Revisit Your Church’s Vision, Mission, and People Focus

I don't read this blog that often, but I this was a great post about vision and importance of not just for the health of the ministry, but your ability to reach new believers. Ministry Marketing Coach.com post the follow post and knocked it out of the park:

Work out a written Vision and Mission plan the staff (or lay ministry team) can all get behind. You may already have mission and vision documents. It needs to be determined if the church is actually functioning according to them. Also, many times the vision and mission are too general to inspire action. What are the real ministry dreams of your church? Where is God leading you? Find out together!

Brainstorm with the staff (or lay ministry team) on ways to fill in the GAP between the vision and the present situation. If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do. But if you have a target you are aiming at, you can develop a clear plan anyone can follow.

Write out the next steps for at least the next 6-18 months. What are the “low hanging fruit” you can harvest right now? What actions can you work on now that moves you toward the vision?

Think more about what your strengths and weaknesses are. (Consider a church health survey ChurchCentral.com). Know your strengths and work from them. Some of your weaknesses will never become strengths, be who you are! David couldn’t fight using Saul’s armor—why should you try to be someone you are not? On the other hand, if you have weaknesses that are due to a broken process or lack of training–they can be improved, why not understand your problems and tackle them?

Determine your ministry’s best focus considering your strengths (in light of your vision and mission). Every ministry is unique by God’s design. There are people only you can reach!

Consider your opportunities and threats. Study community issues that could impact your ministry for good or bad. Work out a list of them and how the church plans to respond to them.

I'm a huge fan of the importance of vision in the church. It makes ministry easy. Anyone in the body can make a decision based on the vision. "I want to start such and such ministry." "Does it fit this and this aspect of our vision." Yeah, it forces you to have a hard conversations with people, but it makes the ministry simple.