Make a New Plan, Stan

British sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein was once visited in his studio by the eminent author and fellow Briton, George Bernard Shaw. The visitor noticed a huge block of stone standing in one corner and asked what it was for. "I don't know yet. I'm still making plans." Shaw was astounded. "You mean you plan your work. Why, I change my mind several times a day!" "That's all very well with a four-ounce manuscript," replied the sculptor, "but not with a four-ton block."

(Today in the Word, April 5, 1993.)

This story gives a good illustration of the difference between the way we make plans as individuals and the way we make plans as a church – which is a large body of individuals. Ask anyone in the military: the amount of logistical planning that is necessary for the deployment of troops is amazing. As a single person on the move, you can change directions instantaneously and spot decisions are possible. Not so with a large contingent of people.

Church planning often seems plodding and perpetual. Some people have reworked the third verse of “Onward Christian Soldiers” to read: “Like a herd of turtles, moves the church of God.” What good does planning do when all it seems we do is meet and meet to plan, but never get around to doing anything?

Yesterday I wrote about the necessity to know where one is going. It is good to have direction and purpose. We need that as humans. Without purpose, we spin around like a leaf caught in a whirlpool along the shore of a river. While the rest of the river flows swiftly past us, heading off to the sea, we just spin relentlessly in the same eddies of indecisions and indirection.

Once we have discerned a purpose and a goal, then we need to plot a way to get there. It’s a lot like planning a backpack trip through the wilderness. We pull out a map, look at possible routes and choose one. We figure out how much food we’ll need, the provisions to take, and prepare for variable weather and other possible contingencies.

Hudson Taylor offers the following observation: “We can make our best plans and try to carry them out in our own strength. Or we can make careful plans and ask God to bless them. Yet another way of working is to begin with God; to ask His plans, and to offer ourselves to Him to carry out His purposes." 

(W. Wiersbe, Wycliffe Handbook of Preaching and Preachers, p. 243.)

Having a purpose and having a plan about how to achieve that purpose work hand-in-hand. It may be possible to achieve our purpose in any number of ways. Our plan focuses our efforts along a certain route to take. The metaphor of a journey is helpful at this point. It is a lot like planning for a summer vacation trip. What sites will you see? What motels or campsites will you stay at? What will you not stop and see? Might you plan on cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch in order to be able to afford entrance to a certain amusement park or a very special side trip?

Let’s return for a moment to the main purpose of the church discussed in yesterday’s blog: the “formation of disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” I would suggest that if we hold to this as a general overall purpose, the following implications should guide our planning:

1.    First, if Jesus Christ forms the core and center of our life, then the main focus of our activities should be to increase in our knowledge of him and increasingly to model our lives and attitudes on his.

2.    Second, this theological understanding guides our outreach as we invite people as our honored guests into our midst to meet and come to know Jesus Christ.

3.    Third, as we go out into the world, bearing his name and mark upon us, we may be the only Gospel some people will ever experience. Thus, our actions and behavior in our families and the world truly need to be good news.

4.    Fourth, since we all come from a world only barely acquainted with the Good News of Jesus Christ and from homes more shaped and formed according to that world rather than the Gospel, we are in constant need of relearning this new way of being that Jesus Christ models for us.

Thus, I would summarize the basic guides for planning as being:

1.    Getting to know Jesus Christ and becoming his disciples

2.    Inviting others to know Jesus Christ and become his disciples

3.    Letting our lives be changed

4.    Doing what we can to make the world a better place

5.    Be open to new ways to do #1-4 above.

Next week: In It for the Long Haul

(images: Stone sculpture from http://guidedabundance.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/untitled.bmp;  turtles from http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3118/2419247915_d0b7dba48d.jpg; map and compass from http://middlezonemusings.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/map-and-compass.jpg; car trip from http://www.bobmcmahon.com/Family%20Car%20Trip.jpg; Jesus and disciples from Hermanolean Clip art at http://www.cruzblanca.org/hermanoleon/)