Factors Impacting a Vision

 Paying careful attention to Nehemiah 2:11-18, we learn that a variety of factors influenced the shaping of his vision. What were the important elements contributing to his vision? What can contemporary leaders learn from this?

 

A few thoughts:

• He spent some time in discerning, for himself, the current conditions in Jerusalem. He didn’t rely on what others were telling him. I think we fall into an uninformed trap when we only listen to what others are saying about a situation. We need to work to determine for ourselves what current conditions are – working with God to see where we are will help us to discern where God wants us to go.
• Once Nehemiah had done this, he was able to communicate clearly to those who would be involved in the reconstruction what the mission was – where they were starting and where they would be going. I’ve seen really good fundraisers do this. They will explain the current situation to a group of people, and then invite them to join in the ministry of meeting the needs that are before them.
• He explained to the group (I assume this is the nobles, the priest, the officials, and those who would do the work) that “the hand of God had been gracious” and the King was supporting him. I think we learn from this not only that we are following God in what we are doing, but that we need to communicate that to those who will be involved in the ministry. It is an act of faith to share a God given mission (and that it is a mission given by God). 

The Road

Three quotes that are rattling around in my head.

There is no freeway to the future. No paved highway from here to tomorrow. There is only wilderness. Only uncertain terrain. There are no road maps. No signposts. So pioneering leaders rely upon a compass and a dream.  (James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. The Leadership Challenge as published in Church Leadership by Lovett Weems).

In church a couple of Sundays ago, during the Advent candle lighting, one of the readings said something like: The road to the kingdom is always under construction, per John the Baptist.

During our Academy in October, one of the attendees said, "without vision, there is no hope."

I think, as churches, and as people, we have a desire to make a difference.  To work for God's kingdom.  And yet, sometimes I think we feel like we are stuck in a rut, or moving backwards instead of forwards.  These quotes work together to say to me that without a vision, our churches have no hope of making a difference.  Those who depend on us may have no hope in their lives.  And yet, while we speak of vision, we are sometimes unwilling to pave the path forward.  Having a vision requires hard work and discernment.  The way forward is not obvious, and to find it requires our effort as construction workers.

Do we  have enough hope to search for the vision and to pave the road as we go? Will we leave those who need us hopeless?

 

Map vs GPS

On Monday, I wrote about my GPS, and how it sent me on a road I would not have chosen. As I was driving, I promised myself that the next time, I would look at the map myself, before starting out, and I would know the way - I wouldn't be as realiant on the GPS.

It's funny, because on the way to church the day before my meeting, Steve and I were talking about the GPS. It only shows you the details.  You see the road you are on, and the next turn, but that's it - you can't see the big picture. When you use a map, you see the directions, and whole trip.

Sometimes we need to use the map. We need to envision the entire trip - the directions, the roads, the destination - the whole vision of where we are going. Sometimes, we need the GPS - the step by step instructions.

The issue, I think, is that FIRST we need the map - where are we going, and how will we get there, and THEN we need the GPS - the step by step instructions.

In the church, when we fail to do the visioning work, the purpose of the details becomes blurred, and we get lost in the woods. The steps we are taking become the more important than the goal. It could be that this is a point of conflict for some churches. The steps become sacred, but the goal is never thought of.

Team: What's the Vision?

A few weeks ago I taught a Sunday school lesson using the book Generosity Rising by Scott McKensie. The chapter I used as the basis of the lesson was chapter two, and it's theme was how to build a revolutionary team for a generosity ministry in a church. As I taught it, I thought much of the lesson could apply to any team any of us are building. 

First, it is important to define what your team's mission will be. Do this before you form the team. 

What change is God calling you to lead? What is this team supposed to do?

To often I have seen teams that are formed only because we've always had a team assigned to this particular task, and with no goals at all. The goal seems to meet, so we have meetings. How does that change the world or start a revolution?

What change is God calling you to lead? Define it. And then decide if the change you are trying to bring about is important. Is it necessary? Is it life changing? Does it bring us closer to the Kingdom of God? Is God in it at all?

If you can answer yes, and if you can define the vision, then you are one step closer to forming a team.

Reckoning

In navigation, the term reckoning, as in dead reckoning, is the process of calculating where you are. To do that, you have to know where you've been and what factors influenced how you got to where you now (speed, course, wind, etc.). Without reckoning, you can't chart a future course.  Brene Brown, Rising Strong

Sometimes I think organizations get stuck. They get stuck where they are, unable to move forward, unable to solve problems. I believe this situation can be attributed (for some groups) to two things: they don't know why they are where they are, and they can't articulate a goal for the future.

In churches, we might sit in a meeting and bemoan our problems, and talk about the glorious past, when we had to put chairs in the aisles. If we try to consider why we are where we are now, we talk about population dropping in the community and how we don't do things like we used to do them. If we try to create a picture of where we want to go, it might range from going back to where we were or just not dying.

Frankly, neither one of the visions of a church is very exciting to me. We can't go back to what we were, and we can't convince people that a church that is "just trying not to die" is going to have a life-changing impact on their lives.

So what can we do? I think we have to enter that dark place of analyzing why we are where we are now. We don't want to do it, but there is no way to know where we are unless we do a reckoning - a calculation of the factors that influenced where we are now and how we got there.

And then we have to create a God-inspired vision of what the church will be. Where is God leading us? What is our call as a body of Christ? I think the last thing Christ would have stated as his vision for his life on earth would be, "I just don't want to die." 

