Vision

The all-church survey is in, and we're sifting through the results. Great feedback from not a few responders, so thanks to all of you for putting your thoughts into words and sharing them with us. The elders had a meeting earlier this week to discuss the results, and will spend this Friday and Saturday combing through it all, collecting ideas from personal interviews I have conducted, taking in the various elders discussions throughout the year and prayerfully considering where to set our sights for 2011.

Developing "vision" is a common practice for organizations, religious or secular, to focus limited resources in the face of unlimited possibilities. There are so many good things we could do - the question is what should we do at this time? A vision statement brings that focus. Even from looking only at your comments in the survey, there are far more good ideas that we could do than we have time and resource for. Some good ideas are good ideas for us now, some good ideas are good ideas for us at a later time, and some good ideas are good ideas for someone else. (And, of course we could come up with any number of bad ideas!)

Our "vision" statement will be a statement that helps us focus the energies of each ministry toward a common, single, clear purpose. It is a statement that should be unique to Grace Fellowship, in the sense that it is what we should focus on, without any suggestion that other churches should focus on. Our vision is what our church's unique contribution should be in the Kingdom of God.

Our "mission" statement, however, is not the same thing as our vision statement. A mission statement is bigger than a vision statement. A vision statement is usually good for a period of time, whereas a mission statement remains constant throughout the organization's lifespan. I believe that every church in the world has the same mission - it was a mission that Jesus gave us, called the Great Commission:

Matthew 28:18 Then Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 28:19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 28:20 teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Every church has the same mission, and therefore the same mission statement. We should all be working toward this mission of making disciples of all nations, under the authority of Christ.

Our "vision" statement is the unique proclamation that says how this particular church intends to add to the overall mission that we share.

Please pray for your elders as they prayerfully develop a vision for our church.