For some of us, the phrase “church planning” elicits the same weeping and gnashing of teeth as the phrase “root canal.”  Long-range planning committees have for many years identified purposes, stated objectives, and determined goals.  The mission of traditional long-range planning was to have lots of long, excruciatingly dull committee meetings and produce a long, excruciatingly dull spiral-bound report filled with dates, dollar amounts and ideas like increase Sunday morning attendance by 18% and reversible choir robes with Velcro stoles.  These reports were put on the shelf with The New York/New Jersey Association of Congregational Christian Churches Annual 1999 and the last long-range planning committee report.   

An increasingly popular form of long-range church planning is market-driven planning.  This form carefully studies the competition.  The competition has traditionally been understood to be the Episcopalians.  After scouting the opposition, the church looks for a niche among people groups.  Where do left-handed people go to worship? Is there a church reaching out to dentists?  Can we be the church for displaced Luxembourgers?

A third form of planning is known as reality based planning (as opposed to fantasy based planning).  When planners utilize this system they work for incremental changes: increase the Sunday morning attendance by 1.8%, begin a fund for Velcro stoles, and write a note to Dr. Stein—the left-handed dentist from Luxembourg.

Multiple-scenario planning lays out a series of possibilities and forms a contingency plan for each.  What will we do if our Sunday morning attendance suddenly increases 18%?   What if someone leaves money for ceiling fans, but we want reversible choir robes?  What if Dr. Stein brings lots of dentists with him?

Visionary leader planning is one person announcing, “I have been to the mountain top.  Follow me.”  This approach is particularly unpopular with ministers who have raced halfway up Everest only to turn and see that no one else has broken camp.  The opposite approach does not work any better.  Ministers with their ears to the ground get run over.

On Sunday morning Plymouth will engage in planning of a different sort.  For the next three Sundays at 9:45, we will gather in the Reception Room to ask, “If we really believe that the church is God’s, how will that change the way we act as the church?” “How do we approach issues with a sense of grace?”  “How can the church be on the side of the hurting—no matter why they are hurting?”

We need to plan for the future in more-holy-than-ordinary ways.  We need to keep asking, “How can Plymouth live as God’s people?”