If you were to ask ten people in your congregation what your church's vision is, what would they say? How about ten random people in the community? I always loved Andy Stanley’s definition of vision:
“Vision is a mental picture of what could be, fueled by a passion that it should be.”
One of the most important roles that the lead pastor has is to continually paint this mental picture in the mind of people in the church. Most pastors I’ve met have a vision, but it tends to be far too small. Rick Warren has some great insight on this over at ChurchLeaders.com in his article titled: “How Big Is Your Vision? 3 Determining Factors.” Here is just a portion from that post:
Most of us overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can do in 10 years or 20 years. The trouble with most goal setting is we set our goals too low and try to accomplish them too soon.
Instead, we need to set big goals, huge goals, enormous goals, but plan on plenty of time in getting there. I tell everyone who comes on staff with us, “We don’t expect a miracle overnight. Let’s build.” We’re not interested in building a mushroom. We’re interested in building an oak tree. A mushroom takes 12 hours to grow; an oak tree takes 60 years. But an oak tree is going to last.
Check out the rest of the article HERE
