Video Transcript: Vision Killers

This is session 21 of our study on leadership this morning. And just as a reminder, we are in  that section of leadership called the vision where the leader interacts with the culture to  create a vision of a preferable future. And as we've been saying, with this sample of the star  by Glenn Heemstra, the preferred future vision becomes the star you steer by not a simple  map to be followed. In other words, maps, if there are a variety of ways to get to your  destination, the destination is what the vision is, the map will come later, as we talk about  strategic planning. But we looked at now you know, how you do things like develop a vision,  how you experience God leading you into the next step or phase of your ministry or the  ministry. business that you are part of whether it's church or nonprofit, or whatever. So you  looked at that we talked about communicating that vision? How do you do that rollout in a  successful way? Well, today before we begin to move on to that idea of change, and and  specifically writing the strategic plan, I just want to spend a few moments noticing on what is  the title on this subject for the day, and that is vision killers, you'll find out that as soon as you roll out a vision for a preferred future, there are going to be some forces that come against  that vision that are designed to kill it. The first one of these obviously, is tradition, tradition is  been known for decades to be something that will stop churches from changing. In fact, there  was a book that came out years and years ago by Ralph Neighbour, called The Seven Last  Words of the Church, you know, we never tried it that way before. Traditions are powerful. Just in normal life, we tend to pattern our lives, right. I mean, just think of how you get ready in  the morning. If you, you have a certain pattern that you follow, because it's comfortable. It's  something that you've gotten used to, and you don't have to think about it anymore. So if  you're in the shower, you shower yourself in a particular order, you clean yourself up, you  shave at a particular order, particular time, you go to your closet, you choose clothes in a  particular way, particular time, and you're ritualized all of those things, because it's just  easier, and it's comfortable. And you don't have to make decisions, a great deal. in fact some  people like Steve Jobs of Apple computer used to wear only one thing he wore jeans and a  black turtleneck. And he said, because that way, I don't have to make any decisions. When I  go to my closet, these kinds of things are powerful in forming our lives. And if if we do that  enough times, there are things that are repeated enough times, they become traditions, they  become entrenched. And when you start getting a vision that's going to require some kind of  change of people in the future, they're automatically going to say, that'll never work. We've  never done it that way before. That's the statement. Now, many of you have faced this  already, at some time or another, you faced it because there has been somebody in your  ministry who didn't like the way you've done it. Or if you're new on the scene, if you're a new  pastor, you know, and the other pastor was there a long time, you know, say, your pastor, so  and so didn't do it that way. You know, I heard that a little bit when I went to my very first  church, The pastor that had preceded me was deeply loved and appreciated in that  congregation. And I came with a whole different set of gifts and set of interests and, and a  new vision for the church and how kept out here. But but that's not the way that was done  before. It's one of those things that is designed to kill mission. Now the people of God are  good people, you know, they wouldn't say, Yeah, we're trying to kill the vision. They're just  trying to be honest about their own reaction. They're not trying to, or they're not out to get  you usually, but they are, are people who are focused somewhere. In fact, tradition always  focuses backward. And vision always focuses forward. And so tradition, people are looking  back and they are celebrating all the things that were done in that ministry. And you're going  to change that. And we're going to talk about that next time when we talk about the price to  pay for living out a vision that people will identify you with a vision regardless of how many  people were connected with it. They're going to identify you with a mission. We liked what  was and you're going to change it and we haven't done it that way before it won't work. Think of a man in my church in California. After I came there, we instituted a bunch of changes. We  were looking at a variety of changes for the future. And in fact, the community was changing  in Southern California. There was a rapid change in population. And so where we were had a  lot of changes in demographics and a great deal of time. And so it wasn't just us that was  changing as a church, or seeing the change to become something different. It was the  Christian school that the church was closely associated with, they began to realize that the 

