Strategic Hoping
I'd like to riff a little on a quote from John Piper posted by Pastorshaun.
Piper, preaching on Ruth chapter 3, says that "only hopeful churches plan and strategize." He claims that churches without hope "develop a maintenance mentality and just go through the motions year in and year out."
In my MBA studies my emphasis was business planning, or as they put it in the school catalog, "Strategic Management." I spent several years of my aerospace career as a financial/business analyst, putting together annual business plans, working on the strategic plan, doing capital planning, project business planning, and working on business plans for new airplanes and products.
Typical church planning is intriguing at best, amusing or frustrating at worst. Churches and Christian ministries love to apply "business" models and come up with mission or vision statements and action plans for how to get there. More often than not it strikes me as a glorious waste of time. John Piper's comments above are very thought provoking in that regard.
I think he's essentially right. What is missing from most church "planning" is hope, hope in the promises of God.
Most church and ministry planning is driven by asking what should be done, or what needs to be done, to accomplish the vision and/or mission statement. This is all too purpose driven, too much focused on "ought" or "should." It is bare, dry and ulimately hopeless. The plans become all too mechanistic, the tasks often burdensome. Buried inside them is the assumption that if we don't faithfully keep to our tasks and plans we will fail in our mission, even if that mission has some expectation for something different or better in the future. Even if that expectation is connected to some valid biblical principle or idea.
This kind of planning is law driven, not promise driven or gospel driven.
Michael Horton, in his article The Purpose-Driven Life, writes:
We also know that God has prepared beforehand those works that we should do. Each Christian has a calling, or more appropriately callings, from God. Effective church planning and strategizing looks to discover the gifts and callings of the members of the church, so that God's people may be effectively equipped to do what God has called them to do. If this is what we strive for then we can have hope that God will work through us. These kinds of plans are anything but bare, dry and hopeless, mechanistic or burdensome.
When Piper talks of righteousness that is active and strategic, this is what I think of: righteousness that seeks to do what God has called us to do, in hope and in joy, each member of the body discovering his or her gift and using it to God's glory, empowered and filled with the Holy Spirit.
I now work at a Christian organization that thinks of each employee as a divine appointment, someone God has brought to fulfill a particular role and purpose that only he or she can fill. Would that our churches would do the same. What if our churches treated every person who walked through their doors as a divine appointment, someone God brought to them to play a particular role in the life and ministry of that church? Would people feel wanted? Would they feel an appreciated part of that church or just a pew-sitter? And what if each church thought of itself as a divine appointment, chosen and called by God to fulfill a particular purpose in His plans? Would that not provide hope, purpose and "mission?" In this context churches can come up with plans and strategies that actually have worthwhile meaning.
Wouldn't that be just a little bit more fun and worthwhile than sitting around word-smithing vision and mission statements to be published with fanfare only to be forgotten within weeks? Better than planning meetings that list projects and ideas that either drive people with purpose-drive cattle prods, or that result in projects and ideas that will likely never see the light of day?
It would be to me...
Piper, preaching on Ruth chapter 3, says that "only hopeful churches plan and strategize." He claims that churches without hope "develop a maintenance mentality and just go through the motions year in and year out."
In my MBA studies my emphasis was business planning, or as they put it in the school catalog, "Strategic Management." I spent several years of my aerospace career as a financial/business analyst, putting together annual business plans, working on the strategic plan, doing capital planning, project business planning, and working on business plans for new airplanes and products.
Typical church planning is intriguing at best, amusing or frustrating at worst. Churches and Christian ministries love to apply "business" models and come up with mission or vision statements and action plans for how to get there. More often than not it strikes me as a glorious waste of time. John Piper's comments above are very thought provoking in that regard.
I think he's essentially right. What is missing from most church "planning" is hope, hope in the promises of God.
Most church and ministry planning is driven by asking what should be done, or what needs to be done, to accomplish the vision and/or mission statement. This is all too purpose driven, too much focused on "ought" or "should." It is bare, dry and ulimately hopeless. The plans become all too mechanistic, the tasks often burdensome. Buried inside them is the assumption that if we don't faithfully keep to our tasks and plans we will fail in our mission, even if that mission has some expectation for something different or better in the future. Even if that expectation is connected to some valid biblical principle or idea.
This kind of planning is law driven, not promise driven or gospel driven.
Michael Horton, in his article The Purpose-Driven Life, writes:
Law tells us what we should do, whether we’re faced with the wrath of God (full-strength law) or by the fear of not reaching our full potential (the watered-down version). God’s promise, by contrast, creates true faith, which creates true works.True faith is accompanied by true hope, hope in the promises of God. The works that result, and the plans that accompany them, are driven by the promises of God, grounded in the sure assurance that Christ will build His church. We do what we do, we plan what we plan, knowing that what results is not dependent upon us, but upon God who works through us. We preach and teach God's Word, we make use of the ordinary means of grace given to us by God - the Word, the sacraments, prayer, fellowship - trusting that, as God says of His Word, this work will not return void, but will go out and accomplish what God purposes for it.
We also know that God has prepared beforehand those works that we should do. Each Christian has a calling, or more appropriately callings, from God. Effective church planning and strategizing looks to discover the gifts and callings of the members of the church, so that God's people may be effectively equipped to do what God has called them to do. If this is what we strive for then we can have hope that God will work through us. These kinds of plans are anything but bare, dry and hopeless, mechanistic or burdensome.
When Piper talks of righteousness that is active and strategic, this is what I think of: righteousness that seeks to do what God has called us to do, in hope and in joy, each member of the body discovering his or her gift and using it to God's glory, empowered and filled with the Holy Spirit.
I now work at a Christian organization that thinks of each employee as a divine appointment, someone God has brought to fulfill a particular role and purpose that only he or she can fill. Would that our churches would do the same. What if our churches treated every person who walked through their doors as a divine appointment, someone God brought to them to play a particular role in the life and ministry of that church? Would people feel wanted? Would they feel an appreciated part of that church or just a pew-sitter? And what if each church thought of itself as a divine appointment, chosen and called by God to fulfill a particular purpose in His plans? Would that not provide hope, purpose and "mission?" In this context churches can come up with plans and strategies that actually have worthwhile meaning.
Wouldn't that be just a little bit more fun and worthwhile than sitting around word-smithing vision and mission statements to be published with fanfare only to be forgotten within weeks? Better than planning meetings that list projects and ideas that either drive people with purpose-drive cattle prods, or that result in projects and ideas that will likely never see the light of day?
It would be to me...
Labels: Church Growth, Church Planting
