Nowadays it seems that the era of one simple approach and one overriding strategy to do anything is gone.  I really wonder if that approach ever was the right one to begin with.  Here in the United States, there is nothing homogeneous about us at all.  We are a mixed bag racially ethnically, generationally, and in gender.  If you are seeking to develop a strategy to do anything involving people, it had better be FLEXIBLE.

A good example is the political campaign upon which we have embarked.  Back in the 1930's and 1940's Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic Party cobbled together a coalition of groups which carried election after election for years.  That coalition broke up in the 1950's when Dwight Eisenhower was elected President and the Republican Party rose to power.  Back in the 1980's and 1990's the Republican Party cobbled together a strategy which won for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.  That strategy involved convincing middle of the road Democrats to cross over and vote for the Republican candidate.  It also consisted of a so called "Southern Strategy" which Richard Nixon first employed around  1970 to win elections for himself and the Republican Party.  This year it appears that a new strategy is wanting for Republicans and Democrats.  What kind of plan will win?  Will it be a variation of the old Roosevelt coalition?  the Nixon strategy?  the Reagan coalition?  What will it be?

I like this approach to doing church work and outreach for the Kingdom of God.  No one method will work.  There are so many people to reach that you have to have multiple methods in your diversified strategy.  Here at Alta Woods Baptist Church, this strategy involves the traditional and the new.  We still have our traditional, on campus ministries and programs which are effective.  We have a variety of off campus ministries which reach out to children in elementary schools and day cares, youth in the neighborhood, and senior adults and others in retirement communities, nursing homes, and apartment complexes.  The most recent method is that of using a wireless approach to teaching a Sunday School class.  We have been at it for two weeks now, and it has been very successful.  The most important result is not so much the numbers as the people whom we can reach with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  I don't know that we will ever again have one and only one way to reach people.  With the hodgepodge and variety which is present in the USA today, variety and flexibililty seem to be the watch words.