Based on history and the shaping of cultural and market forces, I could easily speculate about what the future might hold, but I don’t plan for a specific future, nor do I work to hit specific growth targets. Having lived Opportunity Leadership for many years now, I know that when I look back to consider what I might have anticipated five or ten years ago, today’s reality will look nothing like the future I could have imagined at the time.

Leaders are expected to have a vision for the future, articulated with measurable outcomes. But is that really the best way to lead?
“Where do you expect the university to be in five or ten years?”
As the president of a university, this is a question I am asked regularly. That’s a very natural question to ask of any CEO because society expects leaders to have a ‘vision’ for the future. And we’ve been schooled to believe that we must lavishly articulate that vision in measurable outcomes.
When asked that question, my response is—and this is the absolute blunt answer which I’ve even shared in television news interviews—’I have no idea. But I do know that the best plan we could come up with around conference tables pales in comparison to the plan that God has in store for us.’
Candidly, I don’t know what our future as a university looks like. We may have more students five or ten years from now, or fewer students. I don’t know what new academic programs we might add or cut. I don’t know where we might open new campuses or close some. I don’t plan the future. Our destination is totally dependent on God bringing us opportunities. And so, not only do I not plan for the future, but even more importantly, I don’t worry about it.
Based on history and the shaping of cultural and market forces, I could easily speculate about what the future might hold, but I don’t plan for a specific future, nor do I work to hit specific growth targets. Having lived Opportunity Leadership for many years now, I know that when I look back to consider what I might have anticipated five or ten years ago, today’s reality will look nothing like the future I could have imagined at the time.
Opportunity Leadership is grounded in waiting in anticipation for God-given opportunities to develop that mesh seamlessly with our mission, gifting, and capacity—propelling us to destinations that are heavenly ordained. As a result, we become leaders who hone traits that enable us to become highly sensitive to the wind of God and create an organizational culture that allows us to respond to new opportunities with urgency, adeptness, and energy.

Instead of destination planning, what we must plan well is the execution of our implementation agenda. At my university, we teach history, hold chapel services, play football, provide food service, pay the bills, and complete all the other functions that go into running a small city on a campus. We plan and work hard to ensure those activities are robust, efficient, seamless, and effective. It is good stewardship to plan well what we know we are responsible for doing, and I believe God won’t entrust us with more if we don’t use well what we already hold in our portfolio.

This type of implementation planning must be developed as locally as possible, with the people in the trenches carrying out the specific work. In contrast, comprehensive visionary plans are often drawn up by boards, CEOs, and strategic task forces. Then those leaders spend the following months or years in frustration because the frontline implementers can’t move the changes forward with the same seamlessness envisioned by the planning team.
As leaders, we find our true calling when we break free from a traditional planning process anchored in structure, stability, and control. Instead, we focus on being attentive, informed, and flexible enough to capture opportunities.
The Negative Effects of Destination Planning
The church has learned to build organizations that often mirror the impressiveness of those constructed by the business world. But unlike secular institutions, our eternal focus values the quality of the journey, not simply establishing new beachheads. Structured destination planning not only limits what we might accomplish, but the nature of the process creates five by-products that pollute a ministry’s organizational culture.
1. Destination planning rarely produces the most significant outcomes in our ministry.
Look back on the last decade of your ministry. What was the most significant outcome? Was it drawn out in a plan?
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The Lord has not given the law to believers just to place them back under a covenant of works. We are not trading one form of the curse for another. The giving of the law here is an act of the covenant of grace. Moses is an administrator of God’s mercy, not His judgment.

One of the things that we will notice as we go through the Ten Commandments is that the expectation of the writers of the Catechism is that as we as Christians look at and read the Law of God we will have an experiential and an experimental knowledge of effectual calling, justification, sanctification, and the other benefits of redemption. The reason for this is because as those united to Christ by faith our relationship to the statutes of the Lord has changed. No longer is the reading of “Thou Shalt Not Steal” a burden in which we have no power, nor desire, to fulfill. As new creatures in Christ we see the law as a blessed reminder of the wisdom of God. And not only that but we sweetly comply with it as a son to a Father. That does not mean however we in some way no longer transgress or break the law. We most certainly remain sinners until the day of our glorification. Yet even in that case the curse and condemnation of the commandments has ceased to tear at our conscience. Rather than feeling the law’s demand we bear disappointment at our having turned away from the Father’s love.
As believers we also know that even when we fall short we have an advocate with our God, Jesus Christ the Righteous and then, because of that, we bear fruits worthy of repentance as a sign of true faith. All of this is not a move towards licentiousness, but instead an impetus to obedience to the Commandments. Just because we have grace as a gift, and sufficient grace at that, does not mean we have carte blanche to do what we want. No, our spirits as much as our status has been transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit. Our hearts call is to be made more and more like our Savior and to be seen doing and performing His works in the day of the Lord’s coming. Here is why when Jehovah reintroduces the Law at Sinai He begins in the way that he does, which brings us to the Catechism questions for today:
Q. 43. What is the preface to the Ten Commandments?A. The preface to the ten commandments is in these words, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house or bondage.
Q. 44. What does the preface to the Ten Commandments teach us?A. The preface to the ten commandments teaches us, that because God is the Lord, and our God, and Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all his commandments.
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Jesus commanded His followers to serve the needy, help the sick, and minister to the suffering. Where karma fails to encourage a believer to serve the community around them, Jesus succeeds.

A common feature among the Yogic religions (which include Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, among others) is the concept of karma. Karma “is the cosmic law of cause and effect that ensures that whatever a person does, good or bad, has ultimate consequences.”[1] Such consequences are distributed through the process of reincarnation “into a better status if a person has behaved well; if badly, a person can be reborn and pay for past sins by suffering.”[2] But if a person’s circumstances are the result of karma, should anyone seek to try to help their common man?
When one sees a person struggling through life or suffering from some affliction, it may be natural to feel a certain sense of compassion.[3] Yet, under a karmic worldview, one’s suffering is justice done as a result of the bad deeds of a prior life. If suffering poverty, etc, is what a person deserves, by what right would anyone else feel they should alleviate it?
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