Andy,

Sounds like you have some personal issues coming out here.

Certainly, planning according to arbitrary, futuristic milestones is ultimately ineffective, as even Oestreicher admits that "THE BEST BUSINESSES NO LONGER USE" [his capitals] this method.

But, Oestreicher is wet when he narrowly links this goal setting method with "strategic planning". There are many approaches to strategic planning, and for him to infer that "strategic planning is stupid" based solely on this "master planning" model is ridiculous and reveals his own negative experiences and hurt that came to him in an unhealthy church environment.

Yes, we should not sell out to business models that are contrary to the soul of God's church. But, both Jesus and Paul were strategic and worked plans in their ministries, albeit they were led at a higher plane.

Getting past the semantic games, good strategic planning is no different than the "scenario planning" he is upholding.

Keep us thinking, good work my friend!

I think that maybe Andy is coming from the thought the MarkO is coming from...That "the future is knowable, or at least almost-predictable." To me that is in the same vein that God can be quantified or grasped by the human mind. That is a perspective that gets me worked up. Moderns may disagree with that value, but that is lived out in their lives and ministries. There is a differance in my mind from visioning and planning. Many use these two words as synanyms. Vision to me is the total picture of how God sees our culture or church in our cases. When we look to being anything, we should try to look at how God has made us, or what He envisioned us to be and striver for that. Having strategy for that is differant. The timeline of 5 years may be obsolete. If you upgrade your phone, pc/laptop, car insurance, etc anually, or bi-anually, why wouldn't you look at 5 years as too long? The world may be changing too fast to look at things 5 years out. This gets at the heart of the flexibility issue. If the Church is going to be infulencing culture, or Dear Lord, at the cusp of cutting edge culture, it most be able to flex and change quickly. 5 years may be too far out in our changing culture. But if you have no plan or direction we're fools. God says some strong stuff about fools in Proverbs. [I want to stay away from "fool"]. Thanks for sounding off Lloyd.

we recently had to move the state ministries here away from developing a state strategic planning committee

we, and nobody, really needs another committee (my father-n-law has a little plaque on his desk that reads, "for God so loved the world that He dind't send a committee")

anyway...

now we are trying to engage the right questions. such as, 1) does everyone (churches, state organizations/committees) know the vision? 2) how is each contributing to the vision? 3) are there resources competing with the vision? 4) where are the breakdowns between resources and pursuing the vision God has directed? 5) what's a better alignment of resources to prevent those breakdowns?

i think that vision should be grander than can be achieved or measured. goals are nice (but as written about here, often unrealistic in a Spirit led organization in the midst of a changing world). rather than strategic planning and goals, values and strategy are more important. one of my first posts dealt with this -- you can read it at this link: http://servelovepray.blogspot.com/2005_01_23_servelovepray_archive.html

locally, our church has had the vision. we've come in as pastors trying to bring the strategy to meet the vision. now the vision becomes the problem because the strategy brings the cost of the vision to light. essentially the vision is in conflict with tradition. so what do we value? well that's the battle. right now, it's a toss up between tradition and Biblical leadership