If you don’t know where you are going, any plan will do – Peter Drucker

Strategic planning is more than a business buzzword, it is at the heart of the scriptural message. Proverbs 29:18 instructs us that where there is no vision, people perish. We need to see where God is moving in out midst to be in step with God’s perfect plan for our lives.

I recently found the notes I wrote from a sermon I heard preached at a camp meeting sometime during my early teens or twenties. The text was:

We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what what have heard, so that we do not drift away.

Hebrews 2:1

I have watched camps forfeit their blessing by drifting in their theological distinctives, I have watched others cling so tightly to legalism they became irrelevant and eventually closed. There is a fine and careful line which we can discuss ad nauseum in this regard. In the end, a clear vision of God will empower us to lead our camps in harmony with God’s perfect plan.

Even in camps where that Spirit is alive and active I have watched the ministry suffer from a failure of leadership to plan.

Go back into the history of your camp and you will all find the same men and women, they will have different names, may have been part of different generations but they will have a holy sameness. They asked God for a vision, God granted their request and under unction moved in ways that remind us of the account of the paralytic brought to Jesus by the four men in Mark 2. The people left that day saying, “We have never seen anything like that before!” At the heart of your camp’s history you will find the same sentiment. Obedient people, fully submitted in prayer to the plan of God created a place where God could meet the needs of His beloved in a supernatural manner.

But times change, we have a tendency to drift. A few years ago I led a camp near and dear to my heart through a six month visioning and strategic plan process. People came to the meetings, we had candid debate, analyzed important issues and questions about the future of the camp and after consulting excellent professionals who volunteered their time, prepared a report with a five year plan for the entire stockholder board.

At the first annual meeting it was questioned by some who did not attend the meeting and sent to the Board for review. The next annual meeting it was tabled and at the third it was referenced but never offered for a vote. The fourth annual meeting was held and it was passed, by then several of the opportunities which were available at the time the report was prepared were not longer options. At the fifth meeting questions were asked as to how things were going, it seemed like no one knew…