• If the Lord wills—James 4:14 puts our plans in context. God’s plans are bigger and more important than ours. Our goals is to make plans that would please and glorify God.
• A tool to communicate yes and no—it is impossible to say yes to everything that seems worthy. A planning room/wall helps you gather everything in one spot and make a priority decision about what is next.
• Squeaky wheel defense—helps you remember the important things when a new item shows up or a gift requires a choice.
• The context of planning—providence (sovereign power of God to sustain and bless), philosophy (why we do what we do), people (how do we grow them and how are they gifted now), process (how we do what we do), property (the physical tools we have to do what we do), program (communicating the truth of God’s Word), and plan (how we see each of these items working together the best way possible).
• Dreaming and vision is seeing the destination or goal, planning is seeing the steps that get you to the end goal. Sweat the details

Opening Question

1. Do you like plans?
2. You will probably get a wide variety of love/hate statements. Explore why people have strong opinions. Plans can become so big that they are a god in your life or so ignored that we spend more time and energy on trash than plans.

Closing Thoughts

• God’s plan will not always match yours.
• Think beyond this year . . . go 5 to 10 years out.
• 3% plan, 97% sweat!