Video Transcript: Private Vision Casting

Welcome. We're continuing with our course developing great commission skills,  and with this session, we're moving into a new skill, the second skill on our list,  and this skill is referred to as casting vision and creating ownership once vision  

has been discerned and developed by leaders of the church, in order for that  vision to go any place, we have to involve other people, we have to cast that  vision throughout the congregation and develop ownership throughout the  congregation, and ultimately, as newcomers are coming in as the outcome of  our focus on Great Commission ministry, we'll need to cast vision with them and  develop their ownership in the vision as well. So I want to start by taking a look  at a verse from Proverbs, and we're going to look at that verse in the King  James Version. It says this, where there is no vision, the people perish. Where  there is no vision, the people perish. Now, when you think about this particular  statement literally, it seems that life itself is dependent on having a vision. Now I  don't know that we can claim that people are literally going to biologically die if  they don't have a vision, but I think the point is well taken if people don't have a  vision, a sense of future, a sense of hope, a sense of direction, a sense of  destination. They can just wither on the vine. We need to keep their interest,  their motivation, their drive up, and not just for the sake of having motivation or  drive. We want that motivation and drive to be directed towards something  specific, and that specific thing is God's vision of having a church go and make  disciples, of expanding the kingdom. Will Mancini has a book called church  unique, and he says this, what's special about God's vision is how it becomes  ours and lives as ours. We can never forget God as the source of vision, but we  also cannot strip it of personal, visceral and concrete reality in the leader's life  we live in it. So I think that captures the essence of this idea that without without  vision, people perish. They need it like they need oxygen. Now here's the  thought. I'm not going to claim that this is in the Bible, but I'd like for you to think  about this phrase, where there is no vision, the people perish. In reverse, it  looks like this, where there are no people, the vision perishes, where there are  no people, the vision perishes. Now what separates true vision from simply  being wishful thinking or even delusion? Well, gathering people around that  vision, mobilizing them into action, action that moves the vision forward. That's  what propels vision from theory to practice, from hopes and dreams to desired  and measurable outcomes. So that's where we want to head with this, the idea  that we can create strategies for casting vision and creating ownership now the  particular type of vision, casting and ownership. Creation that we're going to talk  about in this session is private vision casting, the things that we do directly with  with one person a handful of people. Now here's the thing, vision casting is how  creating ownership takes root. So it's important that we be effective in casting  vision and creating ownership. The objective is not simply to spread information, but to solidify support for the vision, ownership of the vision. Successful vision  casting demands that the vision be fully heard, fully understood, fully embraced. 

Now again, this is far more than just getting the word out. This is getting it out in  a way that it's very well received by a group of people that are going to dive in,  roll up their sleeves and participate in that vision. And once vision is discerned  and developed, it must be cast properly, so that there is maximum opportunity  for people to receive that vision and embrace that vision with full ownership of  the vision. Remember, without the vision, people will perish, but without the  people, the vision will perish. So we're going to talk about private vision casting  as we think about private vision casting, realize this, this concept, it's going to be much more effective to work with people in private, one on one, than it is to work in large groups of people. Unfortunately, though, most churches, as they look  into casting vision, their tendency is to want to cast vision in these broad scale  operations, you know, big platform presentations to lots of people, or, you know,  email blasts to everyone on the list, thinking that somehow that's the efficient  way to do it. Well, it is efficient in terms of getting the word out to a lot of people,  but it's not effective. And here is the principle, efficiency is not the same as  effectiveness. We've got to be very careful about how we do these things.  Efficiency is not the same as effectiveness. So let me, let me talk a little bit  about why that is. You know, many churches, as they approach vision casting,  they will start with a congregational meeting, or some folks will refer to it as the  town hall meeting. Now in this large scale presentation, here's the thought  process. Let's put together a really solid presentation that's very thorough, that's  inspirational, that's informational, and let's get all of our people together, and we  can cast that vision. We can we can present this direction that we're going to  take as a church at once to everyone. That'll save a lot of time. It'll get the word  out, and everyone will be on board. Everyone will have heard the same thing at  the same time, and so we'll be covering our bases. Here's the problem. We think that somehow that is going to be a way of treating everyone equally. And what  I'll hear pastors and leaders say is, well, we want to give everyone a chance to  hear and we want to give everyone a chance to ask their questions. Here's the  problem, though, the average person cannot, will not speak up in a large scale  meeting. So when you open the floor for questions and comments, yes, you are  giving people an opportunity to speak sort of but in truth, most people won't do  that. They can't do that. Fear of public speaking is a major phobia, and so they  don't say what's on their mind. They don't ask the question that they'd like to  have answered. They don't make the comment that they'd really like to make.  So they just stuff that and don't participate. The flip side is you have some  people. You have some people that, well, they can't not speak in a group. We  have some people that want to dominate the conversation, dominate the floor,  and so they very readily will speak up and share their point of view. Now, many  times, folks that have that type of personality are key influencers within a larger  group. And of course, their influence is now being spread among everyone  who's hearing what they have to say. And if that's a negative influence, if, if their 

