Issue 22 – Rediscovering Jesus’ Mission Dream
Dear Sam
I’m glad the Letters to Ray helped you—as they also helped him.
But unlike Ray you’re just starting out in ministry, so you’d like some tips on getting your own church mission dream—based on Jesus’ dream in Lk 4.18-19.
You particularly want me to explain some of the baffling terms we use in mission planning today and how they relate to what we’re trying to do at church.
So here are some brief notes to get you started—building on everything I said to Ray in Letter 21.
Church dreams
Church dreams vary greatly from church to church and denomination to denomination—just as churches plan in different ways, use different terms to describe what they’re doing, and read different meanings into the terms they use to capture their mission dream.
Of course, the terms we use aren’t as important as the dynamics they capture and whether our dream honours God and gets us to the future we dream of.
Through the years, I’ve done planning in many different ways and all the models worked—some dramatically!
However for some time I’ve been moving towards the understanding outlined below—and while it’s just one of several ways of doing planning, I think you’ll find it helpful.
But first those troublesome terms that so many of us find confusing.
Those troublesome terms
Whatever your church or denominational situation, your search for a new dream starts with clarifying what it is you want to do and where you hope it will take you.
So we’ll start with the terms you’ll use to capture the dynamics of your journey for the next few years, or longer.
Your Mission Statement
Your mission (or purpose) statement is the most important term you’ll use because it captures what you’ll focus on in the future—possibly for decades to come.
So once you’ve finalised your mission statement, you keep using it because it describes the kind of church you want to be—and this finality applies to both church and denominational mission statements.
Put simply, your mission statement picks out which ‘hill’ (of many possible hills) you’ll take for God. So it’s the most important term we use in planning.
When your mission statement is working as it should, first time visitors pick up what you’re on about because your mission statement shapes what you do, how you do it, and why you do it in the way you do—so visitors pick a lot of this up on their first visit.
And once you’ve got your mission statement, you don’t replace it later with other terms, like slogans and mottoes, because they’re just summaries or paraphrases of the mission statement to help you in your local situation.
But the centrality and finality of the mission statement raises another important issue.
The mission statement also shapes our approach to funding, programming and staffing because they’re all worked out in terms of the mission statement—as Willow Creek Community Church found when they grappled with their huge downturn in income following 9/11. As they worked through the issues, they evaluated everything they did against their core mission business, and when they’d completed their evaluation, they cut expenditure accordingly.
So to sum up, your mission statement focuses on which hill you’re going to take and what you’re going to do to take that hill for God—for example, attack it by land, sea and air.
The Vision Statement
However, if the mission statement picks out the hill we’re going to take, and sits above that hill, the vision statement gives us a bird’s-eye view of what we’ll see when we get to the top of the hill and look around.
Dr Martin Luther King’s famous Dream speech, with its moving description of the new America, is a fine example of a vision statement—although as we’ll see, with its length it’s more than just a vision statement.
So while the vision statement talks about similar things as the mission statement it uses the future tense because it describes what is yet to happen—e g., Martin Luther King’s use of ‘will’ and ‘shall’ in the dream section of his speech (the future tense becoming the past tense only after the dream has been fulfilled).
By contrast, the mission statement uses both the present and the future tenses because the battle is still raging and the mission to take the hill is still to be accomplished. So the mission statement and the vision statement are just pictures of different stages in the same campaign—to take the hill and reach the top where a new world awaits us.
Bill Hybels put this perfectly when he said, ‘a vision is a picture of the future that produces passion in you’—and the clearer the picture the greater the passion. That’s important, because it’s this passion that sustains the soldiers as they fight their way from the valley floor to the top of the hill.
Goals
When we’ve finalised our mission and vision statements, we’re ready to decide on some goals to guide us in our campaign to take the hill and reach the top.
And just as there are often several routes or pathways to the top of a mountain, there are several goals or pathways to the top of the hill we’re taking. But the goals aren’t the mission, just pathways or strategies to take the hill.
