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The Vision Thing - Part 2

The Vision Thing – Part 2: From God, Aligned Words and Actions

Vision. You may want to ask, “Is it really Biblical? It seems a bit forced. It’s a business principle projected onto the church.” I could see where one might say that. But let’s look again at vision from the “preferred future” definition.

What was and is God’s preferred future? I would contend that it begins after the fall with God’s words to the serpent in Genesis 3:14-15. God desires to crush the head of the serpent through the offspring of the woman and redeem the world. Didn’t God repeat that “vision” throughout the Old Testament that there would be a Savior who would save the world? It was even extended to the gentiles repeatedly in the Old Testament. Jesus reminded His hearers of this in Luke 4 in Nazareth when he referenced Elijah and the widow of Zarephath and then Elisha with Naaman the Syrian. The “Missio Dei” was for God to redeem mankind through the sending of His Son. Then as it came to fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the New Testament continued this preferred future of redemption through the great commission from Matthew 28. It sure seems like God’s vision is for us to join Him in the Missio Dei.

The often quoted “where there is no vision, the people perish” from Proverbs 29, while probably not a direct argument for congregational vision statements does in fact support the desire of God to save the world. In this verse the word “vision” can also be translated, “revelation” and thus makes the point that without a revelation - of the savior, of the Gospel of grace in Jesus Christ, the people will indeed perish for eternity!

So what is your vision for ministry? Is it in alignment with God’s who desires “all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4)? You may quickly say that it does. Look again. What do you hear with your ears and what do you see with your eyes? What is the evidence?

Many churches evidence an internal focus that seeks to serve the saved. A pastor’s time can be tracked and when honestly reviewed, little is admittedly directed toward those who do not yet know Jesus. Churches begin to shrink and the natural tendency is to circle the wagons and preserve what we’ve got. Internal scuffles divert our attention to calming the strife and appeasing the saved. One can point to the preaching and teaching and administering the sacraments. One can point to events where one has been responsive to those who come to you with needs and inquiries about Christ. Yet in all honesty this is merely good pastoral practice, it is not externally focused ministry that is intentionally, in word and deed by the pastor and the congregation actively working to “seek and to save the lost” as Jesus did (Luke 19:10).

Coaching Questions:

What is your default vision?

Is your vision in alignment with God’s desire to redeem the world in Christ?

What is the evidence that you are or are not in alignment?

What will you change? When? How? What will get in the way? How will you respond? What does accountability look like for you?

The Vision Thing

Over the last few months I have talked at length with a few pastors who have lamented that they know setting a vision for their ministry is important. They understand that vision is a powerful thing and that they have a serious responsibility for leading with vision. They are feeling the weight of being the chief vision bearer for the congregation, but they were discouraged because they didn’t think they really understood what vision was and didn’t know how to present it and reinforce it.

My response? “I think you probably know a lot more about vision than you think you do.” “Really?” they said. “Yes.” Then I asked, “What is that one thing in the back of your mind that seems to come out when you preach or have conversations with people? What is that one thing you are always stressing and repeating with your people?”

“Oh, now I get it.” Then they would say things like, “I’ve been telling my people we really need to be caring for one another more, forgiving one another, recruiting others, welcoming visitors, etc.” These are the things that the pastor thinks are most important to stress at that time. That becomes the de facto vision. It may be short term but it is the one thing that is on the pastor’s heart. It comes out in what he says to others in various venues: sermons, Bible studies, casual conversation and various church meetings.

Does that mean we’re done? No. A de facto vision is short term. It is not necessarily the shared vision. Vision needs to be longer term, shared, and among other things it is a preferred future that shapes what you do and who you are. It is Biblical, it is God sized. It inspires and it enables your ministry to say with conviction “yes” and “no” to various things. So where are you with the vision thing?

Coaching Questions:

What is your de facto vision for ministry?

What is that one thing that is on your heart and mind that seems to come out as a priority?

Where did that one thing come from?

Is that what God wants your vision for ministry to be?

The Vision thing – part two next time.

Empowerment Part 12: Reinforcing Empowerment & Vision

If your goal is to pursue a cultural shift from an internally focussed, self-fulfilling, self-seeking, consumer driven ministry to an externally focussed, servant hearted, God purposed ministry, then how do you cement it within the culture of the congregation?

You can talk about it. That often looks like sermons and is often the only thing that is done by some. Or you can talk about it and model it yourself as the leader/pastor. Or you can talk about it, model it, and take someone with you. Or further still you can talk about it, model it, take someone with you and enable opportunities for others to live it out.

But then what? Complete the loop by lifting up what is done by recognizing those actions in very public ways. Praise God for it in worship through prayers, sermon illustrations, first person testimonies, videos of the events and actions and even go one step further through intentionally recognizing what is done. The idea is not necessarily to praise the person but the behavior that is empowered by Christ. Make an intentional effort to look for it, identify it, point to it and say, “that’s what we’re after! That’s our vision in action! Thank you who all who have done this as a witness for us and a service to your neighbor! You guys did a great job of blessing people with opportunities to use their gifts in service to others. We praise God for you! Yeah God!”