birth rates were going down in our community of four or five churches that were supporting  churches to the Christian School. And so when they looked ahead 12 years, and I had the  privilege of chairing their vision or planning team, we looked at 12 years and realized that if  we just depended on the supporting churches to provide students for that school, it was going to be a shadow of itself. Because there were only going to be like, 20 kindergarteners, and  right now, the school is a healthy, like for 7 or 800 kids. And so if there's only that many  kindergarteners, what's the future hold, beyond that is going to go down further, and it's  going to go down further, and it's going to go down further. It's that kind of thing that they  were looking at and saying, you know, we're gonna have to change to survive. So they were  talking about change. Well, a man who was in our church who was a very wealthy man, you  know, God had given him a lot of material gifts. He was somebody who was very generous  with his giving. I mean, he, he really was faithful to not just our community in giving,  especially in the support of missions, but faithful to the school, he was faithful to a variety of  organizations beyond that, our radio ministry, he was faithful to ministries within the  denomination, he was a generous man. But the changes just got to be too much for him at  one point. And he began to talk in this way of tradition about remembering when  remembering when. And I think one of the breaking points was when the school you know  projected another whole group of children that they might get, but it would be different,  because these children weren't from the same Christian background that we were. And this  man was afraid of what that was going to do to the system. So I heard of this conversation  secondhand with the superintendent of school visited him. I visited him, we talked with him at various times, because we valued him as a person. And certainly we valued his ongoing  support of what was going on in ministry. Well, the superintendent visited him and finally  started talking about the fact of the fact that these changes, were saying that the present is  not good. All the changes in the community are not good. And so they began to talk about  when was it good, you know, when was it good. And they concluded superintendent related to me that it was good back in the middle 1950s. That was when it was safe. That was when it  was good. That's when families divorce rate wasn't so prevalent in our community, there  wasn't all this problem with racial relations and racial interrelations. There weren't all these  difficulties of overcrowding on the freeway, it was good in the middle 1950s. And so as we  were proposing, as a church, a major building program, as the church was possibly partook of  proposing a relocation and a building program, it just got to be too much because he couldn't  say, vision. Vision, is harmed by those who are focusing on tradition. And so you, as a leader  are going to have to address this vision killer, especially if your organization has been around  for a period of time, you can bet there are going to be people who will speak this way. Maybe  not exactly, but they will speak this way. So how do you deal with this vision killer? You honor  the past. You show how the new vision is a continuation of the old vision, you identify heroes  from the past, and especially charter members. One of the things I learned from a fundraiser  when we were going through a relocation that was going to cost a great deal of money. We  were talking about how are we going to frame this for the congregation. And so we're talking  about, you know, promotional videos that we would produce and and what would there would  be in each one. And we found real value in identifying some of the charter members. Some of  the people who had had the vision of starting that church, the church started as a vision of a  group of people, a small group of people, there was no Pastor when it started. It was just this  group of small people, but they had this vision of a different kind of church in their community where people could be welcomed, where there was a more evangelistic emphasis where  people could come in and get to know Jesus, where the ministry would stretch out into the  community. And so one after another, we lined some of those charter members up for video.  And we had them sitting in various places and just talking about how they were. They were in  favor of this vision. Said yes, it's going to mean big changes. It's going to be driving to a  different area. It's going to mean different seating patterns. It's going to mean all of that stuff. But it's going to mean that we can reach more people for Jesus Christ. They talked about  heroes and some of the sacrifices that were paid about the person that had the vision for the  first building in the church and how he'd bought that land before the church could afford to  buy it so that he can reserve it for the property they talked, talked about how the new place 

