Video Transcript: Developing a Mission Statement

Okay, we're going to continue now we're talking about developing the mission statement, we  talked about how was the vision itself created, we talked about some characteristics of the  mission statement. But now I want to get down to some of the nuts and bolts about some  things to keep in mind as you try to put it down on paper in such a way that it will be  engaging with the people who are going to listen to your vision. Now we are in that section  reminder on the vision of preferred future, vision becomes the star you steer by not a simple  map to be followed. In other words, it doesn't lay out every step of the way doesn't say, Oh,  this is how we're going to do it here. And how we're going to do it here doesn't do that at all.  But it says, Here, here's the star, we steer by, we're going this direction, this is where we want to be. Now, I have chosen one process that I'm going to just kind of work out with you over  the next few sessions. It's a process developed by a consulting agency, that is not a Christian  consulting agency, but they have some wonderful resources for talking about vision and  creating a strategic plan, which is the section we're going to move into next week. And so  there is there a website you can look on there. But here's the model that they use it's saying,  you know, "creating a an impactful strategic plan starts with your vision." The vision is the  thing that is overall, what you are doing. And so this is an important part later on, we're going to get how the values change and focus areas and organizational goals and goals in the  various areas of the church. We'll get into that stuff later. But just to show you this now, we'll  be coming back over the next several sessions, about how our vision is what drives us our  vision is what we do. And and then that defines the rest of it. So the vision statement is a very important statement. So having said all of that, how do you create a vision statement? Well  the leader and the guiding coalition come together. Now, we talked about that last time, a  little bit out, how you know, it's not just the leader unless it is a strong natural leader, but  some other people that come together with you that you help you do this, that help you  define what that vision is. Now, I am not a strong natural leader. And so I will always find it  helpful to get a group of key leaders together from the congregation I am part of, because I  happen to be part of a church organization with key leaders. These are people who I know are desiring of something new, they become dissatisfied with the status quo, or they're the kind  of people who see the opportunities that are coming in the future. And so together, we've  worked on this sort of thing as we talk about the vision statement. And then with that group,  you know, I look at the present reality, as we talked about last time, we define that to a great  degree. And then we start to move on in developing a statement. But we only do that with  prayer. Now, I've mentioned prayer so many times in this I want to mention that once again  here. When you look through scripture, you find that prayer was incredibly important in the  forming of particularly visionary times. Acts 6, a time of prayer in commissioning those first,  those first deacons. When you get on later, Acts 13. The church had really just expanded just  a little way that was in Judea, and it got to Samaria and the city of Antioch. And there it was,  while they were praying and fasting, the Lord said, set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work  to which I've called them. So that calling a mission going out into the world, especially into  the Greek world, the Roman world of that day came because of prayer. It was a vision that we  don't know how the Holy Spirit spoke it. We don't know how God said that to set apart  Barnabas and Saul for me, but it was an answer to their prayer and their time of fasting. Now, we should talk about fasting another time, perhaps. But it's a way to emphasize prayer  emphasize the need to take us away from the stuff physically that keeps us engaged with  what we're engaged with. And so somehow, as we're looking at our vision statement, and we  want to develop this vision statement, we've got to be in prayer together. And I came from a  tradition that prayed at the beginning of a meeting, sometimes at the end, but not always. So that was my tradition. And I had to learn later that to engage people in thoughtful prayer was  very important. And so we learned to pray as we were working on vision together. We prayed  at the beginning of these we prayed in the middle of meetings we prayed in small groups who prayed as a whole group we we realized that we wanted to know where God was calling us to  go and so we eager to listen. And that involves prayer. Acts 15 is another time where there  was a huge moment in the Church where they could go various directions, you know, they  could go and take the direction of making all the new believers Jewish, or they could say on  God's doing a new thing. And so they come together. But if you look at Acts 14, the setting for

