Leadership Must Drive Vision and Purpose

Clarify Your Purpose

Before you can be an effective leader anywhere, you need to know what your organization’s vision and purpose is.  But churches sometimes fail to recognize the impact and importance of clarity of purpose to overall church health.

This seems sort of paradoxical because in the church of all places there should be concern and common knowledge about purpose, and yet, often there isn’t.  “Why are we here?” and “Where are we going?” are not questions your regular attendees and members should be asking. 

The Old Testament prophet said it best,

“Where there is no vision, people perish.”

This principle can be seen evidenced in the many churches that have rediscovered their sense of vision and mission, with the results being church growth, expanded ministries and financial stability. 

With paradigm shifts in society occurring with every generation, it is important to revisit this to meet the changing needs of our society and your congregation. 

Doing what has always been done, but trying to do it better, is not the answer.

Our post-modern world needs a new focus, not a change in the message, but a change in how that message is formed and delivered.  Every generation needs its own dream and means.

Vision has become perhaps an overused word (as has relevant actually) and many churches have undergone a visioning and or strategic planning process at some point.  A process that, to be honest, probably had good intentions but really never amounted to much. 

The lack of result is likely related to one of two problems.  The first, that the visioning is often seen as an event as opposed to an ongoing process.  Secondly, often enacting a shiny new vision costs more than the church might currently be receiving, both financially and in human capital. 

Vision is a Process Not An Event

Many organizations, not just churches fall prey to their vision being nothing more than a statement that is on our walls and websites that we can point to when asked, “what is your vision?”  It never really becomes part of the culture of our organizations and never really takes hold in directing our steps in the future.  Yet that is exactly what it is intended to do. 

Four questions need to be answered if you are going to accomplish a strategic visioning process:

1. Who are we? (Define yourself)
2. Where are we going? (Long term goals – 3 to 5 years)
3. How are we going to get there? (Specific strategies and objectives)
4. Who is responsible to get us there? (Establish accountability)

It is the church leadership’s responsibility to approach visioning in the church as an ongoing process of identification and fulfillment.  This will result not only in a well thought out vision and mission, but also a new philosophy of ministry and the strategic plan to accomplish it.

In fact, it is good protocol to evaluate new programs and initiatives according to your strategic plan.  Ask the questions, does it align with our mission and vision? Will it help us get to where we want to be in three or five years? Does it directly pertain to or achieve one of our strategic outcomes?

Vision Comes at a Cost

The truth is a new vision is going to cost.  It not only carries a cost to develop, but also a cost to execute, and often both in human capital through volunteers and financially to support additional programming and ministries. 

If churches ‘dare to dream’ then there needs to be a commitment to a proactive process to fund the dream. 

But the good news is, nothing drives giving more than clarity of vision and purpose.  So, you should also plan for raising additional dollars as part of the strategic planning process. 

There is a video on Charity Water, narrated by the founder, Scott Harrison.  This video is probably one of the single best examples of what I am referring to here.  Scott’s clarity of purpose and vision through telling the story of how charity water came to be is so compelling it is hard to turn away (it was very well produced, and it was well over 5 minutes long…twice the recommended average).  There is no doubt Charity Water has a very well-articulated vision. 

A renewed sense of purpose will motivate your leadership, focus the energies of your leadership, and add a dynamic to giving motivation.  When you can effectively communicate the legitimacy of the cause, people will give generously. 

Clarity and collective vision are the foundation to effective stewardship.