what was projected was going to be fantastic. Because we had purchased 21 acres, on a  corner and a main what was going to be a major intersection in a newly developed area of  southern California, they talked about all that. And it was a marvelous thing, because those  that were saying tradition is bad, couldn't say it. Cause here are people who were part of it,  who were honored leaders in the process, and yet they were saying, here we go, we've got to  go, we're part of this. So if you deal with this, you honor the past, you acknowledge that these people had something good going, and you're just trying to continue the great vision that  they had. So tradition can be a powerful vision killer. The second one is fear. Fear means  breaking out of a comfort zone. Fear means risk. And with the idea of risk, comes the idea of  failure. Now, this idea can be very terrifying for people the idea of failure. Now the fear of  failure is something that had me personally, I have to say, when we changed, as I shared  earlier, you know, we had this vision of creating a larger church, and we were trying to build  that church on 4.36 acres. And we had money that we had committed and that we had raised  and it was going to cover a large part portion of the cost. And then we began to change that  vision and it grew. And we looked at relocation, and now we were looking at not like at a few  million dollars, but we were looking at 10s of millions of dollars in order to accomplish this  new vision in this new community. And I got to tell you, I was scared of failure. As I've shared  earlier in the in the introductory class, you know, part of what my baggage is carrying is idea  that I'm this dumb little kid. And so failure would reinforce that. And so I was scared of failure.  And so as we began to revision, our ministry and revision relocation, I remember talking with  somebody and just saying, I don't know how to deal with this. And I had one person help me a great deal. How do you handle this? When fear hits you as a person? Well you answer fear  with faith with a question, is it God's will? Is it God's vision, not my vision? The person that  helped me a great deal with that was a man of on a retreat with. We were part of a regional  envisioning group on a retreat for several days, trying to say what would God call all of our  churches in our region of California to in our denomination, and we just got talking one night  and it turned intimate. And we began sharing intimate things I shared with him some of my  fear. As we were going into this, we hadn't started the building process yet, we were still in  that vision selling thing. And I just shared how scared I was to go into this whole thing. And so  he led me through a process he said, Okay, how did you make the decisions each step along  the way? What were the major decisions? How would you go about it? You know, and so I was  able to identify the prayer that went into each step of the way, I was able to identify the ideas that had come and how they had come, how we had brought into the congregation and how  we had congregational endorsement for moving forward. And, and each step of the way, we  talked about that. One of my big fears was man, that's a lot of money to ask of people. And so he walked away. At the end of the day, he said, you know, Bruce, I just got to say, what  you've described, would tell me that your vision is God's will for your church at this time, said  and to move forward, you may have to remember that if it's God's will, it's God's bill. In other  words, God has the resources, he's the one who's going to have to pay for it. And in some  senses, that was incredibly freeing for me didn't take away my fear entirely. But it took away  some of it allowed me to move forward to not allow that to kill the vision. Now, that's fear on  my part, you will also be dealing with fear of a variety of kinds on the part of your people. For  some of them, it's fear of losing influence and power. During one time of change, I remember  a psychiatrist friend came to visit me in my office, and it was during a time where there's just  a lot of criticism about what was going on and, and he said, you know, look at the people who  are the major, the major voices in all of this criticism. He said, they're in the age of power, in  other words, said between about 40 to about 55-60 is, an age of power, and when they get  toward the upper end of that he said they often tend to lose power. It begins to diminish in  their lives. They're less influential, they don't have as many people who listen to them said,  and so in many ways, they're trying to hang on to power, they're grabbing it, grabbing it and  holding on. And he said, you know, you're gonna have to remember that, that their fear is of  losing power. And so how can you invite them into the process that will allow them some  influence, so you don't give them veto power, and you don't put them with too many people  to voice their fears. Now, unwittingly, I found that I was somebody who was just nurturing that kind of fear, nurturing fear of failure on the way, on the way to the vision completion. What 

