In this article we will explore how strategy can blind us to where God’s at work and what to do to recognize His activity.
While the movement world excels at starting new works and achieving initial multiplication, we struggle significantly with:
- Strengthening – passing off initial work to shepherds and teachers
- Sustaining – seeing work continue generationally and expand to new peoples
- Flexibility – recognizing divine interruptions that don’t fit our plans
The Woman at the Well: A Case Study in Divine Interruption
When Jesus and his disciples traveled through Samaria in John 4, they weren’t focused on ministry there. The text explicitly states that “he had to go through Samaria” – it was merely a pit stop on the way to their actual mission field. The disciples were laser-focused on their strategic objective: food acquisition and continuing their journey to minister to the Jews.
But what happened when Jesus, tired from the journey, encountered a Samaritan woman at the well?
Could this moment reveal the key to building movements that don’t just start well but actually sustain for generations?
While the disciples maintained their strategic focus (“Rabbi, eat something“), Jesus recognized something they couldn’t see – a ripe harvest field right in front of them that wasn’t on their ministry calendar:
“Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest.”
This divine interruption led to an entire village encountering the Messiah – all because Jesus maintained strategic focus while demonstrating prophetic flexibility.
The Tension Every Movement Leader Faces
This tension between adhering to strategy and responding to revelation surfaces a profound question for every movement leader:
What if you’re passing through your “Samaria” right now, focused on your destination, while God has placed potential movement catalysts directly in your path?
Movements require both apostolic foundations (reproducible processes) and prophetic sensitivity (flexibility to join God’s activity). When these work together, we create what Ephesians 2:20 describes as a “foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.”
But how do we maintain both simultaneously? And what happens when our strategic focus blinds us to divine opportunity?
In the following sections, we’ll explore how this balance plays out in:
- The ministry of Jesus and his redirecting the disciples’ tunnel vision
- Paul’s missionary journeys and prophetic redirections in Acts 16
- Rethinking vision and revelation in Proverbs 29:18
- Practical applications for finding persons of peace through Spirit-led flexibility
The movement leader’s greatest challenge isn’t crafting the perfect strategy – it’s maintaining the flexibility to recognize and respond when God interrupts your carefully laid plans with something (or someone) unexpected.
Are you ready to reconsider how you balance prophecy and strategy in your movement work?
The Problem: Strategy Over Flexibility
When the disciples returned to Jesus at the well in Samaria, they were surprised to see him talking with a woman. Not just any woman—a Samaritan woman. Their reaction reveals a profound problem that continues to plague modern movement leaders: strategic tunnel vision.
“They don’t ask, what do you want or why are you talking with her? But she actually gets up at this point and runs back into the town to see the town.”
The Disciples’ Strategic Blindness
Let’s unpack what was happening in this crucial moment:
- The disciples were passing through Samaria, not focusing on it
- They had gone into town with a clear task: buy food to continue their journey
- They returned expecting Jesus to be resting, not engaging in cross-cultural ministry
- Their focus was on continuing the mission as they understood it
- They completely missed the person of peace right in front of them
When they offered Jesus food, his response was revealing: “I have food to eat that you don’t know anything about.” The disciples were so focused on their strategy that they couldn’t even comprehend what Jesus meant, wondering if someone else had brought him physical food.
Jesus then delivered the key insight that challenges all movement leaders:
“Don’t you have a saying, it’s still four months until the harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest.”
What if the harvest you’re strategically planning for in the future is actually standing right in front of you today?
The Movement World’s Blind Spot
This same pattern of strategic blindness manifests in modern church multiplication efforts.
- We excel at starting movements and initial multiplication
- We struggle significantly with strengthening these movements
- We fail even more at sustaining work generationally
The root cause? Inflexibility in recognizing where God is actually at work when it doesn’t align with our predetermined strategy.
I had to repent of this very tendency: “My strategy is getting in the way of flexibility to join God where he’s at work.”
Too often, we’re like the disciples—entirely focused on our strategic objectives (the “food”) while missing the divine interruptions (the woman at the well) that could lead to unexpected breakthroughs.
Could your movement’s greatest barrier be your own strategic focus?
This is not to suggest that strategy itself is the problem. Rather, the issue emerges when strategy becomes so rigid that it prevents us from recognizing the prophetic revelation of where God is actually working in the present moment.
The Cost of Strategic Rigidity
When we fail to recognize these divine interruptions:
- We miss potential persons of peace who could open entire communities
- We overlook ripe harvest fields that don’t match our timeline
- We exhaust ourselves trying to create momentum where God isn’t currently working
- We become dependent on our own efforts rather than joining God’s activity
What unexpected “Samaritans” might God be asking you to engage with, even though they aren’t part of your current strategic focus?
