Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.
Alan Lakein
Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways, and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.
Proverbs 6:6-8
Planning is a tool that all leaders need to incorporate into their personal leadership kaleidoscope. Planning saves time and money, identifies specific ways to accomplish goals, and avoids the problem of activity without accomplishment. It is also an effective tool in communicating how a task should be accomplished. Ultimately, planning helps us recognize the significance of today in the context of the future. While the actual planning process varies to some degree in every organization, the following steps may be essential in building a plan.
Steps to Building a Plan
- Establish objectives.
Based on your perception of the future and your understanding of God’s vision for your life, the first step in the planning process involves establishing objectives. This is the work of setting goals that reflect the priorities expressed in the mission statement. If it is not clear where you are leading your group, no one will know when you get there. - Develop policies.
Next, develop policies that will help you accomplish those objectives. Policies are standing decisions that apply to recurring questions and problems. Precedent sometimes establishes policies. The way you answer a question the first time may be the way that question is always answered. In other contexts, governing authorities may publish formal policy statements. - Develop programs to accomplish your objectives.
The next step in the process of developing a strategic plan involves developing programs to accomplish your objectives. Programming is the work of establishing the sequence and priority of steps involved in reaching the goal. - Develop procedures and schedules.
Closely tied to this step is the need to develop procedures and schedules that will help you accomplish your objectives. Developing procedures is the work of applying standardized processes by which the work is done. When you schedule your plan, you establish a time sequence for each program step. - Budget adequate resources for the task.
Finally, you need to budget adequate resources for the task. Leaders understand that no matter how great an idea is, it will not be pursued if there are no funds in the budget to pay for it. Budgeting is the work of allocating the necessary resources to accomplish the goal. Jesus warned his disciples to count the cost before undertaking a project (Luke 14: 28-35). Your dreams will not be realized if you cannot afford to pay for them.
Taking time to plan often saves time when it comes to implementation of that plan to achieve the desired goal. A Chinese proverb offers good advice: organise your work, and accomplishment will follow.
In Transformational Leadership in the Local Church, I define strategic planning as the process of developing a mission and long-range objectives, and determining in advance how they will be accomplished. Simply put, strategic planning determines where an organization is going over the next year or more, how it’s going to get there, and how it’ll know if it got there or not. A strategy is a plan for pursuing the mission and achieving objectives.
PAUSE
Which of the above steps in planning do you find hard to implement in your leadership role and why?
What God Expects When His People Plan
1) Prayer
We must always begin with prayer, for through prayer we learn to understand God.
And lift up your voice for understanding,…From His mouth come knowledge and understanding (Proverbs 2:3,6, NKJV).
2) Wisdom
God wants to make us wise, and asks us to seek wisdom from him.
But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him (James 1:5, NASB).
3) Discernment
Godly wisdom becomes the basis for discerning wise choices.
By wisdom a house is built, And by understanding it is established (Proverbs 24:3, NASB).
4) Faith
Decisions must always be made based on what we know by faith.
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for (Hebrews 11:1-2).
5) Obedience
God approves of planning but despises disobedience.
“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord, “Who execute a plan, but not Mine…” (Isaiah 30:1, NASB).
6) Trust
God approves of planning, but despises presumption that ignores him.
Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that” (James 4:15, NASB).
Biblical Exhortations for Planning
a) The plans of the diligent lead to profit, as surely as haste leads to poverty (Proverbs 21:5).
b) Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways, and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest (Proverbs 6:6-8).
c) Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? (Luke 14:28).
Biblical Principles for Strategic Planning
1) Focus on the future
Planning begins with today’s realities but its focus must always be on tomorrow’s opportunities.
2) Capture a vision
Vision is an essential element in strategic planning (1 Chronicles 28:2-3, 6, 11-12). Taking time to prepare and write down careful plans is God’s way for us to achieve great things. If the vision has been approved by God, we can expect that every needful thing will be supplied to accomplish it.
3) Manage opportunities and threats
Managing opportunities is a critical part of strategic planning. Not all changes are negative. God places in our path opportunities to make gains and to succeed. We must be wise enough to spot these in a timely fashion so as to take advantage of them. Our goal should be to be prepared in advance for God given opportunities. When advance preparation is not possible, we must act quickly before the opportunities pass, and this too requires quick but effective planning. Then we must guard against the threats and hazards resulting from negative changes.
4) Devise effective strategies
Strategies are systematic choices about how to deploy resources to achieve goals. Effective strategies are not always entirely new, but success is usually the result of creatively analyzing the problem and discovering a fresh way to get the most benefit from the resources you have at hand (Nehemiah 5:7).
5) Emphasize action
Action without planning is aimless, but planning without action is fruitless. The goal of strategic planning is not to develop plans but to stimulate action.
6) Anticipate and respond to change
Change is one of the few certainties in our world today. We can evaluate trends, make projections, and brainstorm about changes that may affect us. Then, having assessed the possible changes, we can set in place strategies to respond to them.
7) Remain flexible
Even the most careful and thoroughly developed plans must be flexible. It is impossible for us to know the future clearly. Plans must constantly be revised, deferred, or even abandoned in response to changing circumstances, new information, or other developments.
Benefits of Strategic Planning
Strategic planning serves a variety of purposes in a church. These include to:
1) Clearly define the purpose of the church and establish realistic goals and objectives consistent with that mission in a defined time frame within the church’s capacity for implementation.
2) Communicate those goals and objectives to the church’s constituents.
3) Develop a sense of ownership of the plan.
4) Ensure the most effective use of the church’s resources by focusing on key priorities.
5) Provide a base from which progress can be measured and establish a mechanism for informed change when needed.
6) Bring together everyone’s best and most reasoned efforts and place important value in building a consensus about where a church is going
Implementation
The first aspect of implementation is communication. This involves both formal and informal methods. With intention, leaders gather followers around a vision, they walk with it, talk it, live it, and inspire others through their strong faith in the vision.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
- Does your ministry have a strategic plan? If no, why not?
- If yes, describe how the strategic plan was arrived at. How would you have done the strategic plan today with your understanding of the strategic function of a leader?
EVALUATION AND ACTION
- If your ministry has a strategic plan, do you think the rest of the stakeholders are aware of the plan? What challenges, if any, have you experienced in its implementation? How could you improve it?
- In what way will understanding the strategic function of a leader, influence your leadership in the family and in the church?
- Read Genesis 1. What lessons on planning can we draw from the creation story?