happened was, I listened to these people who are trying to kill the vision. And they wouldn't  say that, again. They're good people. But they had all kinds of questions. They had  reservations, they had fears. And when I was talking publicly, I would try to identify with them because I wanted to bring them along. And so I would acknowledge their fears. And I would  say, I know we're afraid of this. And I know we're afraid of this. And I know we're afraid of this. And one time somebody came to me and said, Look, you've got to talk positively about this  whole thing. You can't be talking negatively, because it's, it's, it's scaring us. I'll talk about  that next time in the next session about how we're called to go all in when we have a vision  for change. But here, I just want you to note that fear is a huge vision killer, and you've got to  be aware of it. And you're going to have to address it. Because there will be people who will  try to unwittingly or maybe even ploddingly, try to kill your vision. So, tradition and fear. Third one is stereotypes. Oftentimes, we make stereotypes. And that keeps us from fulfilling a  vision. It may even keep us from having a vision, I think of a church in Arizona, and they were  getting this new vision of being more relevant in their community. And they realized that they  would probably have to do something about their music. But that was a scary thing for them.  Because they had an older congregation, they had a very traditional music, kind of worship  setting. They had a pipe organ that somebody had donated years and years ago, and it was  one of those holy cows. Those things that are precious in the heritage of the church, they had  a choir that got up there in robes, it was a very traditional order of service. All of those things  were just what they experienced the leadership week to week. And so when people started  talking about change within the vision team, within the team that was creating a vision for the new future. It was concerning. Until they actually took a survey of their congregation, you see, their stereotype was we got older people, they like traditional worship, that's what they want.  They did the survey, and they found that most of the people there wanted a greater variety of worship. And so all it took was asking them, and that could take away the stereotype that  would allow the vision to move forward. Another church that I had a call to, at one point, had  a stereotype about their community. As I was interacting with them, one of the questions I  asked at some of the initial phases of seeing if I was going to go there as pastor, and if they  were going to invite me there to become their pastor. One of the questions I asked was what's been happening in this community over the last 10 years. And you know they said, there  hasn't been too much change in this community for a while. You know. It's pretty stable, good  things a lot of people hear from there there, there's a certain level of profitability here, there's a certain level of prosperity here, some good, solid, pretty secure, neighborhood to be in.  Then I did the demographics. I began to look at the demographics for that city, and found that there was a radical, radical kind of change, ethic change going on in their community. And  later on, I was with the chairman of their elder board, and I was riding down the main street of their town. And there are all these signs that lined Main Street. And as we looked, we found  that there was very seldom one in English. And I said what happened here anyway, who are  all these business owners? Yeah, he said, you know, there's all signs used to be in England,  but now they're in Korean, and they're in Japanese, and they were in Indian and all kinds of  different ethnic groups that were now part of that area. And so the next vision that they got  as a result of shutting down their stereotypes of just a white world that they were part of, was it in, it just blew up their vision so that it grew greatly. Now this was not a Vision Killer for  them, it was a vision grower. Now, they had a vision from growing their church, and they've  had various strategies, but they hadn't yet caught on to the fact that wow, we are in a great  mission field here. So, new community, yes, that can kill your vision, if you have a stereotype  about it, and no one will come or if this kind of ministry won't work, find out. That's how you  address this, you find out the truth, and you share it with your people. So we've looked at the  tradition, fear stereotypes, complacency is another great vision killer. Now 70% of plans fail.  And one of the reasons primary reason they fail, is complacency. And that is that people like it the way it is, and they don't want to change, there's a lack of inertia to actually institute  change. In fact, one of the ways you've heard this in our tradition, if you're in my tradition,  when people new have new plans, new ideas, you hear it in a certain sentence, that will try to kill vision, and just make it No, can't we just stay the way we are. And it's this phrase, if we  just preach the Word, God will bless us. Now I took that quote from a church that was looking 

at a new youth emphasis. And a you new youth ministry, and was talking about the fact that  the church had experienced some decline in membership. And so they were looking at a  variety of ways to be more impactful in their community. But now as they were looking at this, the people didn't want to make the changes necessary, because it was it was going to, it was  going to involve changing times of worship, it was going to involve the building being used for a variety of things and by a group that may not care for the building take care of the building  in the same way. And they did all they will probably have repair costs and increased cleaning  costs, and etc, etc. So the idea is, we don't need those plans. We don't need that vision. If we  just preach the Word. God will bless us. How do you address this one? This is huge. this, this is just a huge, huge thing. I can't tell you how huge this is. You know, can't we just be happy the  