Strategic mapping is learning to identify the routes to the future and avoiding the detours and side roads that do not position us to be effective in the future. It is the ability to understand the clues to the future and place ourselves at the major intersections of the future instead of being stranded on some dead end trail. Strategic mapping is done by teams of people who know they are lost in a wilderness. Strategic mappers must be able to suspend their judgment long enough to see the unthinkable. They must unlearn what has worked well for a long time.
Teams work best because they can anticipate more multiple options.
Humility, naivet , and curiosity are strategic mapping essentials for the members of these teams. Strategic mapping is about breaking new ground and learning how to think and act differently. Strategic mapping is developing new core ministries of the near and long-term future. Core ministries are those essential ministries, like worship, that a church must provide to meet the basic needs of society. Often these ministries can not be started without letting go of some of the ministries from the past.