How to Facilitate a Biblical Mission/Vision Process, Part 3
Note: You’re reading Part 3 in an RPM Ministries’ blog mini-series on local church mission/vision. Read Part 1: Not Your Father’s Vision Process. And Part 2: Capturing Your Biblical Calling. I’ve developed this material from my book Equipping Counselors for Your Church.
Discover Your Unique Ministry Purpose
In Part 2, we learned about the biblical mission process. Now in Part 3, we move from the universal mission of every church to the unique ministry of your specific local congregation in your particular community.
Vision: Your Unique Ministry Dream and DNA—Your Fingerprint
In the envisioning process, you travel from the present (mission) to the future (vision). You move from the universal and biblical (mission) to the unique and contextual (vision).
Your mission focuses on the purpose of your church or ministry, while your vision focuses on the projected future state of your church or ministry. You ask, “How do we move forward as we advance His mission? How has God shaped us to complete His mission?”
It is helpful to picture vision as a future dream that seeks to glimpse a better future. When Disney opened the Epcot Center in Florida, someone leaned over to Mike Vance, Creative Director of Disney Studios, and whispered, “It’s really too bad that Walt didn’t live to see this.” To which Vance replied, “He did see it. That’s why it’s here.” 
To focus on this better future, vision statements seek to finish the sentence: It is our dream to…
It also helps to see vision as a church’s DNA or fingerprint. No two are alike. That is why in the vision process we ask, “How does our unique congregation use its distinctive gift-mix to fulfill our special calling in our specific community?” It is also why I have launched three very different biblical counseling ministries in three very different congregations.
Vision answers are idiosyncratic—they apply uniquely to your congregational ministry team in your setting. Vision orients your congregation to your sovereign gifting and to the profound thirst of your community.
You determine your ministry vision by prayerfully and jointly pondering your congregational SWORD Heart Exam, your community diagnosis, and your biblical mission. At Uniontown Bible Church, as we walked through this process, we co-created a vision statement that united our congregation around the following jointly pursued future dream.
Our Uniontown Bible Church Vision Statement
It is our DREAM to be a dynamic family, creatively and relevantly sharing Christ’s grace with our neighbors in Carroll County and beyond. We will skillfully equip one another through small group and one-another discipleship ministries that empower us to build loving relationships that last through all the storms of life.
Passion: Your Captivating Ministry Identity and Imprint—Your Heartbeat
Mission is our universal calling—where God wants us. Vision is our unique future—where God is leading us. Passion is our captivating identity—who we are as we serve Christ together.
Picture passion as a pithy phrase capturing and communicating the essence of who we are as we fulfill God’s calling and our ministry dream.
Passion communicates what we will die for and therefore what we will live for. Passion is our ultimate purpose statement. For my ministry, RPM Ministries, I have captured it as: Changing Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth. For my life, I have pictured it with one word: Coach. I am writing this book because the passion of my life is to coach people to coach others.
Passion statements answer the question, “How do we convey our mission and vision in a compelling way?” Passion answers are creative, imaginative, and memorable. Passion statements typically develop out of a time of prayerful joint pondering where someone has something of an “Aha experience.”
For our church, after three months of studying our biblical mission and of catching God’s vision, one of our deacons had just such an experience. “We’ve been praying about this and thinking about this. Last night on the way home, it hit me. What do you think of this? A Loving Place to Grow in Grace.” We didn’t have to do much more thinking. That caught the essence of who we wanted to be as we moved into the future for God’s glory. As one of our elders said, “That’s it! That’s us!”
Our Uniontown Bible Church Passion Statement
A Loving Place to Grow in Grace
Commission: Your Strategic Ministry Action Plan—Your MAP
In my consulting ministry, I have found that few people start with a mission process that is focused on biblical theology. I have also discovered that most churches end the process before the commission statement. The lack of a biblical foundation is a major reason some churches resist even starting an envisioning process. The lack of a strategic plan (commission statement) is a primary cause for some churches sensing that the envisioning process was wasted time.
The commission statement addresses how, in practice, you fulfill the mission, vision, and passion. That explains why I place the hyphen after the MVP and before the C. A well-crafted commission statement maps out how we become an MVP ministry.
A commission statement provides the strategy for how you will get from here to there, how you will “pull it off,” and how you will keep your ministry going and growing. Picture the commission statement as a signpost, directional markers, or a GPS. It is your MAP—Ministry Action Plan.
I find it instructive that Jesus provided exactly such a map for His disciples. Jesus fulfilled His mission by preaching and teaching the good news (Matthew 9:35). He pursued His vision as He saw the crowds and had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). He followed His passion of being the Chief Shepherd by calling His disciples to become under-shepherds (Matthew 9:37-38).
Then Jesus did something that we sometimes miss. “These twelve he sent out with the following instructions” (Matthew 10:5a). For the next thirty-seven verses Jesus drew His disciples a map—a ministry action plan. He organized the organism. He ad-ministrated the ministry. To His relational and spontaneous compassion, Jesus added a relational and specific commission.
Our commission, like His, should answer questions such as, “What is our strategy? What is our action plan? How are we going to work cooperatively to fulfill God’s call?” Commission answers are practical while remaining big picture. They don’t describe every step (that’s more tactical than strategic). Instead, they outline the journey by providing sign posts. To convey this practical-yet-broad perspective, commission statements strive to complete the sentence: We will seek to fulfill our mission, vision, and passion through…
At our church, we crafted our commission as follows.
Our Uniontown Bible Church Commission Statement
We will seek to fulfill our MVP through mutually overseeing the equipping of God’s family as servant leaders, modeling maturity, mentoring disciple-makers, managing ministers and ministries, and mending the flock.
We will mutually equip one another to lovingly evangelize the community for Christ, we will encourage the congregation toward vital connection with Christ and the Body of Christ, and we will empower one another to become makers of disciple-makers.
The Rest of the Story
Join us in Part 4 where we explain: 7 Wrong Influences on Church Decision-Making.
Join the Conversation
How would developing a unique vision, passion, and commission statement impact your ministry?
RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