way we are. So what you need is some short term wins, you need to get permission to try  things for a short period of time. You know, anytime we introduced a new worship service or a new worship time that would confuse the regular worship times we would say it let's try it for  a three month period, you know. And at the end of that three month period, to give her a  report, to talk about how this was a win to see what God had done with it, etc, etc, etc. Look  for short term wins. Things that say yeah, the changes that we institute, we get permission  for this small change. But now, when we get success, we we get permission for the big thing,  bigger changes that will help us fulfill the vision. So short term wins are important. Now, this  means you've got to choose very carefully, what you're going to emphasize as your short  term win, to make sure that it's going to be a short term win. Word enough complacency.  We're going to talk more about that later, as we get into strategic planning and change  theory. Here's another one fatigue, be sure you steward energy. years ago, it was a rather  shocking report that came out out of a group that specialized in helping church plant  churches, plant daughters. And what they found was the best way to accomplish planting a  daughter church was sending out a planting team. So you don't send out just one person or  two people. You send out a team of people 15-20 the best. And yet, then you have them  working on it and you send the team hopefully 100 to get that church established well. Well  the study that was done of all the churches that have been planted in that style, and found  that the general wisdom was that after one year, members of the planting team were no  longer members of that church, the new daughter church, they came back to the mother  church. One of the greatest reasons was fatigue. There was so much that rested on them. Yes  it was exciting to get that first that new church going there's nothing like it, if you talk to  people, they will point back to those times as some of the most exciting in their lives. But it's  hard, hard, hard work. And so people will get tired, you will get tired. How do you address  fatigue? Well, it's very simple. You keep restating the vision for yourself. You keep restating  the vision for other people. You talk to yourself, you talk to your other people, and you give  people the permission to rest. When I started to become aware of this, we were going through change. I remember going to a couple in my church and just saying you know what, you're  too involved. They were shocked. They were friends of mine but he was involved, I think he  was on council at that time or elder Deacon gathering. So he's a significant elder, she I had  asked to be head of our prayer ministry. And so she had been involved in prayer ministry and  as change goes on, there was more spiritual warfare, we're going to talk about that in the  future as well. And so they were just getting tired. They were getting tired. And so I said, you  know, what, you folks, I value you long term, you need a break, you need a break. I've talked  before about your need for a break just a few sessions ago. And that idea of despair. If you get to that point where we talked about Elijah, where God gave him food and gave him rest, and  gave him a new vision of his mission and ministry, you've got to take times to take care of  yourself, and steward your energy. Don't get down too far before you seek help. Enough said  on that, that'll kill your vision. If people get tired, they'll get too tired. And then the last one  that I want to focus on today is short term vision, short term thinking. It's easy to stop  partway. And people will start saying can't we just be happy the way we are. This is one you'll  hear. They'll they'll see the wins. And they will celebrate those but then will come a time when the vision requires a greater change. And this phrase will come up, can't we just be happy the way you are. You'll hear people say that. Can't we just be we're tired of change. Basically. I  had a good partner. And he was a partner of mine for 20 years on staff sharing ministry 

together sharing intimately with ministry. And we had, we had come to a point where we had  reached some of our goals, a good number of our goals. And so the challenge now was, where are we going to go from here? And he looked at me and he sighed and he said can't we just  be happy with where we are? And the answer is no. No. So how do you? How do you answer  this? Well you answer it by looking at is it God's vision or ours know that I trusted this man  greatly as my partner. And so that made me say, Well, maybe maybe we've done enough.  Maybe it's time to look at something else. And so together, we began to pray and we began to study and we took some others in on that and asked Okay, this vision of relocation is that  really ours or is it God's and if it's God's vision, then we go ahead because we have a master.  We have a leader, we have a Savior, who's also the shepherd who's saying Here we go. And  our job is to follow so these are vision killers, be aware of them, address them, and they you'll find your way going more smoothly. Don't be surprised when they show up. Or rather be  ready for it. Have a strategy and it will make your mission your vision much more real and  much more attainable.