Vision Disconnect, or Strategic Difference?

I have loved the opportunity to connect with leaders on the Orange Tour this year. We get to talk about family ministry and leadership, two subjects I love.

But as I sat down with lead pastors in over half a dozen cities, a few things became clearer for me.  We often talk about being aligned on vision as leaders. I know I talked about it for years with leaders.  But this fall it became clear to me that maybe it's a bit of a false discussion.

Here's why: just about every follower of Jesus I know is reasonably aligned on vision.  We love God and think Jesus is who He says He is.  Think about every church vision statement you've seen.  How many have truly been off base?  Some are written better than others, but have you ever really disagreed with one?  They're pretty much all restatements of the great commission.  Mainline...evangelical...non-denominational.  We all pretty much say the same thing.

Here's where we differ: not on vision, but on strategy.  One church prefers a hundred programmes.  One church prefers all things to be directed to groups. One church prefers cutting edge music, the other like blended worship.  One church defines a particular strategy for family ministry, another simply let's various strategies arise.

When you can begin to separate out vision from strategy, it does several things:

• It stops the discussion from being personal or "moral".  We agree on the mission and vision, we just have different approaches to accomplishing it.
• Narrowing the issue down to strategy allows a team to become more aligned.  It's far easier to unify a team around a common strategy than even a common vision, because a strategy is specific.
• It allows us to celebrate differences.  Do I love our strategy?  Completely!  So does our staff and leadership team.  I think it's great (not perfect, but still great).  But I don't have to disrespect another church's strategy to celebrate ours.  After all, we share the same vision - we're just taking different routes to fulfilling it.

There's more to say on this, but I wanted to throw this out there to see if it resonates at all with you. Is this a helpful way of thinking about this?  What benefit to leaders and staff might come out of thinking through things this way?

Comments

[AdamF]

True, true... I'd also toss "personality" into the mix. There are serious churches, fun-loving churches, studious, relational, daring, conservative, risky, safe. I think it's important to know the personality of the church because it affects how you implement your strategy and who you engage.

[dan scott]

Great post, Carey. I've been thinking a lot about this since Orange GR. I realize that we can't all out mock another church's strategy. However, there have to be some strategies that are better than others, right?

On the surface the strategy might be celebrated for people growth, but at the end of the day it's taxing people and resources. Does my question make sense?

I guess my other question goes to Adam, when does personality become a liability to forward momentum for what leadership really feels called to do?

[Nick Blevins]

I totally agree. I think the biggest benefit to leadership is that they would realize that a good vision and mission statement is not enough. Thinking about strategy forces us to talk about the how, and not just the what. When talking about vision/mission we can really just pay lip service but talking about strategy means we really have to evaluate what we're doing. I think most church leaders either don't realize their strategy has problems, or realize they do, but fear the push back from the church if they try to change it.

[Gregory Wengren]

I think there is some confusion on what we mean by vision. Vision is often stated or interchanged as "purpose" but they are really two different things. Carey, I think you are really meaning purpose when you say vision. Purpose is our reason to be. Vision is a picture of the future, not our reason to exsist. All churches should have the same purpose - but not all will have the same vision or mission or stategies.
It is a leaders responsibility to pass on his/her specific God given vision to their people.
So... each follower of Jesus should have the same purpose, but not necessarily the same vision.