Long before consultants endlessly chirped the mantra "Plan the work; work the plan" and way before "strategic planning" surged to the fore, a word of wisdom was heard way out in the desert.
Planning, of course, is necessary and good if we are to properly steward our gifts for the good of the kingdom. I wonder, however, if "strategic planning" is most often just the admission that our other planning is not what it should be. All planning, if done well, is strategic in the most basic sense.
Planning, and especially strategic planning, gets problematic as soon as it takes on the aires of being authoritative, declarative, and settled. It locks down certain possibilities and excludes others. Life is rarely quite that linear.
There's some old advice in scripture that seems to capture the best of what we seek in strategic planning but doesn't lock it down. Leadership, it seems to suggest, is anchored in deep discernment--the fruit of being steeped in the law (God's teachings).
Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no (vision/revelation/prophecy), people cast off restraint (get out of hand/perish). But happy (blessed) are those who keep the law.
This little proverb sits among a number of others that call us to heed the "teachings" of God. Indeed, the term "the law" at the end of the proverb can be translated "the teachings."
People perish, they get out of hand, they cast off restraint, the proverb indicates, when there is no vision or revelation or prophecy from God to lead them. In other words, when we fail to discern--to perceive, to contemplate, to gaze into--what it is, or where it is, or how it is that God is providing for us (as we carry on the teachings), we'll inevitably fall prey to this or that trend of the day, charismatic figure, or fortune teller.
Perhaps we would do well to coin a new mantra: Discern the way; the Way leads to discernment.
billvg
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