Discipline yourself and your coworkers to keep your long range, God-given goals in mind as you plan church activities.

• Start with these objectives in mind, rather than with an assessment of your own strengths and the status of your organization, and prayerfully reason back, step by step from these field realities to where you and your organization are now.

• After reasoning backwards from your final objectives this way, then it is safe to assess your strengths, gifts and people available, and prayerfully plan forward.
• As you plan, be ruthless in removing activities that do not move you measurably toward your objectives.

Find in Matthew 28:18-20, Luke 24:46-48, Acts 1:8 and Ephesians 4:11-16 basic premises to bear in mind as we plan church activities for long range, strategic objectives.

*Find in the book of Judges examples of good and bad leadership and planning.

To develop Activity Review Files, for planning, monitoring progress, evaluating results and collecting valuable information related to each plan, Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson & Scoggins, Section 4, page 9

A tool that has proven helpful in many ministries is to pose the following four questions. Give the leaders of every ministry in your churches or groups a few days to think about the answers to them. If your people are literate, ask them to write them down. These are the four questions:

• What are the current opportunities for ministry?
• What are the current threats to doing ministry?
• What are the current strengths of your ministry?
• What parts of your current ministry should be strengthened? (Some cultures do not talk about someone's weaknesses)

Then hold a general meeting at which each one reports their answers. Find all the points on which you agree.