Plans seem strange, following small church (7)
I believe the answer is:
schemes
'plans' is the definition.
(scheme is a kind of plan)
'seem strange following small church' is the wordplay.
'strange' indicates anagramming the letters.
'following' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'small' becomes 's' (abbreviation - e.g. clothes size).
'church' becomes 'ch' (common abbreviation).
'seem' with letters rearranged gives 'emes'.
's'+'ch'='sch'
'emes' after 'sch' is 'SCHEMES'.
(Other definitions for schemes that I've seen before include "Plans, plots, projects" , "''The best-laid ... o' mice an' men Gang aft a-gley''" .)