By George Bullard
Vision is not about promoting programs and using an attractional approach to engage in a spiritual and strategic journey. It is not about a focus on operational planning, and a primary focus on the management of the systems of the congregation.
Vision is about expanding and deepening the relationships of the congregation with God, one another, and the context in which the congregation serves. It is about the people who are impacted through a disciplemaking process rather than getting more people to attend discipleship events. It is not about programmatic success but disciplemaking significance.
Vision is not about doing things right. This is the mantra of management. Vision is about doing the right things that help people grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ in the spirit of 2 Peter 3:18.
Here are three vision insights that challenge us to have vision that is other than programs and management. The first 54 vision insights about congregational vision are contained in the posts found here.
Vision Insight 55: Many congregations fall back on their mission statement as their vision, rather than being embraced by a specific vision.
Mission statements, which should express a generic overarching sense of the Missio Dei for congregations, can easily fail to move from being a nice statement or feeling of being a faithful congregation to being a specific call to action for prophetic contextual service. When this fails to occur the evaluation of progress or success can be very shallow.
It goes something like this. “While we do not have a clear measurement of progress in fulfillment of our vision, with all the faithful actions and some successful programs we have experienced, surely we have moved forward as a congregation.” Evaluative comments such as this can be made right up until the day the church closes and locks it doors for the last time.
Vision Insight 56: Having a proactive, excellent call to action plus experiences that live into vision is as important as casting vision.
A vast difference exists between a vision that is stated and a vision that becomes real and alive through a call to action.
One very interesting dialogue I had with a pastor I was coaching relates to the difference between a stated vision and a vision that is realized. His congregation was struggling with the success of a new contemporary worship service. They had done many things right along the way. They had three worship services rather than two. Each was of a different style with a different target group.
The problem arose when the contemporary worship service outgrew its space and needed to swap places with the gospel service that focused on senior adults. While having three distinct worship services meeting in various locations in the facilities at one time had been a fine idea and practice, when the contemporary worship service became the largest of the three and had the highest per capita financial contributions to the church, that was more than long-tenured and/or older members could stand.
Conflict arose. The pastor prayerfully struggled with the situation and what to do. He came up with a vision of one unified worship service to replace the three. The sanctuary could hold everyone. He was anxious about sharing it with his congregation. In our ongoing dialogue I realized a question I needed to ask him. It was, “Do you have to have this vision, or do you have to faithfully state it because you feel God has given it to you?”
The response was that he had to faithfully state it. Which he did. That was not what the congregation ended up doing. But it led to a solution.
Vision Insight 57: Vision is more about increasing and deepening disciplemaking than it is about successful and growing programs.
Programs are seldom if ever the pathway to the fulfillment of vision. At least not in the current world. The fulfillment of vision is about discipleship development involving spiritual formation, leadership development and missional engagement.
It is particularly about a strategy that leads with a focus on adult discipleship development that empowers discipleship development among other age groups. Congregations need excellent programs, ministries and activities for everyone from birth to death. Yet the goal of programs should not be success and growth.
The goal should be a significant impact on and deepening of the spiritual formation, leadership development and missional engagement of followers of Jesus Christ. Effective programs, ministries and activities that meet the real needs of real people in real time are the methods and not the end result.
This is the 20th in a series of posts on congregational vision. To see all the posts go here. The next blog post in this series is entitled, “Congregational vision is not about successful growing programs.”