Jesus’ Model: Flexibility in the Midst of Mission
Jesus demonstrated a powerful model of maintaining strategic focus while exercising prophetic flexibility. His encounter with the Samaritan woman reveals a blueprint for leaders who want to build movements that both multiply and sustain.
Intentional Flexibility in Unexpected Places
Let’s examine what Jesus did differently from his disciples:
- He was on a strategic journey (expressly focused on the Jews) but remained open to interruption
- He engaged a woman who was culturally off-limits (a Samaritan, alone at a well)
- He recognized her as a potential person of peace despite being outside his target demographic
- He prioritized divine appointment over comfort, hunger, and cultural norms
- He demonstrated that kingdom work sometimes happens in “passing through” moments
“This was not their focus. They were going through this area, not because they were intentionally engaging Samaria, but they were passing through it.”
What if your next movement breakthrough happens in a place you’re just “passing through”?
From Natural Conversation to Movement Catalyst
Jesus began with a simple, natural request: “Give me a drink.” This everyday interaction became the gateway to a profound spiritual conversation that ultimately revealed Jesus as the Messiah.
The result? The woman left her water jar—her original purpose—and ran back to town saying, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” A single conversation with one person of peace led to an entire village coming to faith.
This pattern challenges our approach to finding movement catalysts:
- Jesus didn’t use a programmatic approach to identify this woman
- He didn’t organize a training event to attract potential leaders
- He didn’t implement a systematic outreach strategy in Samaria
- He simply remained flexible and attentive in an everyday moment
Here is my confession: I feel convicted in realizing that where I have found persons of peace have by and large has not come through my strategy. They have mostly come from doing this work and then keeping my eyes open for where God is at work.
Reframing Our Understanding of “Person of Peace”
The concept of a person of peace is familiar in movement circles—someone who “receives the messenger, the message and the mission” as described in Luke 10. But Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman offers a crucial perspective:
- Persons of peace are often discovered, not strategically identified
- They may emerge in places we’re “passing through” rather than targeting
- They frequently appear when we’re flexible to interruption
- They become evident through prophetic revelation rather than strategic planning
How might your approach to finding persons of peace change if you balanced strategic focus with prophetic flexibility?
Jesus’ model challenges us to wear our strategic “glasses” (the lenses through which we view ministry) while remaining attentive to the actual people and opportunities God places in our path. His approach wasn’t to abandon strategy entirely, but to ensure strategy serves kingdom purposes rather than constraining God’s work to our predetermined methods.
“Strategy, if I’m drawing it from the pattern of Jesus and the ways of Jesus, it gives me lenses through which I can see in my glasses… But within that, I’ve still got to recognize the revelation, the actual image through the glasses of where is God at work and flex to that.”
Reinterpreting Vision: Prophetic Revelation Over Corporate Strategy
A fundamental shift in understanding vision is necessary if we want to build movements that both multiply and sustain. This shift begins with reexamining a frequently misapplied scripture.
Rethinking Proverbs 29:18
“Where there is no vision, people cast off restraint. But blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.”
This verse is commonly used in church settings to emphasize the need for corporate vision—a strategic plan that provides direction and purpose. Leaders often apply it when launching vision campaigns:
- “We need vision so people don’t cast off restraint”
- “Vision keeps us focused on our strategic objectives”
- “Vision helps us say yes to the right things and no to distractions”
While these applications contain truth, I would suggest they may miss the deeper meaning of the passage:
I think it’s more true to the text to say that where there is no prophetic revelation, where there is no sense of what God is speaking now, no sense of hearing God’s voice for where he is moving, people will cast off restraint.”
What if vision is less about your strategic plan and more about your capacity to receive God’s now word?
The Business Mindset vs. The Kingdom Mindset
This misinterpretation introduces a fundamental problem: it imports a business mindset into kingdom work:
- Business mindset: Leaders cast vision to mobilize people toward predetermined objectives
- Kingdom mindset: Leaders discern God’s current activity and mobilize people to join Him
The first approach places strategy in the driver’s seat; the second makes strategy the servant of prophetic revelation.
“That brings into our understanding of the kingdom, a business mindset, a production mindset that is not in God’s word or in the way that the kingdom moves forward. It’s not from a place of casting strategic vision that we cast off that restraint and move towards. It is from a place of being flexible to where God is moving.”
Strategy as Glasses, Not as the Vision Itself
The proper relationship between strategy and revelation becomes clearer when we use the metaphor of glasses:
- Strategy provides the lenses through which we view ministry
- Prophetic revelation reveals the actual image we’re seeing through those lenses
Without strategic lenses, we might mistake anything for God’s activity. But with only strategy and no revelation, we miss what God is actually doing right in front of us.
