Developing Your Strategy

"There have existed at all times, fundamental principles on which depend good results in warfare...These principles are unchanging, independent of the kind of weapons, of historical time and of place" (Jomini).

Victory is determined by "fundamental principles upon which depend good results in warfare". Just because spiritual warfare employs weapons different from that of natural warfare does not disqualify it, according to Jomini, from the same governing principles of war. The Church has many times committed military blunders because of disregard or ignorance of these basic principles.

Every army lists these military principles with slightly different priority, depending on the strengths and weaknesses of that army. Likewise, the list of principles for spiritual warfare depends on the Church's own unique strengths and weaknesses. We have therefore organised ten Principles of Spiritual Warfare as follows:

Objective	Discipline
Perspective	Concentration
Unity	Flexibility
Intelligence	Momentum
Morale	Support

Strategy and Tactics

Any military operation revolves around two levels of perspective: the strategic and the tactical.

Strategy involves long-term, long-range goals. The success of a strategy is hard to evaluate in the short term. Strategy is measured in months and years.

Tactics involve short-term, short-range goals. Tactics are much more fluid than strategy, more responsive to immediate problems. Tactical goals are the step-by-step implementation of strategic aims. Tactics are measured in days and weeks.

The Mission of Christ

The stated aim of Christ's incarnation was to:

Seek and save that which was lost (Luke 9:10).
Destroy the devil's work (1 John 3:8).

These two objectives form the basis of Christ's "vision" - the "joy set before him" that enabled Him to endure the Cross (Heb. 12:3). But the outworking of this vision can be seen in Christ's strategy and tactics.

Tactics

Wherever Christ went He touched people's lives. He sought out sinners, He healed the sick, He cast out unclean spirits, He taught the multitudes. These activities were all tactical in nature. They were an immediate response to individual needs. As marvellous as this ministry was, if it had had no strategic depth, the essential vision of Christ's coming would never have been fulfilled.

Strategy

To fulfil the vision for which the Father had sent Him, Christ made two strategic moves:

He selected a core of disciples for personal training who would be the seed of the Church that would be born after His Resurrection.
He committed Himself to the Cross, the strategic kingpin of God's plan of salvation.

If the Lord Jesus had simply acted tactically, many individual lives would have experienced God's power, but the world at large would have remained untouched. Now for the Church to fulfil its delegated ministry, as the Body of Christ, we too must move tactically and strategically. Tactically, to see individual lives come into the Kingdom of God. Strategically, to see our whole community touched by the impact of the Gospel.

Five Steps

In order to form a clear and effective strategy, five steps are needed:

Vision

The vision is the starting point of all action in your life. What is your vision for your life, for your work, for your family, for your church? Your vision is what you are ultimately aiming for.

Contradictions

Identifying the contradictions, or obstacles, that impede the fulfilment of the vision is possibly the most crucial step. List the contradictions clearly, for they are the key to developing your strategy.

Strategy

Strategy is born out of the contradictions. When you have clearly defined what is hindering the fulfilment of your vision, you can then develop a strategy, a long-term program designed to break through the contradictions.

Tactics

Tactics are the down-to-earth, week-by-week implementation of the strategy. Tactical plans generally do not work effectively beyond 90 days. Too many things change within a three month period. Job situations fluctuate. School holidays come and go. Exams are here, then gone. The weather changes. People go on holidays, move house, start families. Tactics are flexible, responding quickly to these abrupt changes.

Timeplan

The next step is to weave the previous four factors into a comprehensive timeplan. The timeplan provides the basis for evaluation - if a goal is not fulfilled, we must ascertain whether the goal was unrealistic in the first place, or whether the strategy/tactics you used were ineffective.

Ministry Strategies

In your church, family or ministry of any kin, the strategies that will develop out of the contradictions you face should include:

Prayer Strategies
Communication Strategies
Evangelistic Strategies
Community/Group Strategies
Support Strategies

The Decisive Point

"...The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong... Wisdom is better than weapons of war" Ecclesiastes 9:11,18.

History has proven that when direct frontal assault is used in warfare, victory is rare and generally very costly. The most successful generals in history, however - Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Scipio, Frederick, Napoleon - all avoided the direct approach to warfare. They used what is called "the indirect method".

The indirect method seeks to find the enemy's weakness - the "seam" in his ranks - and exploit it. In spiritual warfare, too, our strategy must be aimed at the weak place in the enemy's hold on people's lives, that crucial point in his ranks which is termed "the decisive point".

Concentration

The key to tactical success is concentration. There is always a temptation to "do much". Like Martha, the Church is often "distracted by all the preparations that had to be made" and "worried and upset about many things" (Luke 10:40-41). The Church is not lacking in activity, but not all activity may be actually accomplishing the vision.

Jomini defined concentration as "to throw the mass of the forces upon the decisive point, or upon that portion of the hostile line which it is of first importance to overthrow."

Napoleon said: "Fire must be concentrated on one point, and as soon as the breach is made, the equilibrium is broken and the rest is nothing."

And Clausewitz stated: "the best strategy is always to be very strong; first in general, and then at the decisive point."

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