Vision on a Horse

Follow me through these thoughts, even though they are random*.

I was reading the Bishop's post this evening about his four hobbies -- reading, gardening, historical research and ham radio operation. He advises us all to find a hobby. Do you have a hobby?

I have several, but the one that comes to mind is knitting -- I'm sure I've mentioned that before.
Hold that thought.

I then surfed over to Tuesday's Lectionary Leanings. Many of the ministers who posted there for the week are considering the use of Habakkuk for their sermons. A verse from the passage (Habakkuk 2:2)

Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.

Hold that thought.

In knitting there is a rule. If you make a mistake and wonder if you should "rip" out your knitting to correct it, ask yourself this question -- If someone were wearing this garment, riding a horse that went by, would someone watching notice the mistake? If not, then leave it in.

Would someone running by our churches see our vision? Is it plainly written on tablets so that a runner may read it? I mean that metaphorically. Is our vision so plain in what we do that someone who didn't know us, who just came in for worship, or for help, or to a community meeting in the building, or to drop his child off for preschool -- running through our faith community -- see our vision in what we do, in how we treat people?

Is our vision noticeable in our actions?

* I kind of cringe at the word random. Each year, in my old job, we would have Research Day. Students would present their research to those gathered. Inevitably, one of them would say, "Patients were randomly assigned to two groups." Mistake. This phrase was a red flag to one particular physician -- a physician who was usually serving as a judge. Whenever he heard this phrase, he would ask a challenging question. "How did you randomly assign them?" Usually, the answer was that patients went by turns into different groups. Eini-mene-mini-mo is not random. True random assignment requires a random number generator. My thoughts in this post are not random -- they are just oddly strung together!

NOW

I was reading a post by Beth Quick (you can find it here). She asked if anyone reading the blog was using the NOW system of committee structure in his/her church. NOW is an acronym for Nurture/Outreach/Witness. Our church uses that structure, so I began a comment to leave on her blog. It (the comment) got longer and longer, so I deleted it, leaving her a message that I would write a post instead. So here it is (the post, I mean).

Our church does use the NOW system. We instituted it over 10 years ago; during that time I have been a member of the Nurture Committee. For about 7 1/2 years of that time, I was chairman of that committee, but I currently serve as lay leader.

I would recommend the structure to other churches. I think we have learned its strengths and weaknesses over the years, and I'll try to share what I think in this post.

1. After the first year, we decided that the responsibilities for Nurture were too large -- too many. We were meeting monthly, and only were really able to address education issues. Worship (another part of Nurture) was being ignored. Because of that, the Celebrations Committee was created. It oversees our worship and receptions ministries, relieving Nurture of those jobs. Nurture still has a huge plate of things to do, but in our church, this made it more manageable.
2. I believe that the structure simplified our committees. We had work areas on everything you could think of prior to this change -- now it is easier to understand the committee structure.
3. With any new organization, training and communication become of paramount concern. Everyone needs to understand what each committee is to do. Personally, I still think this is an issue in our church, even after all of these years.
4. All of our committees -- the four programming committees and the administrative committees -- report to our Ministry Leadership Council. I think it is vital that this larger, oversight committee become a center for communication. We all need to talk about what is happening, share ideas, support and celebrate ministry in our church. It needs to happen at these meetings. We are still working on this. One of the major changes we made (and it doesn't sound big, but it translates into better communication) is that we moved the meeting from the chapel, where we sat in pews, to a room where we sit at a large table, facing each other. Big impact - it opened up discussions that didn't happen before.
5. Committee chairman need to understand that part of the committee's job is to involve everyone in ministry. Give them the freedom to pull people onto their committees as needed, to invite members to ministry. Give them freedom to form teams to tackle problems, to form task forces.

Our visioning committee just completed a vision / mission process for the discernment of a vision for our church. As we completed it, and stepped back to look at it, we realized that our mission statement parallels our committee structure. We didn't plan that. It just happened. What it says to me is that the NOW (or our amended NOWC) structure provides for the circular running of ministry in a church -- bring people to God (Witness), help them to grow in faith (Nurture (and Celebrations)) and reach out in service (Outreach). It is a complete church.

Image: Sky one morning at the high school.

What is important?

Our church, I may have mentioned, is working on discerning and implementing God's vision for who and what we are to be as a church, so I've been thinking alot about that lately.

I'm struck by the idea that the vision that we have discerns as a committee is very much in line with the biblical teachings of what a church should be and do. I've been wondering if a vision isn't just God giving us a glimpse of what our future could be, but if it is also meant to be God's means of opening our eyes to what he has been trying to communicate to us as our purpose since we began as a church.

I've started John Ortberg's new book, "When the Game is Over It All Goes Back in the Box." I haven't read much of it, but the quote on page one, at the beginning of chapter one, struck me:

This is our predicament.
Over and over again, we lose sight of
what is important, and what isn't.
-- Epictetus

What is important? What is our priority as a person, as a church, as a denomination? I think we do lose sight of it, and that God must continually remind us of it.

And perhaps that is our job as we attempt to implement a vision statement in a church. I also picked up Andy Stanley's book, "Making Vision Stick." I haven't read much of it, either, but at the very beginning, he says almost exactly the same thing. In order for a church to keep sight of its vision, it must be constantly reminded of what is important.