Video Transcript: Mission and Vision Continued

Welcome back. We're going to continue today talking about mission and vision. Now last time, we talked a little bit about mission and you know, we tried to describe the distinction between vision and mission and mission statements, we looked at some mission statements and tried  to define those in that process, I did give you some of the material about vision. For instance,  

we talked about Andy Stanley's of idea about what vision does, he said it weaves together  four things into the fabric of our daily experience. And one of those four things, well it's a  passion of an anticipated future. In other words, there's something passionate about it. You  know, when you read or hear that speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, he's passionate about it.  The people were passionate about it. I don't think we can quite imagine today here in the  United States, what it was like to be a black man or a black woman or a black child, back in  1963, when he made that speech, but as he created this wonderful picture of white and black  children playing together, there was a passion that was around that it was so powerful, that it  made those people be willing to, to be able to be beaten by police to be arrested and put into  jail, some of them killed in a variety of ways. It made them passionate, because they're  saying this is this is what I want to see happen. This is what I want to see become reality. So  passion, vision, weaves together passions, the passions of the people. You know, back when  many, many sessions ago back in session seven, when we interviewed Frank Levers, he talked about that idea of passionate about God's people wanting to go somewhere, that we can be  just in this cycle of a church doing the same thing over and over again. And people will get  worn out doing that they they want to go forward and and what they want a sense that God is leading us somewhere. So a good vision statement, a good vision that is presented to people  includes this idea of passion, there's somewhere that we must go not, not just could go, but  we should go, we must go. So it's that idea of passion. It's the idea of motive of motivation,  that we are trying to be pulled forward into the future, it gives us a sense of where we're  going and gives us some definition for it. In fact, we've talked about North Star that image  that we've been using that kind of star out there, and it's a thing we measure ourselves by  Well, the vision is something that pulls us forward. One of the people I've referred to in these  lectures is a man named Mark Madison, pastor of National Community Church in Washington,  DC. And through a process that took a while, he developed a vision and his vision was to plant all of these churches in movie houses because he saw all these theaters that weren't used on  Sunday morning at all. And so it was a rather cheap rental place. And that's how they got  started. And that's where they found their roots. And so he began doing this and presented it  to the church, they saw what a thing that could be what influence all over the country and  beyond. And so they developed a vision statement about doing 20 of these in the next year  20 For the new churches, and and it was something that pulled people forward to do what  they wanted to do. It provides direction. In other words, I told a story about Andy Stanley  selling his musician equipment, because he knew that wasn't the direction he was going.  There are certain things that you say no to, in order to say yes to when you've got a good  vision working. I remember when I came to the church, I last served, there was a group of  people that wanted to start a counseling ministry. And they were well motivated. So a couple  of them had degrees in counseling, had experience in counseling. And we began looking at  what is going to be our mission and vision for the next stage of life as we started talking  about strategic planning for the next three to five years for the life of that congregation. And  it became very clear in the process as we did the investigative work, that there were plenty of counseling centers, Christian counseling centers in town, there's opportunity to get there, one of them even charged on a sliding scale. And so we looked at that and said, we really don't  need that. That's not part of our vision, our vision, I'll share with you the statement we came  up with later, but it's involving growth within the congregation and growth within the  individual and growth within the kids and the young adults and the teenagers that God's  given us. So that was our vision and we just didn't quite fit what we were trying to do. Now  maybe we could have made it fit. But it gave us direction to say okay, what are those things  that are going to give us the best bang for our buck? colloquialisms, colloquially saying what's going to be the most effective in accomplishing this vision so it gives direction and it gives  purpose gives a reason to get up in the morning to be engaged in doing what you're doing,  and that's what a vision does now, you know, just to remind ourselves, I hate to go back and 