So the goals describe the main features of the campaign (which we may give a special name to) to take this particular hill for God.
Mottoes and Slogans
Some leaders use mottoes and slogans to complement their mission statement because they feel pithy statements earth their dream in people’s minds better than a mission statement—and mottoes and slogans vary greatly from church to church.
Mottoes and slogans do have popular appeal. But if we use them, we just need to watch that they don’t take over from the mission statement and supersede it—as they do in some churches.
This is never acceptable because, at best, mottoes and slogans are only summaries and paraphrases of the mission statement.
The mission statement remains at all times the defining document in the life of the church.
The Dream
When I studied communication with Trinity College London, I learned it’s dreams that turn people on in speech, the arts, politics, business, sport, home ownership, the church and the whole range of human activity—Martin Luther King’s Dream speech being the great example.
So when young people in singing and dancing competitions are interviewed on TV, they talk passionately about their dream—using phrases like ‘I dream…’ or ‘my dream…’; and they focus on their dream because it captures everything they want to be and do in the future.
In the same way, on the 15th of October 2007, The New Zealand Herald featured a major article on the famous American author and entrepreneur, Michael Gerber, who said that a business without a dream is like a life without a purpose.
Six days later, in the dying seconds of the Rugby World Cup Final, the commentator said, ‘The dream is over for them (England)’; and later that day, the TV news told us that ‘English dreams lie broken.’ And so on, across the whole of life because dreams best capture our future hopes.
As Martin Luther King’s speech shows, dreams begin with ‘the urgency of the moment’, take in the broad sweep of the future journey, and paint a glowing picture of the new world ahead of us. So there’s a sense in which a dream is roughly equivalent to a vision or vision statement; but it’s a lot warmer (which is probably why Martin Luther King used it). But in another sense, the dream gathers up both the mission statement and the vision, and brings them together in one harmonious picture of our new future.
And as I’ve discovered in recent years, with its tug at the heart strings, the dream sets the mission statement alight—leading to people’s passionate commitment to it because they want the ‘promised land’ of the dream too!
In the best planning, dream and mission statement meet—because without the focus and guidelines of the mission statement we will never reach our dream.
So the dream is the servant of the mission statement, not the master, in the battle to take the hill.
Where our local church dream fits in
But if those are the main terms we use in planning, we have many options when we start putting all this together in a dream that will sweep everything before it.
For example, we could decide to become a young people’s church, a family church, a recovery church, a traditional church, a contemporary church, or some other kind of church—and what we decide will profoundly shape our mission and vision statements and the other terms we use.
Of course, if we’re an autonomous and self-governing church we can put it all together in any way we like.
But if we’re part of a centrally run denomination, we start with our denomination’s mission statement and develop our local dream from there.
So if we’re a Salvation Army church we start with the Army’s mission statement to care for people, transform lives, and reform society—rather than develop our own mission statement in competition with the Army’s mission statement. However, how we work that mission statement out will vary from church to church because each Salvation Army church develops it’s own dream—to go for seekers, families, youth, those struggling with addictions, and so on.
But the starting point for every Salvation Army church is the Army’s mission statement.
Getting it all in perspective
So if we’re a Salvation Army church, we could develop our local church dream in this way—although the same overall process applies to any church.
The mission and mission statement have already been decided for us: to care for people, transform lives, and reform society—so we could almost say that these three focuses are like the attacks on a target by land, sea and air in a long drawn-out military campaign. Or to take another example, they’re like the three-pronged focus of a church in another denomination to take their particular hill by honouring God, expressing His love, and making followers of Jesus.
Many churches with mission statements have dreams instead of vision statements because they believe dreams are more motivational—and a lot warmer. On the other hand, some churches don’t have any vision statement or dream, relying on their mission statement and long-range plan to get them to their desired future.
