Vision Statement

I currently serve as the Transitional Pastor of Westport Baptist Church in Westport, Indiana. It is a great church with a rich history. We recently completed a process by which we were seeking to discern God's vision for the church as it moves forward. A number of people participated in the process. We had some great discussions as we sought to understand what God wanted us to be and do in the years ahead. As we came to the end of our discussion and discernment process we identified the following vision statement. "Our church will be a vibrant, inviting place to be. The congregation will have opportunity to fellowship with and learn from each other as well as other community members through small groups, outreach and other ministries based on community needs."

This seems like a simple statement, but it is packed with a lot of depth and challenges to our traditional church. I plan to spend several weeks addressing the various components in this statement to our congregation and invite them to begin living into this vision. If we will do so it can have a tremendous impact on our church as well as the community around us.

One of the key items in the statement is its focus on the community. There is definitely a discipleship element in the statement, but it has a major focus on those in our community who are hurting and do not yet have a relationship with Jesus Christ. We will be looking for those existing ministry opportunities that are not being addressed by other churches in the area and seeking how we can bring God's healing to those opportunities.

The challenge for us, as for all churches, is to not allow this to just become another statement of things we should do. Some churches have gone through the process of vision discernment, and when it was completed they had a statement that sits on a shelf gathering dust. A vision only impacts a church and community when the church lives in that vision. My prayer is that we will take this vision and use it as we make decisions regarding ministries, staffing, finances and all other decisions that affect the church. We must come to the place where if something is proposed that fits into the vision it is automatically given a green light. Conversely, we must be able to say no to those things that are outside the vision.

Living into a vision can become very messy. Organizations will always attempt to revert back to the comfort of what they know, and the church is no different. It is vital that churches not allow that to happen. God is doing a new thing today, and churches need to be a part of that. I do not pretend to know what this new thing is going to look like when we come through the other side, but I know church ministry is much different than it was when I began 40 years ago, and I'm excited to be allowed to be part of this transition.

Does your church have a sense of God's vision for your church's future ministry, or are you stuck doing the same things you've been doing for decades? Discerning a fresh vision is not easy, and it's even more difficult to begin living into it, but if we want our churches to have a future ministry it's imperative that we identify His vision.