An Alternative to Strategic Planning

In my role as a Pinnacle Leadership associate, I received a contact recently asking, “Do you do strategic planning with churches?” I responded that we don’t do strategic planning, but we do partner with churches to discover and fulfill God’s mission in the world. What’s the difference?

The term “strategic planning” implies that a church or organization can set long-term (five to ten year) goals and marshal the resources to achieve them. This approach assumes stability and predictability of their environment.

Even large corporations now think in terms of planning only one or two years into the future. Why? How about COVID-19? This is just one of a number of volatile events that we face. Certainly, a church or an organization can have a clear understanding of their Mission (for example, “loving God and loving people”) and Vision (for example, “to be the presence of Christ in downtown Briarcrest”) but the way to get there must be fluid.

Here are key questions we can ask in our planning:

Who are we? As we seek the leadership of God in Christian community, what makes us unique as the people of God?

What has God placed in our hands? What are the resources we have available to us—people, spiritual gifts, finances, real estate, etc.?

What is our context? God has placed us in a particular geographic place for a reason. What does that mean? Who are our neighbors? What are the needs and opportunities? Who are potential partners?

We can we do? What has God specifically gifted and called us to do? What are our capabilities and capacities? How can we be the presence of Christ here and now?

What will we do? How do we decide? What are the steps we must take to mobilize our resources to act? What form will that take? What do we need to learn that we don’t already know?

How will we know we are making a difference? What can we celebrate? What should we change?

This approach prepares us for the unexpected event, that opportunity for ministry that we did not see coming but to which we can readily respond. Knowing who we are, our calling, and what we are capable of doing allows us to be agile in changing circumstances.

We will unpack these steps further in subsequent blog posts.

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