Neither The Salvation Army nor the above church has a vision statement or dream—just a mission statement; but The Salvation Army does have a long-range mission plan with four goals to keep it focused on the battle to take the hill (so our local church goals must always fit with any goals our denomination may have; this is important).
But whether you use few or many planning terms, the important thing is to have a ‘dream’ that honours God and gets you to the future you dream of.
Preparing to start—taking our church’s pulse
If we’re a Salvation Army church (and the same broad principles apply to any church), we take our church’s pulse each year in seven key areas—and these findings shape our mission plan for the following year.
We start with a Mission Review of the seven areas, using 10 carefully prepared questions for each area, grading the answers from 1-4—with a maximum area score of 40. This Review helps us discover where we’re weak and where we’re strong.
When we’ve completed the Review, and as a first step towards creating our Mission Plan for the following year, we then list the seven areas—noting the Review total for each area, the 1-3 critical issues we need to address in each area, and what we’ll do about them in the following year. Finally, we turn the 3-5 highest priority issues into the 3-5 main goals of our new Mission Plan—each goal with the appropriate steps and actions, people responsible, and completion dates.
So here are the seven areas in the order we consider them:
1. Picking up on the Great Commission in Matthew 28.19-20, we start with Transforming Lives through Evangelism—helping pre-Christian people find Jesus (and this is always a challenging area)
2. Also reflecting the Great Commission, and still under Transforming Lives (the second focus of the Army’s Mission Statement), we review Discipleship—how we’re doing at helping disciples follow Jesus.
3. We then review Caring for People—the first focus of the Army’s Mission Statement.
4. Next, we review Reforming Society—the third focus of the Mission Statement (and see Letter 21).
5. We follow this with a review of our Stewardship of People and Resources—with special focus on leadership development.
6. The sixth area reviewed is Children’s Ministries—where we are as intentional as in our adult ministries.
7. Finally, we review Youth Ministries—to assess how well we’re reaching and discipling youth and young adults.
From review to mission plan
With our Review complete, we now take our 3-5 areas of greatest concern and turn them into our Mission Plan for the following year, which, depending on the church might look something like this:
1. If the Review shows we’ve been struggling with Evangelism, and we make that our first goal, we may decide to appoint an evangelism ‘champion’, develop the links we have with pre-Christian people through our various mission initiatives, and train our leaders and people in the ‘how to’ of taking pre-Christian people on to the next stage of their journey to Jesus.
So the action steps might be to appoint the champion, intentionally grow the links we’re developing with people in the community, and have the training sessions we believe are necessary. Then we just add the names of the people responsible, the dates by which the steps will be taken, and any resources that may be needed.
2. If we’ve also been struggling with small groups this past year, we may make small groups our second mission goal for the next year—deciding to greatly increase the number of groups, keep them relevant to our situation, and provide leadership training for emerging leaders.
In this case, the action steps may then be to look for a small group champion, find new group leaders, decide on appropriate studies and train all group leaders. Then we handle names, dates and resources as above.
3. Should the Review indicate we’re struggling with discipleship, we may decide on Discipleship as our third mission goal for the next year—developing a specific discipleship plan with focused discipling programmes, to get many more dynamic disciples than we have at the moment (perhaps adding 15 new members in 2008).
So the action steps might be to find and appoint a discipleship champion (possibly the same person as the small group champion) to drive the new thrust, develop the discipling plan, and give appropriate training to those leading the initiative—with names and dates, etc, as above.
4. If we feel we haven’t responded to family challenges (i.e., Caring for People) as we might, we may decide to have a fourth goal on building strong families and marriages—offering family development activities, marriage enrichment opportunities, and support to single parent families.
So the action steps may be to schedule five family nights over the next 12 months, have two marriage enrichment weekends, and build caring for our single parent families into our pastoral worker’s job description—with names and dates, etc, as above.
5. Reforming Society initiatives might be our fifth goal area, developed as above; and we may also decide to give some additional priority to Children and Youth in the coming year—maybe written up in less detail than above.
