"Why are we doing this, anyway?"

That's not the question I wanted to hear after giving an update on our strategic planning process. It was, however, the question I needed to hear.

The process has been time consuming and labor intensive. Initially, I envisioned a simple, streamlined process to enable the church to establish shared ministry and mission priorities. For good reasons, the process has been stretched along the way like a pair of new shoes. We are better off as a result of the changes we've made, but we also created more committees and held more meetings than we initially anticipated.

So, why are we doing this? The question was asked out of a sense that we should be doing the work instead of planning to do the work. It's difficult to argue against that. I confess that I sometimes worry about becoming legalistic in our planning and ignoring the hurting and marginalized because their needs don't fit into our timeline.

When Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, Luke says ...