Helping Teams Develop Vision

Let’s talk about vision from your vantage point as potential facilitators.

How important is vision? When a church has been locked into a way of doing things, the only way to shake them out of that is fresh vision.

The Acts 2 Journey team has found that lost vision is the primary cause of plateau in the church. Studies demonstrate that to be true. When lost vision happens, inward focus happens, which precipitates the decline. The Acts 2 Journey team believes that the strategies a church will build won’t amount to much without fresh vision.

Most churches realize there’s a problem when they’re on the back side of the life cycle. At that point, they’re looking for a new program, a new idea—something they can do to stop the bleeding. The problem on the back side of the life cycle is not a lack of programs. It’s a lack of vision.

The truth is that programs without vision are just a whole lot of work. Unfortunately, churches can get trapped in this cycle: try a new program, maybe a little bump for a moment, but because there’s no new or clear vision, they’re back to where they were, and they get a bumpy ride on the decline. They’re looking for the magic bullet when the truth is what has to happen is fresh vision.

In the vision segment of the retreat, lead folks to answer the question, “Where are we going?” After talking about what vision is, what it can do, what are its sources, the facilitator has to help those who have never been on this pursuit discover what God wants for the congregation.

In the Acts 2 Journey cohort, the following distinction is made between the terms mission and vision:

• Mission is defined as the universal assignment; the Great Commission and Great Commandment.
• Vision is defined as the unique expression of that assignment for the congregation. It’s what they were made to do, what God designed them to do.