The Case Against Strategic Thinking

A friend of mine, a retired army colonel, once told me that in this world there were four kinds of people, but the army could use only three kinds.  First, they needed smart, creative people, who knew their field and could think strategically. These became generals and admirals, who planned campaigns.  Second, they needed smart, non-creative people. They knew how to carry out orders and get things done with efficiency. These became sergeants, corporals, and chief petty officers.   Next came the dumb,  non-creative people, who did what they were told. They made ideal privates and enlistees.  They just followed orders and did what they were told. The fourth kind of person, which the army could not use,  was dumb but creative people.  They were always wanting to do things their way, even when they had no idea what they were doing.  These people have no place in the army, according to my friend.  
Evidently not, because there are so many of them in the church!
The Bible gives us a pattern of command in the Kingdom of God, which is much simpler than the military.  Christ is the head, and no one else. We are His body.  We don't have to be creative--we just listen and follow orders. 
Nevertheless, most of us are not really fond of that arrangement.  We don't like listening to God. We prefer doing things our own way.  We church leaders think of ourselves as field commanders with God as the distant general back at headquarters.  He has left it to us to order the troops for battle, and he doesn't seem to care how we do it. 
Underneath our supposed faith in God, we don't really trust our Commander to make the plans for the battle. We are practical deists. We know that God gave us orders and instructions, but we presume He has no interest in the day-to-day running of the church--that he had delegated day-to-day decision making to poor fools like ourselves, and that He is incapable of giving us ongoing guidance.  For the most part, we understand the goals we are supposed to be pursuing, but we blindly stumble around with our eyes closed to his daily commands, failing regularly.We don't think of Christ as the living head of the church,  but a symbolic head, like the queen of England.   All the queen does is just show up and receive her subjects' accolades.  For the ambitious and self-important leader, we prefer it that way.  God might interfere with our plans.  Stephen Vincent Benet once wrote, "We're surer of God when we know He's dead." 
If God had really left the world alone, it would be up to us to plan the strategy.  But God is not dead, He is alive, and he hasn't left the earth. Jesus body may have ascended into heaven, but the Holy Spirit is still here and communicating with us on a daily basis, not only through the written Word but also through His presence within. So why are we concerning ourselves with strategic thinking?  That's His job.
The church on earth views itself far too often as a non-profit religious corporation, modeling its leadership strategy after business, politics, and sports. We are obsessed with developing strategic thinkers. Just look in the Christian bookstore and you will find title after title about church leadership training and church growth. Many of the writers are trained or even teach corporate executives and businessmen in secular business.  Yet rarely do we find books on being faithful servants good followers, or on learning to follow the Master's voice and direction.  There are many books on how to be generals, but few books for privates. 
God is not someone to whom we give titular obeisance while we plan how to run His earthly empire. does not tell us just exactly how He plans to win the world.  All he asks is that we be faithful in doing our job where we are.  Instead of worrying about the big plans,  He asks us to attend to small things--being loving towards those around us and faithful in our private behavior and attitudes. 
Military campaigns look different whether you are a general or a private. If you are a general, you see the overall picture like pawns on a chess board. But to the private, they look like confusion. In every army,  soldiers say to one another that if they were running things they would have done it differently.  Ordinary soldiers do not know the overall strategy.  That's OK, they only know how to sit down, be quiet, and wait for orders.
So if we do away with strategic thinking, what do we put in its place?
In place of strategy, pursue discernment. It is the job of every Christian leader to accurately discern what God is saying. 
Discernment isn't easy, and it isn't an afterthought. We cannot discern the will of God by having an opening prayer at meetings. It takes time and effort to quiet our inner, willful voices within and hear the voice of the Spirit.  This is not because God isn't talking, but because we are not naturally inclined to hear.  We must listen with humility--real humility, not the playacting that passes for humility among most of us leaders. We must set aside our business, cleverness, and egos long enough to let Him lead. We must join in the prayer Jesus prayed at Gethsemane--"Not my will, but yours be done."
When we do hear God, the first thing we hear Him calling us to is nothing. Hearing and following God is not about what we do but who we are.  Before God calls us not to evangelize the world, transform society, reform worship or to rescue the poor,  He calls us to be like Him. Before a soldier gets an assignment, he must first learn to be a soldier. Before an officer graduates officer training school, he must first be a better soldier than the other.  In the church, no one should be a leader who is not more loving to others, more devout in prayer, more enthusiastic about the Word, more forgiving or his enemies and more at peace with himself than the average member of the church.  If we accomplish all the good things in the world, but we are not this,  we are sounding brass or clanging symbols.  We must learn to be still and listen
We say "Someone has to lead--it may be me." If we were merely presidents or CEO's this might be true. But the real problems of this world are too complex for our puny minds to imagine.  We think that having the Bible has prepared us to be strategic thinkers, but that isn't true.  We also need the life-giving Spirit.  It is best to keep our focus on small matters, things we can understand than to presume to have knowledge that is beyond our human capacity.
The first command that we teach a dog is "Sit."  Once we learn to sit in stillness before God and be content with letting Him control the big things,  we can follow His lead. The first command God teaches us--indeed the only command that matters--is to sit until ordered and obey.  Just listen to God in the daily moves and let Him lead us.   Thinking strategically is not our job. Our job is just to follow where He leads.
The church doesn't need any more generals. We already have an excellent one!  But if we are content to be privates in the army of God, He can still use us.