Barnabas File

For some time I have struggled with my aversion to the term “strategic planning” and the idea of a “strategic planning process.” Part of my discomfort has come from being exposed by Alan Roxburgh to the idea of “discontinuous change.” I don’t think that I do any harm to Roxburgh’s presentation to summarize it as “everything tied down is coming loose.” Where we once thought linearly, assuming that the future would be like the past, and planned accordingly, reality has shown us that this is not the way things are. The unexpected happens (the Internet, 9/11, the Iraqi war, financial chaos) and all our great plans go out the window. So what are we to do? In an article in Christian Century , writer Jason Byassee refers to something Sam Wells wrote in Improvisation . Byassee writes, “Sam Wells takes this metaphor further . . . [when] he argues that Christian living is like improvisational acting rather than script-based acting. Players practice intensely to be able to react to the u...