that was Paul and Barnabas coming back from a mission trip, and, and with prayer and  fasting, establishing leaders in all the churches within the towns where they had been. And so a prayer was part of that. And so they get back to Antioch. And they find that a group of  converts were Pharisees before the conversion to Christianity, are telling the people that  they've got to become Jewish, they've got to keep all the Jewish festivals, they've got to  become circumcised to become fully Jewish in that way. They've got to keep all the Sabbath  laws, the 613 laws about the Sabbath, they've got to do all of these things in regard to how to eat now. And da, tada, tada. And the church is called to make a decision about this. And  Barnabas and Saul are facing that group in Antioch and saying this, I don't think is what God  wants us to do. And so it ends up in Jerusalem. And it's fascinating, they have a discussion  together. But they come out saying it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. It was a result of Barnabas and Saul, praying with people. The Antioch church praying and seeing a new  vision, and the people in Jerusalem now catching on to it and saying, yes, that's where God is  going. Now, there's that cautionary word there. And that is a group think when it gets down to writing a vision statement. The critical question to answer in a vision statement is where are  we going? And sometimes when you get a group together, it's like, everybody puts on their  English 101 hat or something, and they're trying to craft something that covers every  eventuality. In fact, Dan Keith is a consultant here in the United States, with business and he  describes in one of his video blogs, what makes vision statements die and become ineffective. He said, "What usually happens is that the leader will get together a group of people to talk  about a vision statement, and they'll begin to edit it," he says, "so there's this group that has  this vision, and the guy comes, he owns the vision parlor, the pizza parlor, they're just  starting out. And he says, Here it is, our vision is to serve the tastiest blank pizza in Wake  County," swear word there. Well, the group interacts with this, and of course, their first  reaction is, "well, you can't say that blank Word. And so we got to take that out. So "our vision is to serve the tastiest pizza in Wake County." Okay, now, that's still a vision, it's future and  gives us direction for how we're going to go. But then somebody will say, "Well, wait a minute. I don't like that word serve it. It's just it's servile. And it's just doesn't present what we want.  So let's make a present, our vision is to present the tasty is pizza in Wake County." And then  somebody will say, "Well, you know what, we don't just do pizza. We also do some  sandwiches, we do some calzones, we do some other things here salads says. "So maybe we  shouldn't have pizza, we should make the vision statement, our mission to present the  highest quality Italian foods in Wake County." And then somebody says, "Well you know, but if we just talk about food, you could probably talk about a Greek salad that they serve. And so it shouldn't be just Italian food," they said, "Maybe we should look at the fact that we don't just  serve food here. We have these booths, we've got these game areas that people can play.  And so we're not really talking about food, or we're talking about dining, but it's not really  dining. And so somebody suggests our mission is to present the highest quality entertainment solutions for families in Wake County." And then somebody will say, "Oh, wait a minute, we  forgot the word integrity. And that's very important in our day. So we've got to throw that  word in there. So our mission is to present with integrity, the highest quality entertainment  solutions for families in Wake County." So this is just a warning to say, when you're putting  these together, and you've got a guiding coalition, that's a word we're going to talk about  later that you don't just do groupthink. You charge some people, certainly the leaders should  be part of that group of people small group, maybe engaged with some people are used to  writing and writing well, and engage them to come back with it and not try to edit it and  describe every situation that could possibly be faced in the future. And then you'll have a  better vision statement. So there we looked at this characteristics of a good vision statement  that it's clear. It's challenging. It involves change. It's a mental picture and it's future oriented. In other words, it's achievable. Now what I'd like to look do is look at some bad vision  statements as far as they don't give you a whole lot of excitement right here's or the  checklists are let's look at those checklists Excuse me. Is it future? is it directional? In other  words, we aren't there yet. Is it audacious? Is it about a big thing that's going to happen? Is it  descriptive? This statement, that paints a picture. Exxon Mobil statement Corp, "the Exxon  Mobil Corporation is committed to being the world's premier petroleum and petrochemical 

company." Bah. who cares, right? And what does that mean to being the world's premier  petroleum and petrochemical company? Does that mean they're gonna have most of the  business? They're gonna gobble up everybody else? What is? What does it what does it mean  that doesn't really give a whole lot of direction. And that's usually given as one of the  examples of a pretty bad vision statement. Now we've looked at some other ones, you know,  that we talked last time about, you know, how you can change these to make them future  oriented to make them exciting. You know, this, this one are from Redeemer Presbyterian with Tim Keller, we talked about that how you could make that so much more exciting. But you  know, here's one this I think this actually this came out of a sermon by Rick Warren at  Saddleback Church, in Southern California. But this is one where a lot of groupthink it looks  like happened, right? I know, he was trying to present a vision for the future. But he said, it's a dream of a place where the hurting the depressed, frustrated and confused can find love,  acceptance, help, hope, forgiveness, guidance and encouragement. You can almost picture a  group getting together and saying, you know, we want to place we're hurting people can be  healed. And somebody say, "Well, you know, that's hurting those who are depressed and what what about people are frustrated? Confused people? You know they need a place and well  okay, we want them to find acceptance here. Well, no, we don't want just acceptance. We  want love. We want guidance for them. We want encouragement to them. And well, it's the  dream of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with hundreds of 1000s of residents of South  Orange County. Oh, that's good. To dream of welcoming 20,000 members into the fellowship  of the church. And then family loving, learning, laughing and living in harmony together."  