I am in the middle of preparing for a presentation to be made to approximately 100 pastors and church leaders.  The title is Planning to Succeed and the goal is to provide the basics of strategic planning in a 3 hour window, while eating dinner.  I have been praying about this for a couple of months now because as you can imagine, there will be some there with absolutely no idea what strategic planning means and some who could probably make the presentation better than I will.

I have thought about what is the "irreducible minimum;" the absolute "have tos" of strategic planning.  I have also been thinking alot about how to present the material in a way that it will be accepted by those who are in their 20s and others who are in their 60s and 70s; those who are in vibrant alive congregations and others in stagnant and dying congregations.

And then I watched this video of Jerry Porras on Leadership and it definitely got me thinking, reminding me of a book by Thom Rainer, Breakout Churches, which parallels Good to Great by Jim Collins but for the church world.  I'm still thinking but definitely getting some good ideas.  Watch the video, true it takes an hour, but it is an hour well spent.