If you've ever been involved in a business or organizational planning effort, you know that there typically is a lot of time and energy invested in the process but that all too often the results are nicely bound manuals that get passed around to those involved . . . which then get placed on shelves and rarely visited again, or at least until the next cycle begins. While most of the criticism planning receives is warranted, planning does serve a purpose. Here a few good quotes (along with a few I just liked and threw in for fun):

Those who plan do better than those who do not plan even though they rarely stick to their plan. -- Winston Churchill

Plans are worthless. Planning is essential. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Prediction is difficult, especially about the future. -- Yogi Berra

"Would you tell me which way I ought to go from here?" asked Alice. "That depends a good deal on where you want to get," said the Cat. "I really don't care where" replied Alice. "Then it doesn't much matter which way you go," said the Cat. -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Where there is no vision, the people perish. - Proverbs (29:18)

The Long Range Planning committee has been busy "planning" throughout this year. Committee members have been interviewing community leaders (such as leadership at the high school and hospital, our mayor, etc.), with the intent to conduct what we’ve been calling a "community needs assessment." Our goal is to bring before the Church Council this fall a list of specific and concrete community needs that our church might embrace, and which many of our church's key initiatives over the next few years will target.

Our intention is not to eliminate current ministries, rather to sharpen our focus on what we want to do. Examples of key needs already identified include providing small and odd jobs/chores for seniors, simple visitation and companionship efforts for seniors, programs dealing with parenting and building better and healthier relationships, a program supporting military families, working with the hospital(s) to offer a "welcome" to all patients, and the development of a local "service bureau" to help coordinate and match needs with resources.

Our plan is to work with the church council to identify one or possibly two of these initiatives and then begin to develop broad church goals to address this ministry need. The next step would be to have each of the church's existing committees integrate this broader church-wide ministry into their specific committees plans, so that in effect, each committee begins to do their "own planning" on how that committee can contribute to this larger church ministry.

If you have thoughts on these planning efforts, please don't hesitate to contact any of us. Committee members include Paul Nauman, Steve and Susan Barg, Jill Heath, Roch Tranel, Kathy Chang, Benjamin Stephens and myself.