remind so much but mission defines the present state or purpose of an organization, and  answers the three questions that we looked at as we were evaluating those mission  statements last time. What does the organization do? Who it does it for and how it does what  it does, that's the questions of a mission statement. But a vision statement, in contrast,  defines a future state. This is what the organization wants over a period of time, it was what it wants to accomplish over a period of time. And so it's something that's there, a mission  statement says, This is what's here. Now, this is who we are. But this is what we are  becoming, that's the vision statement, what we are becoming in the future. And so that gives  guidance to wrong long range planning, we looked at that fact that it functions as a North  Star, that idea of using the sextant by those sailors and in the years gone by, to define where  they are in relationship to the North Star, because that's defining how they can get where  they're going, and the corrections they got to make in order to get where they're going. And  so it functions as a North Star. And a good vision statement is succinct, and inspirational. So,  with that in mind, what are the characteristics of a good vision statement? Here are some that you should be aware of as you start thinking of making a statement, you may have an idea  about where God is calling you. But unless you can articulate it and articulate it well, and in a  memorable way, the vision statement will not become reality, it will be forgotten and put in a  drawer somewhere. So what are the characteristics of a really good vision statement that  summarize where God is calling you and your organization to go? Well, first of all, it's clear.  It's not ambiguous. I'll quote this one. Many times in the process of the next few weeks, as we talk about vision as we talk about Nehemiah his work and rebuilding the walls in Jerusalem.  Nehemiah has done his groundwork. He's come to the city of Jerusalem, he's taken that  nighttime ride around the city to see what shape it's really in. So he got an idea what's really  going on there what the need really is, he maybe has begun interacting with some of the  people who have been living with that city in that state for years and years and years and  years. And now he's ready to talk to them about the future. And he makes it very clear what  he feels the vision for the future is, "I said to them, you see the trouble we are in Jerusalem  lies in ruins and its gates have been burned with fire Come, let us rebuild the wall of  Jerusalem and we will no longer be in disgrace." It's clear, no ambiguity, what are we going to  be doing in the future, we're going to be rebuilding that wall. That's the immediate future that God has called us to. That's a vision He's called us to. That's why God sent me here.  Nehemiah says over and over again through the book of Nehemiah. So it's clear, no ambiguity about where we're going. I'm going there. And we are going here. Secondly, it's challenging.  Now, it's challenging in a couple of ways. One, it's good to just have a challenge. You don't  want to do something that's just easy to involve God's work and God's Spirit and the strength  and power of God at work in you and through you. But it's also challenging, because almost  all visions require some level of change in us. Some level of change and the way we do things here. Now, when we get moving towards strategic planning, we're going to have to talk about  how some values that we've held in an organization, maybe we'll have to change in order to  meet the new reality or reach the new vision. But it involves change and change is always  always painful for people. I was reading just this morning, and I neglected to bring your book  along. But it's a book titled Who Moved My Pulpit by Thom Rainer. And Thom Rainer is a  consultant here in the United States. And he just talks about how difficult change is for people and he gives several illustrations. He said, "You know in the one church. It was unbelievable  what happened when the pastor was deciding that in order to reach their vision of becoming  an outward focused congregation that was able to welcome people from the community in  well, he had to change his style of preaching. And so he began gradually to to experiment  with fewer notes and not preaching to the manuscript as he did before. And then he realized  as he was going through that process, that he stood behind his massive pulpit every week to  preach. And so he decided that that had to go and instead he moved the pulpit out. And he  got this little lectern that he sat there. And he said, it was unbelievable. The communications  that he got one person described him as, you know, sent him an eight page letter about how  he was denying God's Will about he was reprobate and that he was going to person writing  him was going to find a way of getting him dismissed as pastor of that congregation, which in  some traditions is a very real threat. And on and on and on, because of a simple thing like 

moving a pulpit." Change is threatening, in fact, in the book Rainer listed 15 of his favorite  reasons people fight within a church. And they're wacko reasons, when you start looking at  them, you know about whether they should buy this copier, or that copier or one Deacon  accused another deacon in the church of a sending sending an anonymous letter and the  other one denying it and they end up taking their fight outside and actually engaged in a  physical fight on the church grounds about how long the youth pastor's beard could be, and  he could still be acceptable there and all those kinds of things. That's what the church can  easily engage in, if there's no vision to say, We've got to go there. And so it's challenging to  present a vision. Now, here's a reality that could be helpful to you. And that is, the longer you  stay, the more likely you will have less and less criticism, and less and less fighting and less  and less challenge. But generally speaking, when you present a new vision to an organization, there's going to be a challenge of change. Now, here's a diagram. It's a bell curve. And what's listed on here is how people react to changes that are proposed. You'll note on the left side,  there is that group called the innovators, 2 1/2% of people in general are innovators. These  are the people who if you present a new idea for them, they're on board. You know, these are  the people who are waiting in line for the new Apple phone because they don't want to wait a  week and order it from somewhere and get it later. So they're ready to go. You present a new  idea to them a new vision, they're saying, Yes, that sounds so good. And they're on board,  then there's the early adopters 13 1/2%. These are people who if you present it to them, and  it makes sense to them, they'll come on board, and they'll say, Yeah, well, I want to be part of  that. Then there's the early majority, that 34% of the congregation or the organization or the  community 34% will be early majority, there'll be early adopters, they'll come in with you on  the vision, if they think the reasons are good enough. They're not just ready to jump on board. But if you give a well reasoned argument or presentation about why this vision is what God  wants for us at this time, they'll come on board, and they'll say, Yep, okay, we're with you.  