus more on spirituality than religion as a whole. (Frainey, 2017).