Leadership Training Manual 6

LESSON 6

STRATEGIC PLANNING: FAILING TO PLAN IS PLANNING TO FAIL

“Give me wisdom and knowledge that I may lead this people, for who is able to govern this great people of yours?” 1 Chron.1:10

The key to great planning is focus. You must know where you want to go before asking others to follow you. Once your personal and organizational mission is defined, the methods become easier to clarify as well. All great human endeavours have included a God factor and the leadership factor. The leadership factor is planning.

BIBLE EXAMPLES OF PLANNING

Ø God did it. Isaiah 37:26

Ø Noah did it. Gen. 7-9

Ø Nehemiah did it. Neh. 1-5

Ø David did it 2 Sam 7 &1 kings 5:2-3

Ø Jesus told parables about it.

·        The wise and foolish builder. Mt. 7:24-27

·        The builder counting the cost. Luke 14:28-30

·        The king planning for battle. Luke 14:31-32

·        The unjust steward. Luke 16:1-8

STEPS TO EFFECTIVE STRATEGIC PLANNING

Plan to plan: when a good deal of time is spent planning, we find that we’ve saved time on the overall task.

Determine your primary purpose: determine first what goal you want to reach- the big picture. Then you can make long term and short term plans accordingly. The following self –examining questions and their answers would help:

Why do we exist?

What are we trying to accomplish?

Assess the situation: a plan for the future based on an unrealistic view of the present will lead to disaster.

There are four angles to consider when assessing your situation:

a)     INSIDE the organization: what we are doing from the perspective of those we work with.	b)    OUTSIDE the organization: what are you doing from the perspective of someone who does not know your strategy
c)     CURRENT POINT OF VIEW: what does your situation look like from the point of where you are now?	d)    FUTURE POINT OF VIEW: how does your situation look month or years from now?

PRIORITIZE THE NEEDS: List team goals in the order of their importance and priority. Results are left to chance when things are not prioritized in which case, we would not get what we desire.

ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS:

Target: whom are we trying to serve and what need are we meeting?

Leadership: Do we have the right people at the top to accomplish our goal?

Counsel: whose advice do we need in order to succeed?

Direction: Exactly what are we trying to do short –range, mid-range and long –range

Organization: who is responsible for what? Who would supervise whom?

Funding: what are the expected expenses and income?

Reporting: Are we on target with our progress?

Communication: How can we effectively make known what we are doing?

Evaluating: Are we seeking the quality we expect or demand of ourselves?

Refining: How can we keep improving on the critical aspect of this ministry?

SET SPECIFIC GOALS: The goals set should be written down to serve as a constant reminder. For effective planning, your goals must be realistic, personal, specific, measurable and convictional.

COMMUNICATE and CLARITY: The vision must be shared and the steps that need to be taken shown. Every planning meeting should include the following; written conclusion, project list, time-line, resource list, next step (action items) and responsibility (project leaders).

IDENTIFY POSSIBLE OBSTACLES: Imagine a worse-case scenario and how you would respond. This way, you are armed with ways to overcome your challenges before they come. Possibly, come up with alternative plans.

HAVE AN OPEN SYSTEM OF PLANNING

MANAGE and DIRECT your resources. Other than people, your most valuable asset is time and money. Invest in both wisely. You can do this by scheduling your items and budgeting for the project.

MONITOR and CORRECT: This means that you will stay abreast of the execution of the plans and make adjustments and corrections where necessary.

STUDY THE RESULTS: Keeping scores is the only way to know whether you are winning or losing. Make your changes based on current information if you are making any.   

MAY DESTINY 2012 OUR MONTH OF DIVINE ENLARGEMENT

WELCOME TO MAY DESTINY 2012 OUR MONTH OF DIVINE ENLARGEMENT

The word of the Lord that came to me for this month is from Isa.54:2-3 which says:

“Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes;

For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.”

The bible also makes us understand in Psalm 127:1 that except the Lord builds a house, they labour in vain that build it and that except the Lord watches over a city, the security of that City would be porous notwithstanding all the security details men have put in place. This is why as a Ministry; we always look up to the Lord for everything.

As a Church leader, I have never gone this road before because I have only one life time and every day for me is a new day that has never existed before. I appreciate the fact that if I am going to lead in the right direction, I must follow the Shepherd of my soul – The Holy Spirit. Jesus said he would lead me into all truths and show me things to come.

The word He gave us last month was divine favour and every day of that month, his favour followed us and has spilled over to the rest of our lives. Last month, by the favour of the Lord, we were able to commence two very important projects as a ministry; one of which is to start developing our Church property. None of us here at Kingdom Heirs Ministries can doubt the great hand of God in providing for and protecting us. We saw him in action.

Now His word of enlargement has come for this month. We are in no doubt that God will deliver on this word also, but an examination of the text in Isaiah 54 quoted above reveals that we have a part to play and that part is to prepare. We are expected to make additional rooms to accommodate the enlargement coming – “lengthen the cords and strengthen the stakes”. Why so? The answer is that God is set for us to expand on every side. For me, I believe that structure grows from inside out. We cannot talk of a strong Church when all the members are babies who are not making any advancement in their spiritual development! People cannot enlarge beyond their spiritual capacity. As a shepherd for instance, it would be unfair for me to expect toothless spiritual babies to crack spiritual bones. So what we must do this month is that in preparation for what the Lord is doing, we must work towards weaning the babies among us and getting them trained in discipleship and getting the young men among us to advance to the next level in their spiritual development to enable them father babies and nurture them to maturity. When this is done and done well, we shall be ready to take on; with ease the next set of challenges that would be presented by the pressure of our Church growth.

Already, we have intensified our leadership training program and through practical trainings encouraged our leaders’ creativity and deliveries on their God given assignment. This is not the easy way to do this though, but it is God’s way and the surest if we are going to leave any enduring structures behind. This was the method adopted by the Lord Jesus Christ when He came and raised twelve men and equipped them for the establishment of the Church. Even though when he was leaving, they had reduced to eleven, he already had people who had what it took to pioneer what is known today as the Church of Jesus Christ which after more than two thousand years is still waxing greater and greater in everything.

Let me close by saying that I learnt from John C. Maxwell that any Church that will experience explosive growth will do so by raising leaders and I have proven this truth for more than nine years now and I can say that this works!

Please avail yourself of the opportunity for enlargement by logging on to our website, blogs and face book pages often to enrich yourself with spiritual resources that will empower your leadership skill.

If you are not born again however, you cannot talk about enlargement because dead people only enlarge in decomposition. You don’t have to be spiritually dead you can come alive today by making Jesus Christ the Lord of your life. If you want to embrace the love of God today, please say the sinners’ prayer below out loud meaning it with all your heart and the Holy Spirit will take your up from there. God bless and enrich your life in Jesus’ name!

Father in Heaven,

I come to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Your word says in John 6:37 that you will not cast me out when I come to you. So I thank you that you will take me in.

You also said in Romans 10:9-10 that if I shall confess with my mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in my heart that you raised him from the dead, I shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. I believe in my heart that Jesus Christ is the son of God. I believe that he was raised from the dead for my justification and I confess him now as my Saviour and Lord.

I believe that I have now become your righteousness in Christ whom you made to be sin for me on Calvary’s Cross.

Thank you father that I am saved from this day in Jesus’s name!

For more information and spiritual resources please log on to http://www.kingdomheirsministries.org/. and follow me on face book by liking our page healing and restoration time with Pastor Alero Nanna and Kingdom Joint Heirs Family Churches. You can also follow our blogs: http://www.flourishinggirl.blogspot.com/