Goal setting is more and more a thing of the past. Here is a question from our advanced leadership forum that began a conversation.

The original post

This is one we're dealing with right now on our leadership team: how does a church balance being led by the Spirit in God's timing with setting goals and timelines?

We have a clear vision of what God is calling us to do and to become as a postmodern church. We have no question that's it's a God-inspired vision. But we're finding it difficult to lay out concrete timelines to accomplish that vision.I grew up at Ginghamsburg UMC and spent years there on staff in the youth ministry department. We were well training in vision-casting and goal setting and strategic planning, and so that was what I was taught for many years. But as a postmodern, I'm finding the vision drives us and it's much harder to set goals with timelines. Goal-setting isn't the problem, it's the timeline part that is causing us to wonder if we're running ahead of God? Any insight out there?

A Response from Bill Easum

I think that goal setting is less important now that is once was. I began thinking about "Trigger points" two decades ago. Once you have firmly established the "God thing" you act when you feel the time is right. that is the trigger. Just because you set a goal of doing something doesn't mean that you are ready. Most moderns need a date. Postmoderns just know when it feels right. You are on target. Trust your gut more than your head. Trust you gut over your head when they are in disagreement. Its like falling in love.

Another response for the forum

Two things come to mind when I think of setting goals and timelines. A quote from Rick Warren when I was at Saddleback last year: "Our plans are set in jello." A quote from a man on our Vision Team as we were attempting to prioritize and sequence our ministry goals: "We are trying to hit a moving target." If you put these two together, I think you have the essence of postmodern strategic planning, if there is such a thing. you were right on when you recommended that the document be FLUID and the LISTENING is essential.

Another:

Do people need timelines? I don't know. Remember that there are personality types that really need that kind of thing. I guess its O.K. as long as it is seen as a "living document" always open to updates, modification, simplification, complication etc. etc. My recent experience has shown me that this "living document" can simply exist in the minds of the leaders. This can happen if leaders are in frequent and honest dialogue with each other, constantly reevaluating "where are we now?" and "where do we need to go next?" In our situation, we had a long list of goals. We able to pick the highest priority ones (do in the next 3 months), but we felt it was wise to wait to see how things unfolded before we prioritized the rest. As it turns out, unexpected things have come up that have altered even those high priority goal which we were so gung-ho about. I also recall having several of our ministry goals removed from our list before we prioritized them because some of them just happened naturally. Others were removed because they didn't make sense. A lot of things had changed between the time we conceived the goals and the time we actually got around to prioritizing. I don't know when or if we will attempt attaching priorities to goals again.

A response from Tom Bandy

There are lots of good metaphors about planning ... triggers, sermon notes, etc. I like the metaphor of ministry mapping. Leadership Network has recently picked up that image that I used in Moving Off the Map to talk of exploring off the map. In Ministry Mapping, planning relies on the readiness of people to seize opportunities, and the energy which they give discernment of community trends. One thinks less of timelines, and more of benchmarks. The goal is to achieve a certain depth of faith, height of activity, or quality of action, but not that it be done in a specific length of time. So if you are doing long range planning, instead of asking "When should we be at X stage", you ask instead:

Are we ready to seize an unexpected opportunity?
What level of activity, quality, or faith do we want to achieve?
What is the next opportunity that the current mission will open to us?

How far ahead you define long range planning depends upon the pace of change in your context. If you live in Las Vegas, four weeks is long term planning. If you live in southern Illinois, 3 years may be long range planning. The real issues are where do you want to aim yourself, can you tell the difference between a shortcut and a detour, and what do you want to look like when you eventually you get there.