Trying to describe the whole church kind of situation, whole church experience. Again, "it's a  dream of developing people with spiritual maturity. And this is how we're gonna do a biblical  study small group seminars, retreats bible school for our members." Again, somebody saying,  "Okay, this, oh that's exciting, we're gonna develop people to spiritual maturity, this is yeah  but, we really should describe how." So this is just an example of what can happen with  groupthink. And you know what it could be if we just took certain phrases out or as I  exception, as I suggested last time. Now, I gave you this one last time as one of ours. And  we'll look at this in just a moment. But here's how it works when you get your vision  statement down. And it's clear, and it's challenging. And it's a mental picture. And it's  something that is there to arouse the passions of people and to draw on the passions of  people. Here's how it works. You get your vision at the top and talk about values. And you've  got certain areas of the church that your vision causes, calls you to focus on. Now, here are  some examples of really good vision statements, at least in the literature that I've seen. River  Oak Grace Church, River Oak, California. Their vision statement is "20 by 2000." Of course  this was made some years ago. Actually I believe it was 1995 that by 2000 Okay " it is our  prayer and vision that by the year 2000 River Oak Grace will experience 20 People will accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior regularly here at River Oak Church." I forget what they say  was regularly but okay. Okay, that yeah, I want people to accept Jesus Christ. 20 missionaries  serving as part of the River Oak Grace International Ministry staff team. Yeah, I'm about  reaching out into the world. 20 of them? Sure. Five years? We can do that. 20 new churches  planted to the River Oak Grace Ministries. 20? Wow that's a stretch, but I think we can do it.  Let's, let's go our 20 unreached people groups significantly impacted with the truth of the  gospel. In other words, we're going to be sending missionaries out to 20, at least 20  unreached people groups, and those who are missionary minded would say, yes, that's  something I can grab onto. It's clear. It's compelling. It's something that's exciting to think  about. It's something that you know, those who are passionate about the outreach of the  church, and that's a deep value of theirs will go and then you will go after this vision. And  when you look at this, you start seeing focus areas right. This will impact the preaching that  happens in this church. It will impact the children's ministry, it will impact the youth  ministries, etc. etc, etc. Cherry Hills Community Church in Highlands Ranch Colorado church I  got to visit a few years ago when I had a sabbatical and was looking at larger churches in the  western United States and just trying to figure out how their their system of government  related to the church because I was in a church that time that needed to grow and it just  wasn't quite doing it. So so their vision "to see the members of Cherry Hill be so passionate 

about God's heart for the lost that they have become proficient in ministry skills, and are  proactively involved in strategic outreach ministries locally, nationally, and globally." Wow,  okay, so we want people of Cherry Hills to be passionate right? Now, hopefully some of them  are already and that will begin to feed on itself. And there'll become a growing sense of  passion about lost people, but they have to be so passionate about it, that they become  proficient in ministry skills, are proactively involved in strategic outreach ministries locally,  nationally, globally. This is considered to be one of vision statements is Yep. Okay. I'm  passionate about loss people, where do I go? How do I sign up? I want to be part of this. Later, we're going to talk to a young woman who's a director of community ministry in Southern  Michigan, Western Michigan, where I live here. And this is a big part of what they do is they  take a statement similar to this, and I'll try to share there have her share their vision  statement with us at the time we do that interview. But our idea is that this is something  people will get behind. My wife and I are going to be volunteering in that community  organization just because there's something about they have a group of ministry called  Sacred Sons, but they realize that homeless people have nowhere to wash their clothes. So  they provide, they bought a small house there, they refurbished it in the washing machine. So homeless people can come in, take a shower, have their clothes washed. And then they also  provide mail for the people there because homeless people don't have a place to receive their mail. So they get checks from the government or whatever. This is the place of home. And,  and it's a group that say, "yeah, we want to make a difference in this community." Their vision statement is "we want to bring shalom God's overall all encompassing peace to the city, a city that's been wracked by racial violence over the years and racial dis disruption over the  years." And so how can we do that? Well, this is one way they do it. And so