During this One Prayer series, where I had a significant break from preaching, I had decided that I wanted to use the extra time I had to wrestle with the question (through prayer and reading) of how we as a congregation get to the next level. A friend of mine, Jeff Glass, suggested a book to me... so, I bought it and a sequel and read them both. In the mean time, one Sunday after worship, Connie Polovina was talking to me about next steps and asked what my vision was for the congregation. Then I saw two more books that looked helpful in this quest and I purchased and read them. Turns out they were VERY helpful.
One of the things that I was concerned about was that in 1999 when Sharon and I first came to Community of Joy, things were booming for the first 10 months -- excitement was high and attendance and giving jumped to all time highs for us as a congregation. Part of that was excitement of new leadership and part of that was an intentional vision casting process and part of that was some new ways of doing things.... BUT about 10 months into the journey, things started to plateau and then we began the slow decline until a year ago, when we purchased our ministry center and things took off again... however, in recent months the plateau has begun again... some of that is due to loosing our sign out front... but I think it is more than that... I am beginning to see that we have a vision issue again... NOT that we don't have a vision, but that our vision is mostly words on a paper and not a song in our hearts. Part of the vision issue is that for some the motivating vision is still to become a self-supporting congregation... which includes owning a building, meeting our budget, paying our mortgage, and modest growth. But there has to be more to vision than that!
The book that was most helpful to me in this regard is called Church Unique by Will Mancini... in it Will shares a process that helps us determine what our UNIQUE vision from God is and then offers a framework to integrate that vision so that it motivates us on to new levels. It all begins with developing a Kingdom Concept... which is the simple, clear, big idea that defines how our church will glorify God and make disciples... based on the local opportunities where God has placed us, the unique resources and capabilities that God brings together in us and the particular focus that most energizes and animates us.
One of the things that I realized and this book confirms is that without a motivating vision that is unique to us... we jump from one idea to the next in the hopes that something will get us where we want to go. I confess that I am part of a movement of pastors in America that have hopped on the Conference bandwagon that we spend time at ministry conferences hearing what is happening in certain churches and then try to imitate that hoping that it will help us too! Doing this ignores the fact that God has made each church unique and called us to a unique purpose. God doesn't mass produce his church... each church is unique. "If we copy someone else's vision, who will accomplish ours?"
I think it is time to clarify our vision! And I am exploring a relationship with a Navigator who will help us do that and will be working with and through the leadership team to determine where we go next. The one thing I am sure of... I don't want to enter a decline again... I want to continue moving forward on mission... being the hands and feet of Jesus in the community and world.
Another thing I am clear on is ... growing the church is the by-product of vision and not the vision. The church will grow as we live out our God given unique vision in the place where God has planted us!
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