“Strategy… gives me lenses through which I can see in my glasses. And I need that because otherwise I’m looking for something that may not be the kingdom. But within that, I’ve still got to recognize the revelation, the actual image through the glasses of where is God at work and flex to that.”
Could your strategic lenses be preventing you from seeing the divine activity happening outside your focus?
Apostolic and Prophetic Foundations
This balance between strategy and revelation echoes Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:20:
“Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.”
The church requires both foundations:
- Apostolic foundations provide reproducible processes and strategic direction
- Prophetic foundations ensure ongoing sensitivity to God’s current activity
When either foundation is missing, the movement either lacks direction or becomes rigid and unresponsive to the Spirit.
“If we’re going to see that kind of movement that Paul saw in Ephesus and Jesus saw when he was walking through John chapter 4, he saw a village engaged, it will require us to both have a clear principled process, and that’s where we bring in that apostolic lens, but it also requires us to have a prophetic flexibility to be able to see and join God at work.”
How might your movement change if you intentionally strengthened both the apostolic and prophetic foundations?
Case Study: Paul’s Prophetic Redirection
The tension between strategic focus and prophetic flexibility isn’t unique to Jesus’ ministry. The Apostle Paul’s journey in Acts 16 provides another powerful case study of how apostolic strategy and prophetic guidance work together to build sustainable movements.
The Strategic Redirection
On his second missionary journey, Paul had a clear plan:
- Strengthen existing churches from his first journey
- Expand the gospel into the province of Asia
But something unexpected happened:
“They traveled through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. And they came to the border of Mysia. They tried to enter Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.”
Despite having a sound strategic plan to engage Asia, Paul demonstrated remarkable flexibility by responding to the Spirit’s redirection. This openness led to a critical moment:
“During the night, Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia… standing and begging him, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ After Paul had seen the vision, he got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.”
What divine doors might close and open if you held your strategies with an open hand?
The Two-Step Process of Prophetic Guidance
I see an important pattern in Paul’s experience:
- Initial Sensitivity: Paul was attuned enough to the Spirit to recognize when his strategy needed adjustment
- Further Revelation: This initial obedience positioned him to receive clearer direction
“The first step was that they were attuned enough to the Holy Spirit as they were engaging their strategy to redirect from where they thought they were going to where the Holy Spirit led them to go. And then as they obeyed in that first step, they got more and they had this vision that directed them to go to… Macedonia.”
This two-step process challenges movement leaders to remain flexible at each stage of strategic implementation, recognizing that initial redirections often lead to more significant revelations.
Finding Persons of Peace Through Prophetic Flexibility
What happened when Paul followed this prophetic redirection to Macedonia? He encountered two significant persons of peace:
- Lydia, a businesswoman whose household was baptized
- The Philippian jailer, whose entire family came to faith
Movement leader Neil Cole suggests an intriguing possibility:
What if they stayed because they were looking for that man who was in the vision saying, ‘come over to Macedonia and help us.’ They stay, they end up in jail. And then what happens? God moves in a mighty way and this jailer comes to faith and their whole family responds.
And that’s when they feel released to keep going to the next city. And so what if that jailer was even that person of peace that Paul had seen in a vision and he was waiting and looking for that man until he found him?
While this is speculative, the key principle remains: Paul’s flexibility to prophetic redirection led to unexpected breakthrough in places and with people that weren’t part of his original strategic plan.
Could your next key person of peace be waiting in a place you haven’t strategically targeted?
The Evolution of Paul’s Approach
Paul’s second journey demonstrates a more intentional focus on identifying and working through specific persons of peace rather than simply engaging cities. Yet these persons of peace weren’t discovered through strategy alone—they emerged through prophetic redirection and flexibility.
Ironically, Paul eventually did reach his strategic target (Asia), but only after following the Spirit’s detour through Macedonia. The result? The mighty Ephesian movement described in Acts 19, where “all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.”
What if your strategic destination is correct, but God’s route to get there differs from your plan?
Practical Application: Integrating Strategy and Prophecy
How do we practically integrate reproducible strategy with prophetic flexibility in our movement work? I would like to offer a framework for this crucial balance.
The Three Phases of Movement Development
Houston movement leaders Guy and Kelly Caskey offer a model that identifies three critical phases where both apostolic strategy and prophetic flexibility are needed:
- Starting – The initial multiplication of disciples and churches
- Strengthening – Developing health and maturity in what has been started
- Sustaining – Ensuring generational continuity and expansion to new peoples and places
Each phase requires different emphases in the apostolic and prophetic dimensions.
