Is Vision Casting A Waste Of Time?

Pastors chiefly rely on inspiration and encouragement to move people to advance the church’s agenda. One of the main ways to do this is vision casting. Vision casting is meant to motivate the church toward a preferable future and one cannot attend a pastor’s conference without someone speaking on vision. Mega-church pastor Andy Stanley, Visioneering, writes, “Vision evokes emotion. There is no such thing as emotionless vision. . . . Vision provides motivation. . . . Vision-driven people are motivated people.” So we cast the vision in hope that the church will catch it, grow and advance the Kingdom of God.
However, Jim Collins in Good to Great, writes, “Doesn’t motivation flow chiefly from a compelling vision? The answer, surprisingly, is, ‘No.’ Not because vision is unimportant, but because expending energy trying to motivate people is largely a waste of time. One of the dominant themes that runs throughout this book is that if you successfully implement its findings, you will not need to spend the energy “motivating” people. If you have the right people on the bus, they will be self-motivated.” For Collins, having the “right people on the bus” means having the right people in the key leadership positions of your organization (see more below, “Small Church”).
Admittedly, Jim Collins is writing for the business community not the church, and we recognize pastors are not CEOs. But where does that leave us? Is vision casting still “largely a waste of time.” Vision doesn’t last precisely because it is based on emotion. Even Andy Stanley has a chapter on how to maintain the vision because he knows vision dissipates.
Maybe the bigger question is why Christians are not self-motivated toward advancing the Kingdom of God through their church?
What has been your experience with vision casting? Is it largely a waste of time? Is there anything better a pastor can do?

Big Screen Church

A recent church conference focused on the growing number of mega-churches expanding their influence through satellite churches, and we mean satellite. Mega-churches are planting new sites 20 or more miles from their main campus, and via satellite, broadcasting the sermon portion of the service to these off-campus sites. These new sites have many of the advantages of the home mega-church. They have their local pastor, youth minister, music and drama performers, small groups, etc. The Sunday morning worship is all live and in-person on the site, but the sermon is a broadcast on the big screen from the mega-church.
This is not your usual church planting. Mega-churches are not particularly interested in placing these new sites in unchurched areas. For example, Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, Illinois placed one of its sites less than half a mile from another evangelical church that is itself 1000 people. However, there are probably several hundred (thousand?) people from that area who travel 20 miles or more to attend the main Willow Creek campus each Sunday. Placing a satellite church there made sense.
Another church, LifeChurch.tv (yes, that is the name) in Oklahoma City has nine different locations around the city and has an off-campus site as far away as Phoenix, Arizona. Through this format it reaches 13,000 people each week in 40 different services. Again, each site has its own pastor/worship leader, praise band etc. with only the sermon broadcast from the main campus.
These are just two examples. Where is this going? What are the implications? Will we all eventually be going to one of three different churches?

Hope For The Small Church?

