Not far from my office is a major highway that forces a significant decision. Interstate 40 runs through the heart of Winston-Salem. When you come to Interstate 40, you must choose to go either West or East. Choose carefully. If you go East, you go through Greensboro, Raleigh, and will eventually find yourself in Wilmington, NC where the Cape Fear River empties into the Atlantic Ocean. It is a beautiful and charming city. If you choose I-40 West, you will go through Nashville, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, and eventually find yourself in Los Angeles, California, also a charming city, but on the west coast of our nation. While I-40 connects the two, Wilmington is a long way from L.A., and vice versa. The direction you choose at the beginning of your journey in Winston-Salem has huge consequences.

When a church decides to engage in strategic planning and embrace the future God has for them, they face a similar monumental choice. Essentially, the choice is whether to determine the future using the collective wisdom of the congregation, or to invite the minister to share with the church the vision he senses God has given him for the future of the congregation. Though guilty of oversimplification, I contend that if you choose the former, you will find the ministerial staff and the members of the church invited into a powerful discernmen process that features much listening to one another and to God’s Spirit. It will be messy and chaotic, but in the end (with proper guidance and leadership from a team of laity and clergy), it will be a plan that everyone “owns” and that reflects the unique strengths and calling of that particular church.

If you choose the latter, you will find yourself with a neatly packaged plan for the future that the congregation will be asked to adopt without significant input. It usually will mimic plans from a book or from other congregations with the assumption that “what worked there will work here”. The primary player will be the Pastor, who will constantly sell/communicate the vision and will be declared the keeper of the vision and who will assemble a small team of true believers to help him implement the vision that God has laid upon his heart.

Choose carefully when you start your journey.  Congregational-based planning is a long way from pastor-focused planning. It will take you to a very exciting and engaged place as a church family. If that sounds like the direction you want to go, give us a call and let us help you find your way along that journey. Remember, Wilmington is a long way from Los Angeles!

Bill