The late majority, again, 34% are late adopters. In other words, they'll be more ones that are  sitting back and saying, Well, let's see how this all works out. And so they won't jump on  board, or maybe they'll vote for something, but they won't give to it. They'll vote for a  building program. But you know, when it comes down to Hey, will you commit money to this,  they're gonna sit back and see how it works out. Or we're gonna change our style of worship,  because we realize that we, in order to be relevant to our immediate community, we have to  have a different style of worship than what we've had. And they'll sit back and say, well see  how this works out. And then hopefully, they'll join on as momentum is built through a vision  and people start seeing it making a difference. They'll come on board, but they're a late  majority. And then they're the laggards. These are the people who are still working with flip  phones. And they're saying it still works, why should I get rid of this? They, they are not likely  to be approval approving of the changes that you are recommending. And some of them will  be critics. Now, this diagram doesn't say how many of those how many percentage of people  will will come against any new vision, just by matter, of course, because they generally  speaking are against everything. But you've got to know, when you are presenting a vision,  it's got to be challenging. In other words, it's, it's going to cause these people some anxiety.  Except for the innovators, and maybe the early adopters, because what you are presenting is  going to require them to change. So it's got to be challenging. And it's got to be a mental  picture. Moses on Mount Nebo is an example of that. He sees this wonderful picture. And  somehow, you know, he writes it down for the book of Deuteronomy. As he stands on Mount  Nebo, he's given this vision of a promised land. And he told he's telling the people all the  time, it's a land, silver, milk and honey, it's a land. It's a beautiful land sent in the spies  earlier. And they come back and affirm this is a wonderful land. And so he pictures all of the  beauty that's coming, if the people will just go in and obey God and take the land, live out the vision. Now, you know, they have failed to do that 40 years earlier. But now once again, he's  up there and he is himself isn't going to enter the promised land the promised land, but he  draws a picture for the people of what it's going to be like, and so it involves a picture. King's  speech Martin Luther King's speech, what an incredible pictures in drew and that speech,  that's the secret. As I said before, it's good preaching. It's good teaching, but certainly in  proclaiming a vision, to create pictures, to create pictures of who is going to benefit to create 

pictures about how this is going to look, when we have attained this vision, when we've  reached this vision. Now, you know, as I said, when we talked about Martin Luther King's  speech, you know, there are questions today, whether it's been realized or not, and in many  cases here in the United States, it has not. And that's still something we should be grieving  about here yet today. But there has been progress made in the, in the process of becoming  more equal as a race. I lived in Southern California when my children were young. And I  remember when my second child, a daughter was seven years old. And she came home one  day and had somehow become aware that there are differences between her and her best  friends. And so she came in to our house. And in a reflective moment, that was almost  humorous. She said, "You know, my best friend, Gina is brow.", A Hispanic girl who lived a few  doors down she played with regularly. And she said, "my second best friend is browner." That  was Rachel, African American. And then she looked at herself and she said, "I'm sort of  beige." But for her, there were no differences in that ethnic difference. And so when I look at  that, I think, oh, I thank God for Martin Luther King, who challenged us, who led us and  looking at each other in different ways than trying to define us by our race, so that my child  could not look at people and judge them by the color of their skin, but by the content of their  character, which is one of the statements from Martin Luther King. So yes, so you create  pictures. And people say, Yes, that's what I want. So it's a mental picture of the future. It's  also future oriented. It's not looking back to the past, you can do that in the history. And you  can do that in the background to why you've come to the vision you've had. But it's  something that's looking at short term and maybe long term. Nehemiah, his vision was a  short term vision. I mean, it was just a matter of a couple of months. And they had those walls built, it was an incredible feat. One that was powerful. But it took a short time. So that was  the short term vision. Now, long term vision would be more like what people had here in the  United States for good or ill. And that was that there was this idea about Manifest Destiny,  that it was the destiny of the United States to take over the entire middle of the continent.  