I see in the starting piece there is needs to be an emphasis on the apostolic and prophetic to lay those right foundations. Evangelist is in there too, but that will be passed off to a strengthening work as shepherds and teachers, and then I think prophets as well, come in to help to strengthen what has been laid, and it grows into health.
What would happen if your movement intentionally engaged both foundations at each phase?
Practical Steps for Balancing Strategy and Prophecy
Based on the insights from the transcript, here are concrete ways to maintain this balance:
In Your Personal Leadership:
- Adopt “strategy glasses” – Develop clear, reproducible processes while recognizing they only provide lenses, not the vision itself
- Practice prophetic pauses – Intentionally stop and evaluate whether God might be working outside your strategic focus
- Repent of rigidity – Like Mark, be willing to confess when “strategy is getting in the way of flexibility”
- Embrace divine interruptions – When unexpected opportunities arise, treat them as potential “woman at the well” moments
In Your Movement Practices:
- Train for both dimensions – Equip disciples to follow reproducible processes while remaining sensitive to the Spirit’s leading
- Recognize alternative timelines – Challenge the “four months until harvest” mentality by looking for fields that are ripe now
- Identify persons of peace organically – Rather than using only strategic approaches to find movement catalysts, maintain prophetic awareness of who God brings across your path
- Balance between focus and flexibility – Maintain your commitment, focus, and consistency (CFC) while remaining open to redirection
Finding Persons of Peace Through Prophetic Sensitivity
I felt convicted in realizing that where I have found persons of peace have by and large not come through my strategy.
They have mostly, if not all come from doing this work and then keeping my eyes open for where God is at work, for the participatory prophetic revelation where God is at work. And then I join him in it.
This suggests a practical approach to finding movement catalysts:
- Continue the strategic work of engaging your focus area
- Maintain heightened awareness of unexpected connections and divine appointments
- When you sense God at work in someone, “stop, pause, recognize, and then engage”
- Be willing to follow these leads even when they seem to deviate from your original plan
Could your next movement catalyst be someone you’ve already met but haven’t recognized because they don’t fit your strategic profile?
Avoiding the Extremes
We should be careful of two common extremes:
- Strategy without prophecy creates rigid wineskins that can’t contain fresh wine
- Prophecy without strategy lacks the apostolic foundation for reproducibility and multiplication
So the strategy wasn’t telling them where and who alone. It was the revelation that was leading them in that.
The key is recognizing that both elements are essential, but they serve different functions in the movement-building process. Strategy provides structure and direction, while prophecy provides dynamic guidance and adjustments along the way.
Conclusion: A Movement Built on Both
The tension between prophetic revelation and reproducible strategy isn’t meant to be resolved by choosing one over the other. Instead, as we’ve seen through the examples of Jesus in Samaria and Paul in Macedonia, movement leaders are called to build on both foundations.
The Cost of Imbalance
When we fail to maintain this balance, our movements suffer in predictable ways:
- Strategy without prophecy creates hard wineskins that are no longer flexible to the Spirit’s leading
- Prophecy without strategy lacks the reproducible processes needed for multiplication and sustainability
- Focus without flexibility causes us to miss divine appointments and persons of peace
- Structure without sensitivity can inhibit the generational sustainability we desire
If we want to be a church that is continuing to sustain the work to new peoples and places, and generationally, it will require us to not only have that apostolic fire and vision and strategy, but also a prophetic awareness and flexibility to join God where he’s at wor
Those two things do fit together, but we cannot replace the prophetic revelation with strategy.
Building on the Right Foundation
This dual foundation is precisely what Paul describes in Ephesians 2:20: being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.
The ultimate goal is not just multiplication, but creating a dwelling place for God’s Spirit—a movement that both expands and sustains because it accurately reflects both the structure and flexibility of God’s kingdom.
Personal Repentance and Recommitment
I realized I was trying to use strategy to find persons of peace, to find what God was doing, and control it, versus allowing God to move prophetically and lead, and moving forward, I don’t want to do that.
I want to be aware of what God is doing, and flex, and slow down, and even stop when the woman at the well shows up in front of me.
The Threefold Path Forward
As we build movements that not only start but strengthen and sustain, we must integrate both apostolic and prophetic elements in the following ways:
- In starting work, we need both reproducible processes and prophetic identification of persons of peace
- In strengthening work, we pass the baton to shepherds and teachers while maintaining prophetic insight for growth
- In sustaining work, we develop participatory prophetic awareness that allows the body to remain flexible to the Spirit’s guidance
When we build on this dual foundation, our movements can achieve what neither strategy nor prophecy alone could accomplish: generational sustainability and expansion to new peoples and places.
What might your movement become if tomorrow you begin to intentionally strengthen whichever foundation—apostolic strategy or prophetic flexibility—you’ve neglected?
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