By Michael R. Ruhl

 

There are many things in this life which remind me of the passing of time and the advancing of my age and decay of my generational preferences.  Ranking near the top of that list is the decline of the popularity and application of strategic planning.  In addition to being somewhat of a trend in the business world, there are some apostolic leaders and mission executives who are saying: Strategic planning is passé. We don't do that any more .. those days are gone.

Yet at the same time, we hear a massive rumbling in America about the deployment of our military forces into Libya.  And that rumbling is not so much a questioning of the humanitarian mandate or the freedom defender mandate - as it is a concern about the lack of strategic planning (What is the mission?  What does the Endgame look like?)

Dictionary.com offers the following synonyms for the word strategic: opportune, critical, key, principal, crucial.  And of course at the very heart of the word strategic is the word strategy.  Did not the Lord Himself have a strategic plan for the fulfilling of Genesis 3:15  

(And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel)?  Is not the Incarnation of Jesus Christ linked to the Cross and Empty Tomb the strategic plan which accomplished the ultimate Endgame of our justification by grace and through faith?

Think about this thought as it relates to the ministry of church planting.  It is one thing for a church planter to "envision a preferred future."  But it is something else again for the planter-under shepherd to lead a congregation to arrival at that "promised land".  Discerning God's vision for the new church plant is incredibly important ... but by itself does not qualify as a strategic plan.

Vision is a picture of a preferred future with specific criteria for measuring arrival. Mission is a concise action-statement of what God has called the church to do.  Strategy is the "big picture plan" that guides from vision to arrival. Tactics are the flexible plans that are developed, implemented and adjusted in real time to implement the strategic plan. Logistics is the management of tools and resources which fulfill the strategy and tactics.

Most new churches are led either by strategic thinkers or tactical thinkers.  Strategic thinkers see the big picture clearly, but they are rarely able to effectively conceive the tactical steps necessary to arrive at the fulfilled vision.  Tactical thinkers accurately measure the difference between reality and ideal (the goal) and are flexible enough to quickly solve almost any problem.  But they are so caught up in reality that they find it difficult to conceive a big picture on their own.

If a church planter is a tactical thinker, he will need to bring a strategic thinker alongside, and vice versa.  This is important so that the strategic plan for the new church plant be both actionable and measurable.

Certainly the Lord Himself both plants (creates) and grows the church through the appointed Means of Grace.  Period.  Yet the appropriate stewardship of charismata (spiritual gifts) and leadership capacities can marginalize the likelihood of personal and corporate mismanagement from hindering the advance of the Kingdom of God.