process: strategic planning and revolution

Friday evening and most of Saturday I spent at my congregation engaged in strategic planning.  Anyone who has been involved in such an exercise in the past years would recognize the steps, the jargon, the big-paper-on-the wall, post-its, markers, and colored dots for "voting."   All of this is intended as a method to direct lots of people's energy and ideas toward some larger purpose while generating their "buy in."  I've done it before; I've even been the one asking folks to do it.

But this time I was doing it while also thinking about the American Revolution and that led me to think some new things:

1. There is an implicit theory of revelation at work.  At least in a church setting, the unstated assumption is that by following this process a group of 50 people (in our case) will happen upon a true understanding of God's intentions for them and their congregation.  We prayed a little.  We did not read the Bible.  We trusted that the Spirit would speak through us and our process.  Could be, but it is a novel sort of discernment process.
2. My hunch is that this is more a democratic expectation than a Christian one.   That is to say, the process was not developed as a spiritual practice, but out of a democratic view of of governance and planning that expects that a bunch of people conferring together will arrive at wise decisions about what is good for them and others.
3. I wondered if I could write a satirical  sketch about the Committee of Five and the Continental Congress as they worked their way through SWOT analysis, drafting a mission statement, waiting for the Pennsylvania delegation to get approval from home of that draft, moving on to vision statements, and then proposing action steps.  Imagine the excitement if we could find some post-it-notes written by Samuel Adams!