And so people began, you know, driving out the Indians, because, you know, this is what our  vision is, we're going to control the whole thing. And so buying the middle section, the  Louisiana Purchase, buying a section from rusty Russia for Alaska, but fighting a war over the  western states with this is where we're going. We want to own that's a long term vision. So it's future oriented. It's saying, "This is what I want to happen, what I want the future to become  by God's grace." And then finally, it is achievable. It is something that can be reached. Now,  one of the people I think of is this man, a person on the left, his name is Dan Brink. Friend of  mine in Southern California, he accepted a call to a church that had been declining in  numbers for years and years and years and years. It wasn't, it's a Christian Reformed Church.  And they came here, in 1800s, a group of Dutch people came to the United States, and they  began establishing churches, in various places, wherever those immigrants from the  Netherlands came, they settled, and they started these churches, and they also started  Christian schools alongside of them, so that the children could be educated there rather than  in the public schools. And this church had noticed that people have moved out of the  community and that the birth rate was going down and membership was going down, their  ability to pay bills was going down. And Dan accepted a call to this congregation. And then  after being there for a little while, he said, you know, if this church is going to survive and  thrive and be everything that God calls it to be, I think there's a vision for another future.  We've got to explore that. So they hired a consultant to come in. And he led them through this process, a process similar to what we'll get to later when we talk about strategic planning.  And then in one of the meetings where they had various people involved in small groups and  large groups, small group large group over the night, as they talked about what was God  calling them to? They came up with this wild list of things that we're we're going to change  the basic culture and the core values of the congregation and The consultant had told Dan  beforehand that his job was then to get up and say, We can't do this. He said, it's going to  cost money, it's going to cost a lot of our energy, it's going to cost some people here who  aren't going to agree with the way we're going, and they're going to leave us. So I don't think  we can do this. And said they're serving in the consultant. And so my role is to come up and  say, "you know, you've all got a choice here today, you can continue doing what you do until 

you die. Or you can say, Yes, we can do this, we can do this." And they voted, the church went through a change, man in the middle of the Hispanic, director of the Spanish speaking church  that they have within their facility, and the woman on the right is on staff there as the  ministry coordinator in that congregation, but it's achievable. And here's just one picture of  the church that was dying 20 years ago, and look at this group of people who are going out on a mission together, it's a thriving congregation. So the characteristics are, it's clear, it's  challenging, it involves change, it's a mental picture, creates a picture of where we're going,  and it is achievable. Let's look at some statements, some vision statements and just say, do  they have these characteristics, for instance, Alzheimer's Association, our vision is a world  without Alzheimer's disease. Wow. Now that's a powerful vision. Anybody who's seen anyone  suffer from Alzheimer's? Who has been a caregiver or has had a family member, or a friend  who developed Alzheimer's. They'll say, "Yes, I want to be part of that, I'll be part of that. I'm  going to sign on, I'm going to give money I'm gonna, I'm going to becausee I'm committed to  this too. That's the future." So that's one, Microsoft, another great vision statement. Of  course, they've got professionals working on this sort of thing. "Empower people through  great software, anytime, anyplace, and on any device." That's clear. Creates a passion for  some people more than others. But it's achievable. They're working on it. And they're they're  becoming more and more achievable. It's a lovely kind of vision statement that has given  guidance to their corrections, or their giving guidance to their decisions for years and years  and years. Now let's look some church church ones, ones we've looked at "impacting 100,000  Phoenix area residents by the year 2020." Now that's nine behind there, I got this off the  internet. I just asked for vision statements of churches. And so Christ Church of the Valley in  Peoria Arizona came up and this is their vision statement, not certainly as forward thinking,  future thinking certainly as creates a mental picture. 100,000 people now there might be  some visuals that would go along with that that would really help them but it creates that  idea. We're moving forward. It's challenging. I don't know how big this churches, I don't know  anything about this church. But I know that if you're going to impact 100,000 people by the  year 2020. This probably was made in 2015. That that's an amazingly challenging experience. And one that people will say, Yeah, how about a church that's impacting the community that's outwardly focused, I'm on board. The nine is the number of words. And so in this website, it  lists the number of words for each one because they're trying to say, it's got to be concise.  