So when you’ve completed this, and set it all out as a table on a page or two, you’ll have your new Mission Plan.
And if you’ve planned well, with your commitment and God’s blessing, you’ll now grow a great church.
Would one more step be helpful?
However, great as your plan may be, you may feel that with your particular group of people, one more step may be needed to set your plan alight—and there are two reasons for considering this further possible step:
First, your plan has focused especially on your greatest challenges, just as Natural Church Development focuses on addressing your Minimum Factor. But just as there are seven other factors with Natural Church Development, (which may be doing very well) which you keep working at, so there are many other areas of church life that you will want to keep pressing ahead with—like winning on Sundays. So if you can now bring these additional aspects of church life into synch with your Plan, and turn it all into a Church Dream, this will be a bonus for you because you’ll bring your Mission Plan challenges into dynamic relationship with your total church life.
The second reason for considering one more step is that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’—and if you can bring both your Mission Plan and the other big things you’re doing together into a one-paged, graphic-focused strategic plan summary you may get greater buy-in and more passionate commitment (cf earlier Hybels’ quote).
So here’s one possible way of doing this—and one I find works very well.
If read the SP (Strategic Plan) Summary 08 (DOC, 64KB), you’ll notice a number of features about this hypothetical example—which you can adapt to suit your own church.
The top of the page captures the projected attendance and small group trends over the next few years, the three clauses of the Army’s Mission Statement, and the four goals of their current Territorial Strategic Mission Plan (TSMP).
The lower part of the page is a pictorial summary of the main features of your Mission Plan and wider church life for the next year (plus the motto/slogan)—all in dynamic relationship with the larger whole.
Now, to complete this final ‘dream’ step, put your 3-5 Mission Plan goals on the reverse side of the sheet, adjusting the font size to fit—and there you have your dream, all captured on one sheet of paper, for you to use at leadership meetings, when you’re preaching, in your daily prayers, in your membership classes, and so on (leaders also ensure the other features of the dream are carried out—writing them up on a supplementary sheet if need be).
Your mission planning for the next 12 months is now complete, if it wasn’t already complete—and you can now set out for the Promised Land your people have dreamed about for years.
And all of it, absolutely all of it, rests on the mission statement you started out with … because the mission statement is the defining document in the life of your church!
Finding your new church mission dream
Sam, you’re just out of College and we’re all thrilled to see so many people coming to Jesus and going on to membership.
When we’re young we’re often tempted to dismiss strategic planning as an extra we can do without—and we may indeed get away without it for a season.
But strategic planning is not an extra. Rather, it’s the best way to lock in your early gains and build a platform for huge expansion in years to come.
So congratulations on your wonderful start.
May these few thoughts help you get your own mission plan together—and going forward from there, grow a church that reaches more and more people for Jesus and changes the community you all live in.
And when that happens, as we’re confident it will, this will be your church’s finest hour!
Let’s keep in touch.
Gordon Miller
Church Growth & Development Consultant
To discuss at leaders meetings
- Do you review your church annually; and if so, what does your latest review tell you about your church’s ‘mission edge’—i.e. how effective are you at reaching people for Jesus and growing them as disciples?
- Given my comments in this Letter, how effective have your recent mission plans been; and what steps will you now take to give your church a mission edge (write your assessment down, and the remedial steps you’ll take)?
- Are most of your committed people on board with your new mission direction, and passionate about it—and if not, what steps will you now take to get them on board and passionate about your dream (write the steps down)?
- Are there any other obstacles you face in so ‘lifting your game’ that you get an increasing flow of people coming to Jesus—and many more growing disciples who reach out to change the world they live in?
As you answer this question, see the latter part of Letter 21, and write down your assessment and the remedial steps you’ll take to complete your transition to a mission church.
Download
Download Issue 22 of the Salvation Army Leadership Letter (PDF, 93KB)