people like me are saying, I want to be part of that. I want to see the city, being renewed in the name of Jesus  Christ, that people are finding the shalom of God there. So now, if I had to redo our vision  statement to grow larger, grow deeper, to grow younger. I would use words like this, "we  envision 100 new believers coming into our ministry over the next three years, as well as  others who will join us in our mission." We're going to grow larger now, before looking at focus areas. Now, we just said something about our facility, and maybe our worship times that  we're going to have to create another worship service. And we just said something about our  children's ministry, if we create that many, what are we going to do with whatever how many  more percentage of children is involved that ministry. It involves the missions ministries. How  are we going to reach those 100? How are we going to engage them? Who's going to be doing that? How are they going to be trained, etc, etc? "To grow deeper, we envision people walking together." That's our mission statement writes "in large groups and small with a desire to  become Christ centered." So we want people to be moving along that spiritual growth  framework that we talked about a while back. And so we want to go deeper. And if you're  going to be part of our church, it's because you have a desire to come closer to Christ,  because you realize he makes all the difference in the world. I have used those kinds of  wordings out to grow younger, reaching a new generation. I'd say something about the fact  that there are the next generation, the millennial generation is leaving the church in droves.  As I've shared before, something like 17 to 28% are in church. Other than that, the rest of  them are not, I'd say something about wow, what an opportunity we have today to make that  mission field what do we have to do to do that? And the reality is, it means we got to change  the way we're doing things. And so there's going to be some part of the church or some  ministry that's got to be developed in order to do that well. And so I would say something  about the fact that we will expend whatever is needed to present Jesus Christ to the next  generation, and to everybody in our community. I don't know how exactly how I'd word it, but  would say something maybe about local Bible clubs or something about whatever. But this is  the kind of thing that's going to give us the light to go forward. And if the vision is caught,  then people will jump on board resources come to two different things. I've said it before, they come to need where there's a deep need, or they come to vision. So if you're writing your  vision statement, use words like we envision. It's a great picture word. This is what we  envision. We envision a group of young adults growing in their faith. We envision a group of  children being baptized, professing their faith, we envision a group of that word envision just 

creates a picture language for people or we believe God is calling us to. You've got a lot of  people on that one side of that bell curve. They are the late majority and the laggards. And  some of them are the critics, they're going to be less likely to say this is where we're going.  And so you say to them, Well, do we believe this is what God is calling us to the problem with  that language, is that they can say, well, you believe that I believe God's calling us to  something else. But for a vision statement, it works at time, you know, that word that Rick  Warren use, we dream of. We dream of. We dream of you know 20,000 people joining our  church family, we dream of. Now, that's a tough word too that's a interesting word. Because  you say well it's a dream. Dreams all the time, right. And sometimes I eat too much pizza, but to dream of what could happen. If every kid in our area received a good early childhood  education. We studied our culture. In the community in which I live, we found that that was a  big problem. A huge percentage of the kids weren't getting early childhood education. And  that has been proven in study after study after study to be crucial to their future education,  and whether they would go on to college and careers after that. And so when we ask the  person, that organization is called the United Way, what should we do as a church? What  should we do? And his response was start a preschool and make it low cost or free. And so we  began exploring that as a vision statement, because there was a stated need there. And so  we envision 200 children coming to our preschool and us having an influence on those  families, in the name of Jesus, to bring them wholeness, peace, etc, etc, etc. So ours, we  envision every kid in our neigh and our community invited into relationship with Jesus Christ,  that's a vision statement by a group that would go around a big bus and invite kids to come  area after school to a Bible club on the bus right at their school. And they would spend time  with them because that's their vision. They want to reach every kids or every school, they  show up. Every week, every week group of volunteers, almost all volunteers, because this is  their vision. We want the kids to hear about Jesus Christ. So writing your vision down can be  an exciting process, encourage you to do it, and don't get caught in the weeds too much. But  you're looking at something that's inspiring. There's a lot of stuff online if you want to go to  find resources, you can put in your vision statements of churches and you'll get a lot of good  ideas about those things are all of a sudden start plucking your heartstrings. That's, that's,  that's a good sign of a good vision statement. So next time we're going to talk a little bit more about this as we move on to how that vision begins to impact the strategic planning