 

In short it is a celebration of what God is doing in your midst and reinforces its importance of the vision of where your congregation is going. Affirmation is a powerful tool that God speaks of often in the scriptures (Matt 24:21, 23 & others).

Guiding principles:

•  Start with your vision/mission/values in deciding what kind of behavior/servant leadership you want to reward and reinforce.
• Gather a management committee to contribute to the design or the rewards/recognition, gather names for nominations and publicize the event(s).
• Design follow up activities to further reinforce and communicate what you value at your church.
• Design your presentation carefully to honor God who gives the gifts while affirming the sacrificial modeling of service displayed by the recipients.
• Recognition can take many forms from pats on the back to thank you notes to annual recognition awards and many more.

Coaching Questions:

• What behavior(s) do you want to reward (recognize/ highlight/lift up)?
• How is that behavior(s) in alignment with your vision?
• How will you recognize it (lift it up) as a model for the behavior of others? 
• How can this recognition be repeated?
• Is there a tangible symbol of that behavior(s)? (A pen, a paperweight, a framed picture, a trophy, other object that symbolizes the desired behavior, etc) that can be given away regularly in recognition of the behavior?
• How can you involve others in a process for defining, identifying and recognizing those who model that behavior(s)?
• What about you? How are you intentionally modeling that behavior which is in alignment with the vision?
• How are you sharing the story or showing others what you are doing (which demonstrates its priority and importance)?
• What is your next step?

Empowerment Part 11: What does this look like?

How do you see things?
What does it look like?
What is your perspective?

On our way home from church this past Sunday my wife Maria and I were talking about the normal things. She mentioned that she saw that a volunteer was wanted for organizing the Operation Christmas Child shoebox project. If you are not familiar, this is where individuals pack a shoebox for a boy or girl at an identified age along with perhaps a donation and send it to a location where it is distributed to a child in need. It is a great activity.

Maria said she was busy and didn’t have much time to make phone calls, packing and transporting the boxes and organizing the whole thing. I then started thinking out loud. “Well, you don’t have to make the phone calls, transport the boxes and do the whole thing.” Really?

Well, what does that look like? Many people seem a bit sheepish to step up because they assume that if they agree to take on a project and lead it then basically they have to do it, of course with some help from others, but they had better be willing to make it all happen and do it all yourself if necessary. True? To a point, but only to a point. There is another way.

I then described a scenario for her. I said, “It seems to me that people are reluctant to step up and lead because they assume they have to do it all or come close to that. What if you agreed to lead it but you saw your job was to recruit others who saw their jobs as recruiting others? Furthermore what if your first calls were to those who were not active in any other ministries so the same 20 people were not being asked - yet again - to make something happen? Probably the inactives would be more open to the call because they would be asked to help make a difference for someone else (the children) rather than being called to come back to worship or give to the stewardship drive. In this way you could get new people involved, they would feel valued and making a difference and would probably come back to worship as a result. You could convene a few meetings with the willing after church and define the job of the steering committee not to do the job but to recruit others to do the job. Make sure you announce activities and steps along the progress of the Operation Christmas Child project well ahead of time: in the bulletin, on the website, in the newsletter, through phone calls, so people can have plenty of opportunity for people to hear, have time to be ready, clear their calendar, get excited, share the excitement and get involved. So you wouldn’t have to do everything but just see your job as the main recruiter of the recruiters, check progress and coach others to action and make sure the appropriate things happen along the way.”

We kept talking. She said hadn’t even thought of it that way. It sounded much more of a realistic possibility. Then the car hit the garage and the subject changed. We’ll keep talking.

Doesn’t that compare and contrast the approach and emotional response of how people to get involved? I think it is a night and day difference. One feels burdensome and the other lighter and affirming of others who are often overlooked. Who knows what will happen with this project but I’ve seen it work wonderfully well in the past. Why not again, and again, and again?

What does it look like for you?

Coaching Questions:

• How does this change your approach to recruit someone to lead something?
• How does the lead person make a huge impact on how things get done in the parish and who does it? 
• What is the long term affect of modeling getting things done in a particular way?
• What do you need to get done?
• How will it get done?
• By whom? With who else? Who should be invited? How? By whom?
• What will your role be in casting a vision for how it can happen differently while unleashing the power of more people?

Let me know how this works for you and what it looks like in your context.

Empowerment Part 10 Empowerment and Self Esteem

He got me. I was hooked.

Many years ago my wife and I were shopping for a private school for my son who has Asperger’s syndrome. This was before anyone had ever heard of how Autism was increasing let alone any school system addressing those concerns for this growing population of students. The headmaster who was from South Africa said, “we hire teachers who have healthy self-esteems so they don’t have to build their self-esteem off of the students.” Wow. What an unspoken but very real phenomenon. Some need the esteem building relationship of students to help them feel good about themselves while others already are confident and self assured and are thus free to simply teach and serve the need of the students. So whose needs are being met? In the former, the teacher’s needs, in the latter, the students. Which kind of teacher would you want for your child? No question about it. We want someone who is so selfless that they get lost in serving the needs of the students. He got me. I was hooked. We went with that school.