position is going contrary to the vision, not accepting the vision that can  negatively impact lots of folks. So you know, whenever you roll a vision out in  front of a large group, you are putting that vision at risk, and you're not truly  giving people an opportunity to say what's on their minds, because they just  won't speak up in a group. So my caution is to avoid that large scale  presentation. Now another, another element involved in the large scale  presentation is has to do with time that's passing, as well as exposure to the  vision. You know, whenever a group of leaders is charged with a responsibility,  in this case, discerning and developing leaders, well, typically, they do their job.  They're thorough, they they take it seriously, they're committed, and they do  what they've been asked to do, and so over a period of days, weeks, months,  hopefully not years, because that would be too long an investment, the  momentum would be lost. But typically, a team of people that's going to present  a vision to a full congregation is a team of people that has really worked at this  for a significant period of time. It's like they've been on a journey to arrive at the  vision that they now want to share. And all along the way, they have wrestled  with various questions. They have researched. They've discussed things among  themselves. They prayed about this. They've sought the leading of the Lord. And so their journey has been a journey of many, many, many steps that has led  them to this destination of here's the vision that we have arrived at. This is the  place that we believe God would have us be, and we want to share that with  you. The problem, though, is that the folks that are hearing this in this large  scale presentation have not been on this journey. They haven't experienced the  various things that have been discussed along the way. They they haven't  wrestled with issues, with with challenges, with problems. They haven't done the research. They haven't spent time in prayer and discussion. And so in a sense,  they're coming at this with no point of reference. They just know that, hey,  there's a team of people working on a new vision for our church, but I'm not  really involved. And then all of a sudden, boom, here's the new vision. Well, they don't know where it came from. They haven't experienced a journey. They're  only seeing the destination, and so it's difficult for them to understand what why  would we do this? How did we get to here? So it's very important that we we  allow people the opportunity to experience a little bit of that journey, even if it's  vicarious. And when we speak in large groups, it's difficult to allow them to join  into the journey. Whereas when we're working with people in in one on one  settings, or with a couple or with a small group, there's plenty of opportunity for  give and take, to take the time to explain here's where we were, here's what we  thought, here's some of the issues we wrestled with, and here's where we have  arrived. So the town hall meeting, the large scale meeting, is something that I  definitely want to caution against. One turn or phrase that I would use in this  would be to say this, when it comes to large groups, don't use the large group  setting to try to sell the vision. Use the large scale setting to celebrate the vision 

after it's already been owned as a result of private vision casting, and once you  know that the majority of people are on board. The majority of people fully  understand. The majority of people fully support the upcoming vision. Now you  can have the large scale meeting, and you can celebrate the direction that God  is taking you. Now I want to share a handful of elements that are part of private  vision casting to create ownership. The first one I call the divide and serve  principle on the heels of our discussion about avoiding the large scale in order to get to the small scale, what we want to do is is divvy up the congregation into  bite sized pieces, one on one, a married couple, a small group of people, and  we can divide these. Out into these separate groups and meet with them one on one. So the idea of divide has a couple of connotations. One is, we divide the  group out into small units, but we're also going to divide the vision casters out. If  we've got a team of folks that have developed this vision, we're going to divide  that team. And you know, each person on the team will take responsibility for  casting vision with a certain number of those smaller units. We're not going to  ask one person, most likely the pastor. We're not going to ask one person to do  all of the vision casting. We're going to have the entire team involved in the  vision casting and meeting with these different groups. So we start with the  divide and serve principle. We divide people into small units, we divide up our  team, and we serve them by taking the time we need to fully inform, to  thoroughly cast vision and to effectively create ownership. Now this can be labor intensive, but I tell you, what's more labor intensive is when you don't do this,  and then, in the middle of the vision cast with trying to get large groups of  people on board, something blows up, and you have to start to backpedal and  rebuild and fix things. That is not only labor intensive, but it can be very  destructive to the idea of casting vision and creating ownership second element, conversation, not presentation. When it comes to casting vision, don't think  about making a speech. Don't think about getting up on a platform. Think about  weaving vision casting into your private conversations. Sure, there are times  when you might set up an appointment to meet with a person, a couple, a small  group specifically to share vision, but there are lots of informal times when you  might be connecting with people. Obviously, at church, before the service, in the  hallway, in the parking lot, you run into people. You might go to lunch with  someone. After church, you might run into them at the grocery store. There's all  kinds of things that happen informally in terms of connecting with people, and  we want to take advantage of those times to cast vision, but we don't want to  shift over into presentation mode. We just want to weave casting vision into  normal, smooth, informal conversation. And so we need, we need to have a plan of how we might share vision when we only have a short period of time, or a  little bit longer, or an extensive period of time. So, you know, we need the short  presentation, the medium presentation and the long presentation, and we need  to have a plan how to do that, how to gauge what we need to cover, what are 

