The Vision Thing

You can’t get away from it (certainly not if you’re a church leader) but having a Vision is now de rigueur for all those involved in ministry. Actually it has been for sometime – since the 80’s no self-respecting church is without its Mission Statement, Purpose Statement, Vision Statement and Strategy documents. Which is all well and good as long as we don’t get too bamboozled by the jargon and business-speak. After-all good planning is not a 20th century invention. Nor is operating within a management flowchart any guarantee of success - either in church or business.

But what should a Church Vision be? Or what shouldn’t it be? Let me start with the positive: it should be essentially spiritual. In fact I’m going to argue that it’s all it can meaningfully be. A church vision (to be robust and credible – i.e. something that won’t become redundant within a couple of years) needs to be focused on basic Gospel priorities. So a sound Vision will be, for example, 'To be a church where the Bible is faithfully taught, where people are cared for and where outreach is encouraged and facilitated'. Of course in response some will say this is too airy-fairy, just spouting general truths that anyone could sign-up to and lacking the kind of concrete goals that will actually motivate people. Now again there is nothing wrong with concrete goals – we might see the provision of a new church building as something we need to plan for and invest in. But the new building must simply be something to help facilitate a greater vision. Otherwise our ministry aim becomes just to construct a big hall – so what! Or perhaps it’s to employ another worker – again so what! These things only become meaningful if they are part of achieving the greater spiritual vision – to strengthen and facilitate a Kingdom community.

This means that plans about buildings, structures and even workers must be flexible. So any sense that a Vision needs to include a rigid 10 year plan of activities is in danger of putting the cart before the horse. Paul had a vision to evangelise. He also had a short term plan to achieve this – he would go to Bithynia and preach the Gospel there – a good, sensible and reasonable plan. Except for the fact that the Spirit closed the door to Bithynia and sent him off to Macedonia instead. Same Vision but a flexible plan. Paul’s need to adjust his short term planning was not a failure but simply the recognition that in God’s providence circumstances change and we need to follow God’s lead – rather than doggedly pursue plans (perhaps for fear of losing face) when God has moved to redirect us.

Indeed such is the nature of church life that making and remaking plans will be a perennial activity. People leave and ministries go with them, new people arrive with gifts for new ministries we couldn’t have anticipated, local circumstances change, opportunities arise and so on. All of which mean that any thought that we can decide now what ministries will look like or in some cases whether they will even exist in 5 or 10 years time is to risk being inflexible and presumptive about God’s leading. Nevertheless if our Vision is spiritual we can still continue to pursue it albeit in different and changing ways – whereas if our Vision is focused on certain structures or programmes we become prisoners to an unbiblical criteria of success and failure.

I have spoken to a church leader who said that their church had gone through a process of massive change – restructuring, new plans etc. All with the aim of reinvigorating the church, creating new impetus, being a launch pad for a new era of spiritual advancement and dynamism in the fellowship. Within two years the changes had lost their novelty and excitement – and people were actually speaking about needing a new springboard to keep things moving. Perhaps the problem was that the changes had become the Vision.

Now, of course, church and ministry leaders need to be constantly looking at ministry needs and opportunities and developing them accordingly. It’s good to have goals, to take stock, to do new things, to improve and at times to discontinue old things.

But the Vision needs to be the Gospel being lived out in God’s people (in holiness, love, service and outreach) because when we lose sight of that we will become more concerned about building an institution than building a people.