Reading: 2.6—Why Team Casting?

2.6 Team-Casting:  As noted earlier, proper vision casting with a view toward creating ownership is a labor-intensive process that demands time, energy, effort, and diligence on the part of the vision caster. It’s unreasonable to think that a single pastor should serve as the lone messenger. So, it’s important to distribute the responsibility for vision casting to many people. These folks should be gathered into a team, resulting in a team-casting approach to casting vision and creating ownership. Team deployment will prove more effective than simply having multiple individuals who are more or less doing individual vision casting. Ideally, all leaders in the church will serve as vision-casters, and the concerted effort of a team will maximize impact. In connecting some dots, such a team first functions under the heading of Private Vision Casting. Each of these vision casting leaders will engage with people one-on-one, one-on-couple, or one-on-small group or ministry team. This is a reflection of the Divide & Serve Principle in action, operating in tandem with the Division of Labor Principle. We haven’t addressed Division of Labor as a formal principle, but the application is self-evident. As a structure, this approach could work without vision casters necessarily working as a team. However, the team approach will be much more effective in creating ownership. How so? It’s important that the vision being cast, and its component parts, be consistent from caster to caster to caster in terms of content. Don’t simply leave it up to each vision-caster to determine exactly what the vision is, how it should be articulated, and what salient points need to be brought forth. This will result in a grab bag of concepts being distributed throughout the church with no central and unified core of understanding. A team leader, often a pastor but not necessarily, should develop a vision casting Fact Sheet or Information Sheet. This sheet should include the Slogan Vision Statement (maybe the Synopsis as well) and a list of key Talking Points or Bullet Points that capture the heart of the vision. There are no rules here, but 6-10 such points is a good rule of thumb. The vision caster should make sure that this vision and the accompanying points are clearly covered in vision casting conversations. When every vision casting session covers a prescribed set of vision statements and talking or bullet points, the common message being delivered with common language will begin to permeate the church and will begin to impact church culture. When the same message is clearly being heard in all quarters, clarity, understanding, and unity will prevail.

During these vision casting sessions, opportunities for questions and comments should be given to recipients, as well as opportunities to voice objections or present obstacles. The vision casting team should meet together regularly to debrief and share what’s happening in congregational conversations with each other. In that way, vision casters learn from each other and find both encouragement in success stories and insight into dealing with negative situations that some other team member might have encountered.

Public Vision Casting should use the same content that is being covered in private conversations to reinforce discussions that are taking place in these private settings. In that way, Private and Public Vision Casting work together. One final tip is for vision casters to be so familiar with their vision casting content that they can cast vision in short, medium, and long conversations and can do so in both informal and (sometimes) formal settings.

Vision casting to create ownership is most effective when a team of vision casters is mobilized, leveraging the Divide & Serve Principle to provide consistent and unified vision casting.