During my adult life thematic approaches to planning has travel all the way around the block; or the brain as the case may be. It started with Incremental Operational Planning [also known as long-range planning], then moved to Strategic Planning, and is currently in a phase I would call Narrative Planning. My personal brand of narrative planning [and that promoted by The Columbia Partnership] is called Spiritual Strategic Journey.
What’s next?
I believe it will be Experiential Missional Planning—or some other better title. As I see it Experiential Missional Planning is an action then reflection approach to develop a missional, intergenerational journey for a congregation and other religious organizations.
Experiential Missional Planning will focus on the ability to soar or leap forward in terms of a congregation’s missional journey. It will create movement through intergenerational missional involvement in the congregational context, its nation, and the world. This will be followed on holistic reflection on how the missional journey of the congregation needs to leap forward in response to the need for radical Christian love proactively expressed.
Well, this is just a small window into my initial thinking on this. What do you think? What’s next? Or, are you still trying to figure out how to make long-range and strategic planning work for you?
