Seeking God's direction

 Since August of last year I have been serving as the Transitional Pastor of a wonderful church. It's been an interesting challenge trying to serve a church during a pandemic, but things have gone very well. It is a great congregation that met the various challenges presented by the pandemic and has continued serving its membership and the community. Like many churches, we are seeing things begin to open up. This past Sunday a number of members returned for the first time since the Covid hit.

Now, the church is ready to face another challenge...the calling of a new pastor. At our last business meeting a search team was created who will soon meet with a representative of our region and begin the process of seeking new pastoral leadership. This is always an exciting time in the life of a congregation and also a challenging, and even a little scary time.

One of the ways I will help the church during this period is leading them through a vision discernment process. It's a mistake for a church to wait until they get a pastor who will "give them a vision for ministry." It's far better for a church to understand God's vision for their church and then explain that to prospective candidates and ask them how they will be able to help them achieve that vision.

Our first congregation-wide session is scheduled and will focus on the Core Values of the church. The second session will identify the Bedrock Beliefs of the congregation. It's important to begin with these two as God's vision for the church will always be congruent with its Core Values and Bedrock Beliefs. Once we've identified these two elements we will be ready to spend a day attempting to discern what God has been saying to us through the process. We pray that we will identify a clear vision from God for the future ministry of the church.

Sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn't. In either case, going through the process is helpful to a church. It gives them an opportunity to examine things about their church that perhaps they've not discussed in years, if ever. It gives them some new common language. Sometimes it resurrects old issues that still simmer beneath the surface and occasionally create problems. These can then be addressed.

After working with hundreds of churches over the years as a regional leader and conference speaker I'm convinced that few churches have a clear sense of vision. They repeat what they've done for decades hoping that eventually something good will happen. They go through the motions of doing ministry without any real sense of purpose. As I often say in my conferences, a church without a clear, unifying vision is like an octopus on roller skates - you might have a lot of movement, but you're not going anywhere.

Does your church have a common vision that is understood by everyone who attends there? Does it influence the decision making in your congregation? Is it clearly reflected in your budget and ministries? When was the last time it was reviewed? How often is it communicated to the congregation? Some believe that it should be shared with the congregation about once a month to help remind everyone and to make sure the church is on track to accomplish that vision. That seems like a good idea because it's easy to forget the vision while dealing with all the daily needs. It's important to always keep the big picture in front of the congregation to ensure everyone is focused on what God wants to do in and through the life of the church.