Here is a great article about God’s strategy in the Gospel to grow his Church. It shows how God the Father is the planner, Christ, (God the Son) is the builder, and the Holy Spirit, God the Spirit, is the evangelist.
In this he makes a distinction between God’s strategy and our Tactics in ministry. One the most helpful quotes for my application includes:
Our problem is that we think too highly of our tactics, and even confuse them with the strategy. We think that if only we come up with the right tactical moves, then success will be ours, and God’s kingdom will explode everywhere. And if we do achieve some success, we are only all the more emboldened to think that we have ‘cracked it’, and so we write a book and become a church growth expert.
Most ‘church growth’ literature is really short-term, localized tactical thinking, but it often masquerades as something far more grand. It often oversells itself as ‘strategy’, and as the new secret to ministry success.