Okay, let's look at some of the others. The Potter's House in Dallas, Texas, well known  congregation here in the United States, "we are the voice in the hand that encourages people  to change their lives with hope, comfort and peace." If I were there, I'd say let's redo that one. I'm not so sure. It's challenging. I think it's more of a mission statement than it is a vision  statement. Doesn't say where they're going. It just says this is this is who we are. And so I'm  not really excited about that one, New Spring Church in Anderson, South Carolina "to continue growing, impacting lives and using technology and the arts to reach 100,000 people for Jesus  Christ." Now there's a challenging kind of statement. It's clear 100,000 people, and this is  something of a how we're going to do it. We're going to do it with technology and the arts.  And that's going to create a growing congregation. And all the implications of that which we'll  talk about later. Perimeter Church in St. Johns Creek, Georgia, or Johns Creek, Georgia. Now  Perimeter Church is an interesting congregation because it was started by a man named  Randy Pope. And Randy had a vision for creating a string of churches that would be the  perimeter of Atlanta. So they are on one of the perimeter churches, perimeter, highways,  freeways, and so the idea was to populate within easy driving distance, that entire area with  churches. While here's their vision statement "to make and deploy, mature and equip  followers of Christ for the sake of fam family community and global transformation." Some  nice things about that, I guess. But wow, when I look at that vision, I think you know what, we  are going to be about changing the city of Atlanta. We're going to do that by establishing  churches at regular intervals. And these churches are going to be committed to making  disciples of Jesus Christ, and then deploy them so that people's lives are changed in their  families in their community, and, and through that, to impact the world with missions that are going out and being funded, etc, etc. I think that one could be a whole lot more exciting, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, the Church that is richly honored. Kennedy method of evangelism 

came out of that congregation that that method that started with those two questions, you  know, if you were to die tonight, you know that you go to heaven. And if you were to die  tonight, and go to heaven, and you'd stand before Jesus, and he were to ask you, why should  we let you into heaven? What would your answer be? And then it was a method that was used for decades, in training people to share their stories and to share the gospel story in a very  engaging way. So this is a church that has a history it started with 12 people and grew to  1000s. And Pastor Kennedy is now in heaven. But this is their statement, "to rescue and  replenish a world lost and broken by sin, thereby making all things new." I don't know about  you, but that just doesn't excite me a whole lot. If I could rewrite that one, I would probably  rewrite it to say, yeah, "we're about seeing lost and broken people meet Jesus Christ, who can make a difference in their life and restore their dignity and, and heal them and make all things new. And we're about doing that within this community, and etc, etc, etc." You get the idea.  Redeemer, Presbyterian Church, Tim Keller's Church in New York. Now, they obviously are  community oriented. This is a thriving congregation. And their vision statement is "to build a  great city, for all people in the city of New York, through a gospel movement that brings  personal conversion, community formation, social justice and cultural renewal to New York  City and through it to the world." Now again, similar to the other one, I don't find that to be  real. One that creates passion. Whereas you could say, "we envision New York changed,  because of the presence of churches that are engaged in a gospel movement, that are  reaching out to people to introduce you to Jesus Christ, who can transform their lives etc." So.  And then this one we've seen from Saddleback, and I didn't read through this whole thing, I  think this thing could be rewritten in a very powerful way, if you just took some statements  from it as such, it's just too big. Nobody's going to remember this stuff. But if you just took  some phrases out of here and made it into a vision statement, so using that it's a dream. It's a dream of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in the series of 20,000. People join our church  over the next several years. It's the dream of equipping believers for signal, significant  ministry. So that they're deployed and doing God's work It is the dream of sending out career  missionaries and church workers around the world. It's a dream, just use that. shorten that up, you could make that into a very powerful and wonderful statement of vision. Now, I tried to  make myself vulnerable last time by sharing what our mission statement was, in my previous  church was, "We exist to help each other take the next step in our relationship with Jesus  Christ by gathering growing and going," here's our vision statement. And it's one that we're  going to look at later. Because after doing this study for this session, if I could redo this one,  I'd love a chance to do that and do it again, and a part piece. But our vision statement was "to grow larger. And we explain that by saying "it's not just to be big, but so that we can have a  greater impact on this community in the name of Jesus to grow deeper. And that is to create  people are moving along those steps. So the Willow Creek growth spectrum, and then to grow younger or to reach the next generation." That's our vision statement. As I look at it, not very  exciting, not very clear, not very concise, and so I'd love to have a chance to redo that. So  anyway, so this is the beginning of what does it take to make a vision statement? It takes  these kind of activities it takes thinking through things in this way, as far as what is the  future? What is it going to look like? And how do I engage people with mental pictures that are exciting and a great passion for the future? So next time, we're going to continue this  discussion. See you then