Long-Term Mission, Short-Term Vision
by Mark Tidsworth, Founder and Team Leader
Like butterflies emerging from cocoons, churches are breaking out this Spring. We are receiving requests from churches all around the country, using various phrases to ask similar questions. Most of those questions can be distilled into these three:
Who are we now?
(Usually with wording like identify clarification or church assessment)
How do we reconnect with each other, integrating our varied experiences during this crazy time into our common life?
What shall we do and where shall we focus our energies?
(Usually with wording like calling, purpose, strategic planning, or visioning)
Savvy church leaders recognize these Kairos moments, opportune times for launching church into a new season of life.
They also recognize the danger of becoming a snap back church; one who reverts to doing church exactly as before the pandemic, missing the transformational growth opportunities right before us.
To address these questions and maximize these opportune moments, I would suggest you identify a nimble process to guide your church forward. Not surprisingly, I’m biased toward Pinnacle’s ReShape Initiative which guides churches through the questions identified above. Regardless of how your church gets there, churches need a time appropriate vision for providing guidance here in 2022. Here are two activities that will result in actionable long-term mission and short-term vision.
Clarifying and renewing your long-term mission
Perhaps your church has a high-level mission statement that serves you well, enduring over time. How do you know it’s a fitting mission statement? It’s short, pithy, memorable, and doesn’t change much over time. Here are examples:
Making Christ Known In God’s Community
Making Disciples For The Transformation Of The World
Partnering With God, Bringing The Kingdom To Earth As In Heaven
Since these are high level, thirty-thousand foot views of our mission, they don’t need redesigning often at all. They describe the ongoing mission of the church in succinct ways that will take us more than one lifetime to accomplish.
Now is an excellent time to identify your mission statement if none exists - or clarifying or simplifying wordy and unhelpful mission statements - followed by a commitment to live by it. Effective mission statements serve to anchor churches in purpose, guiding over time regardless of contextual circumstances.
Identifying and pursuing your short-term vision
Yes, some churches still believe a five-year vision is possible and helpful. Most of the time they call it a strategic plan. We would be hard pressed to find a corporation, small business, or educational institution who plans that far ahead in 2022. Sure, there are parts of our organizations requiring longer-term planning, like facilities management. Yet the vast majority of our church lives in such a fluid context that long-term plans (beyond a couple years) grow irrelevant before we can implement them.
If we’ve learned anything the last two years it’s there is no need to tie up energy, time, and resources in long-term visioning. Conditions on the ground change too quickly. Instead, this is an excellent time to double-down on your high-level mission statement while identifying your vision for this current season of life and ministry. How long is this current season? Perhaps a year, perhaps six months, or perhaps literal seasons of the year. Identify your top 2-5 priorities, turning them into initiatives, pursuing them with all your energy. At the end of this season, you will have accomplished some and will renew others for the next season. In this way, your church leadership will make sure your church is responding to the opportune contextual moments in which we live, becoming relevant and more effective.
May God give us the eyes to see and wills to pursue the time appropriate vision for our churches.