To plan or not to plan ...

Monday, June 13, 2011. Recently I had some conflict about planning of particular activities in our church. Someone wanted a very detailed planning and preparation. I did not want such a preparation. So we went into an argument about it.

How are we structured? …

Conflict about how to approach a particular task arise on a daily basis. We work together with colleagues, with other people in our team or company. They have their ideas how things should be done, we have ours. Our boss might have his way, we might have another. But he is the boss and so we usually have to adapt to what he wants.

An important point is to realize that different people are structured differently. If you clean the house, one will keep it all very tidy. Others like it when things are not too well-set, they like it better when there is a lot of stuff lying around here or there. Some want to tidy up once a day, others every week Saturday morning, others only now and then, when they feel it is the time again to bring some order into their environment.

How can we bring the different approaches together? Let's call the first group the “detailed planning people”, the others the “spontaneous group” and ignore that there might be many further groups or subgroups. If the planning people take the lead, everyone will need to start particular planning. For the spontaneous people is a challenge and difficulty, for them the creative or less well-planned way would be “better”. If the spontaneous people take the lead, the well-planned group will suffer, for them it is more difficult to keep things open to the last minute.

What is God's view? …

How does God see these things? Is he more a well-planned guy or part of a spontaneous group? What is his way to do things. Several bible passages come to my mind. Some where God plans hundreds of years ahead, some things with great detail, though some steps are kept quite open. The whole salvation story seems to be planned in detail, though year and concrete realization are kept open. But there are many other stories, where God reacts to quite spontaneous emotions and actions of men and women. He seems to be open to creative and spontaneous activity.

I am quite sure that God is not a part of any of the groups. He is God, with a broad range of possibilities, with a wide range of features. He has made us all, with our different ways to approach tasks, with our different ways to live our life.

Depending on our background and current situation, we might be drawn more to one or the other direction. I have to plan a lot in my professional life, so I like it to keep things open at church, just to feel freedom which I do not have during the week. But that is just my particular background, other people try to organize the church life by engaged planning, as their contribution to honor God. For me, it would just be a continuation of the daily routine, but it is my joy to step out of it and honor God by asking deep questions about where he wants to go with us. ... more texts