the most important things. How can we move this vision along now we're not  pushing people to jump on board. We're just trying to help them understand, to  hear, to understand, and ultimately to embrace the vision. Number three,  answering questions and removing obstacles. The challenge to vision casting is  not so much that that people will be against the vision. The challenge is that they won't fully understand the vision. I mean, you think you've communicated clearly, but we just know from experience, from observation, from study, communication  is very dicey, and we can think that we have thoroughly covered something, but  for whatever reason, the person or the people that we're speaking with just don't quite lock in, and so they need clarification. They have questions. They're  wondering, why? Why would we do this instead of that? How did that idea come  about? So there are going to be questions that come up now, questions should  be welcomed, because there are opportunities to help people gain clarity.  They're opportunities to help people increase their ownership. And then  secondly, there's removing obstacles. Um, there are times when people just  can't get on board. And we don't exactly know why, we might ask a question like  this. We might say, so what exactly is it that you're struggling with? What? Why? Why is this something that you you can't see yourself getting behind, and as you begin to uncover what those obstacles are, the chances are very good that  there's been a misunderstanding, a miscommunication, and you'll have an  opportunity to clarify and remove that obstacle. So as you are answering  questions, as you are removing obstacles, you're giving people the opportunity  to own that vision. And then finally, when it comes to getting people involved,  one thing I want to caution against is trying to get people to sign up, you know,  to raise their hands to stand up to sign on a document. Hey, I'm in a come up  front. We don't want to do that in the large scale settings. We put people on the  spot. And as I've already said, that they're not fully on board yet. So one of the  things I've seen is church leaders at the at the end of a large scale presentation, they'll have some response mechanism. So all of you that are ready to get  behind our new vision to trust God and move forward, raise your hand, or stand  up or come down here to the front and we're going to have a time of prayer,  something that's very demonstrative that you're asking them to do that says,  hey, I get it. I'm in well, people aren't ready for that in the long, large scale  setting. And if they, if they do respond positively in that way, it's a false positive.  They're responding just because they're on the spot. They're responding just  because they see that other people are responding. And you know, they don't  want to be the one that held back. So they go ahead and raise their hand. They  sign on the dotted line. They come down front, but inside, in their hearts, in their  minds, they're not on board. They're not convinced and that that false positive is  going to dissipate the moment they leave the room. So the time to seek  commitment to the vision is in the private setting, not necessarily the very first  time with a particular person in the private setting, but eventually, when you 

know the questions have been answered, the obstacles have been removed,  you know the person understands the attitude toward division is very positive at  that point, you might ask, So is this something that you would like to be a part  of? And that's how you draw people into owning the vision. Now I want to give  you an example of such a case in my ministry. You know, when I did move to  Phoenix, Arizona to become the pastor of that severely declined church. I had  been told in advance that, hey, everybody's on board, and we've already made  this decision to relocate the church, to turn the church building and property over to the Hispanic church, and you know, that's our future, and we were, we're  asking you as the incoming pastor to be the leader toward that future. But within  a few weeks of arriving, I discovered that there was one couple that didn't quite  see it that way, and no one had told them categorically that that this absolutely  was going to happen. Now they had another vision in mind, and their vision was  to return to the original property and reestablish the church as it had been some  years before we all knew that that was not going to happen, but no one had  really sat down with them to talk this through and explain to them that it wasn't  going to happen and to help them understand that, you know, this was a false  hope that they had in their minds. So once I came to be aware that this was the  situation, I called the husband, and I asked if I could come over. Meet with them. So we set up a time. I went over to their home, and I sat down with them, and  this was a this was a one on one, just me and the two of them. We were there  for well over two hours in discussion. And I won't take the time to go into all the  things that were said, but it got emotional for them. But ultimately I, I said  something like this. I said, You know what? I really appreciate your sharing your  perspective with me. I appreciate your point of view, and I fully understand why  you see this the way you see it this, but I really can't, in good conscience, let you continue to think that what you would like to see happen is a possibility. This  community has become almost 100% Hispanic. The Hispanic church that now  occupies the building is doing a wonderful job of reaching this community with  the gospel, worshiping God, growing people in their faith, and it just doesn't  make any sense for us to displace them and reclaim the building, reclaim the  ministry, when we just don't have any Any reasonable hope of being effective.  So I know that's disappointing to you, but I want you to think about something.  We're going to be moving we have found a location. It's a bit of a drive from  here, so if you don't want to make that drive, if you want to find a church closer  to you, I understand that, but we need your help, and what God is going to do  through this, this new version of us is going to be very exciting. It's going to be  very important, and I would love for you to be part of it. Do you think you could  do you think you could do that? Well, they looked at each other, they thought  about it for a moment, and the husband said to me, you know, Ken, I think we  could and so they plugged in with us. They made the move. They played a vital  role in the relaunch of this church, and I am forever grateful for their contribution.

Now, this is what happens when you emphasize private vision casting. Private  vision casting is where the action is. If you really want to make things happen in  a positive way of casting vision and creating ownership. You need to do this in  the private setting, the very personal informal. Sit around the living room and  talk about God's vision, pray together, answer questions, remove obstacles.  That is the way that vision moves forward. Private vision casting. Now that  completes our video on this particular topic. We'll continue next time with the  skill topic, public vision casting, despite what I said, the negatives of that big  public display. There is a place for that that works in a complementary way with  with private vision casting. So next time we will move into public vision casting.  Now May God bless you as you continue to study, as you continue to prepare to  serve him well, amen.