In your ministry, whose needs are being met? Are you serving the people and their growth and maturity in faith and leadership or are you serving yourself? Not so fast. Think about it for a minute. In what way and to what degree may you be working for the affirmation of others? Do you crave the spotlight of people’s attention and adulation? How much? How often do you get upset with the quality of outcomes because you are afraid of how it will reflect upon you? How easily do you forget about the quality of other’s growth, the quality of the ministry toward others, and the resulting praise of God (see Matt 5:16 and others)! How self-aware are you as you go about your life and ministry? How you answer those questions will say volumes about your capacity for empowering others.

As Christians we have the unconditional love of God in Jesus Christ. We know the verse by heart: “For God so love the world (you!)…that He gave His only Son…” John 3:16. Now if the God of the universe says He loves you intimately, completely and unconditionally, then why do you still feel (in ways small and large) that you need to justify yourself through your works, through the outcomes and productivity you create and use that to make yourself feel worthwhile? Or put another way, since God’s love is so complete for you, is there any reason left to so desire the praise of other people that you hoard those opportunities for ministry? Is there any reason you should keep that for yourself and not work to “give away the ministry” (empowerment) for the edification and growth of others and the benefit of the kingdom? Who do we think we are or what do we think we need that we resist empowering others? Taken to the extreme, have we ever been guilty of taking undue credit that was really done through a group or even a single person? We've seen others do it. Are we guilty? What's all this about?

It may be some scar from our past. It may be some quirk in our personality, some dark corner that needs the light of Christ to shine upon it. But that doesn’t mean we should put up with it and allow it to continue. Chances are there aren't a lot of people standing in line to set you straight. So we have to learn to be brutally honest with ourselves and rediscover the beauty and sweetness of the Gospel in our own lives.

A great little book to
think about the value of
Christ Esteem

In this way, empowerment is not based upon self-esteem as my headmaster friend spoke about. It really has everything to do with “Christ-esteem” or finding your value in Christ and His love for you. In this way you don’t have to build your esteem off of your ministry, your people or anything else.

Coaching Questions:

• What makes you feel valued? God’s love in Christ or something else? To what degree do those other things “hook” you?
• What unconsciously directs your choices and motivations? Your need for the approval of others? Your love of others and wanting to see them grow and develop? Other? See Galatians 1:10.
• What ministry can you “give away” to the joy and surprises of those whom God has potentially gifted for that ministry?
• What will you do and when will you do it?

Empowerment Part 9 Real Life Empowerment Dialogue

 What do you do when someone comes to you with a question?

What is your immediate instinct? To answer the question of course!

Why? Many reasons I suppose. First you may know the answer. Second you don’t want to be disturbed and so with a quick reply you can be rid of them. Third, you may feel like you are supposed to have the answer, what with all the seminary training and all. Fourth, you may want that “stroke” of having given a good answer and the satisfaction of how someone came to you (instead of someone else). Fifth, you may answer because you want them to do it “your way” and not get sidetracked with their “hair-brained solution” or someone else’s idea. (After all you’ve got all the right answers, right?)

But did you ever look at these simple interactions as something much more than a mere question and an answer?

That’s right. On its face, it seems like just a simple question and an answer that are needed. But people often have other things in mind when they interrupt us and ask a question. Perhaps they have something else in mind and the question is a mere icebreaker to the more important issue. This will require your sensitivity and perhaps your managing your time well so as to discern the real agenda and suggest an appropriate time if that is not it. You may want to ask, "is there anything else?" as an invitation to go deeper.

The most common situation though is that they are honestly stuck and need some help. What then? What is the best way to help them? Fire out the answer for all the reasons listed above? (We must admit that few are “good, right and salutary"!) What other options do you have?

How about answering a question with a question? If they are stuck then wouldn’t the best way to help them be through facilitating their thinking through the answer? After all, if you merely answer it for them, what will they do the next time they have a question? They’ll come to you! Won’t that feel good? Perhaps initially but doesn’t it create a dependence? Of course it does! And let's be honest and admit that the reasons above are not good reasons to simply answer the question.

How about some of these replies:

• What were you thinking would be a good solution?
• What would you do?
• What else? What other options are there?
• Who else could help you?
• What steps would it require?
• How does that align with our Mission and Vision and Values?

Now don't those questions affirm the questioner? They may feel a bit put upon at first but along the way they will come to the conclusion that you believe in them, you are confident they have good ideas and they will probably get even more excited about new ideas and possibilities. That sounds like empowerment to me!

In real life dialogue for empowerment, the answer is often the question!

Now, how can you live into asking questions when people come to you for answers?

• Are you aware of what might get in the way of you answering with a question?
• What’s up with that? What do you get when you take someone’s responsibility from them?
• How will you be different going forward?
• What questions will you have at the ready for a thoughtful reply?
• How will you catch yourself so as to live into this new approach?
• How else will you affirm people when they think things through creatively?