A wise elderly pastor once told me, “Small churches are small for a reason.” Now the reasons may be quite varied. For example, I’ve been in the farm country of Iowa, where there may be no more than a hundred people within 10 miles of a church. Also, a church may be in an area that is over-churched, or in a section of a city that is particularly resistant to the Gospel. Or, in many cases there is a lazy/uninspired approach to evangelism mixed with an “us four, no more” closed-minded attitude. Unfortunately, the church people in the last scenario may not think of themselves that way—they are blind to their exclusivity.
The question is, “Is there hope for the small church?” That is, “Is there hope for it to grow, to become an ever increasing force for the Kingdom in its area?” My answer is, no; there is no hope for the small church to become more than it is. But, let me qualify my answer. I’m not writing about the new church plant that may be small at this time but has momentum and energy for evangelism. I’m not referring to the small church that may be fortunate enough to be in a location that is growing and by “dumb luck” (not a theological term) finds itself increasing, too. I’m also aware that the Holy Spirit can do miraculous things, but the Spirit uses us, and too many in the church are not open to the Spirit working in their lives. The sheer number of small churches (plateaued or decreasing) is testimony to their resistance to the Spirit’s promptings. Again, this is not to say the small church is of no use at all, but if it has no mind to grow (anybody remember the great commission?) its usefulness to the kingdom is minimal at best. Unless a small church has a massive Spirit-filled renewal, there is no hope.
But, I believe the small church is small for more practical reasons. Its leadership.
Author Jim Collins in Good to Great (and its follow up monograph for the social sector) examines several companies that have made the jump from being good to being great and the principles/people/culture that got them there. As we cannot take space to review the whole book, I would encourage you to read it and make your own comparisons to the church. I only draw your attention to a couple items that may apply to the small church’s problem, that is, why it stays small.
First, good to great companies have “Level 5” leaders—“ambitious first and foremost for the cause . . . fierce resolve to do whatever it takes to make good on that ambition. . . . (and) a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.”
Second, “those who build great organizations make sure they have the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the key seats before they figure out where to drive the bus.”
Third is a culture of discipline, “disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and who take disciplined action.”
Herein lies the problem for the small church. Even if we assume the pastor is a level 5 leader, which may be a great leap of faith, the problem lies with the people on the bus (lay leadership in the church) and a more casual, i.e. undisciplined, approach to church leadership by lay leaders. The average small church has only one person whose job it is to think about the church on a regular basis. Even if we assume the pastor is a Level 5 leader, he may not have the right lay leaders on the bus much less in the right seats. And, even if he does, lay leaders do not have the luxury of putting in the time needed to move the small church toward something greater. The difficulty is compounded when there is resistance to leadership among the congregation.
Large churches on the other hand pay to have the right people in the right seats on the bus. There may be an elder board with oversight, but the paid staff moves the agenda (disciplined culture). And, with larger churches, come more people and volunteers interested in evangelism, discipleship, leadership and a seeker sensitive church philosophy. Any resistance to the direction given by leadership can be largely ignored.
The advantages of a multiple staff in the large church cannot be underestimated. The disadvantages of relying on lay leaders, distracted by their own family/work life, are enormous. The disadvantages are insurmountable if the lay leadership is not the right people in the right seats on the bus. The smaller the church is, the greater the chance of not having enough of the right people. Not everyone has a gift for leadership or evangelism. Small churches are small for a reason.
Now that we are either depressed or angry, and not wishing to contradict everything I have already said, let’s at least try to end on a positive note.
What can we say to the small church? Assuming a measure of openness to the Spirit, what can be done?
1. Start small. Focus on one thing at a time and draw attention to a small victory. Build on it.
2. Invest in leadership training.
3. If the church has been small for a length of time, consider erasing the chalkboard and starting over. How would we look if we were new? If we were a church plant? How do we break out of our church culture (inward focused, prideful, etc.) and meet the postmodern culture around us?
4. Think larger in the sense of merger. If three or four small churches in an area are supporting full and/or part-time staff, what might they do together? Co-Pastors? Leadership Team?
5. Collins, Good to Great, would add, “Retain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be.”
6. Realize that it is the work of ministry that is meaningful, not the size of the church; and . . .
What might you add? Do you even agree with the assessment or conclusions above?

Twenty Somethings Do Not Always Return

Barna research studies the spiritual commitment of twentysomethings as they encounter the clutter of life. These are some of the main points:

... despite strong levels of spiritual activity during the teen years, most twentysomethings disengage from active participation in the Christian faith during their young adult years – and often beyond that. In total, six out of ten twentysomethings were involved in a church during their teen years, but have failed to translate that into active spirituality during their early adulthood...

...the most potent data regarding disengagement is that a majority of twentysomethings – 61% of today’s young adults – had been churched at one point during their teen years but they are now spiritually disengaged (i.e., not actively attending church, reading the Bible, or praying). Only one-fifth of twentysomethings (20%) have maintained a level of spiritual activity consistent with their high school experiences. Another one-fifth of teens (19%) were never significantly reached by a Christian community of faith during their teens and have remained disconnected from the Christian faith...

...Even the traditional impulse of parenthood – when people’s desire to supply spiritual guidance for their children pulls them back to church – is weakening. The new research pointed out that just one-third of twentysomethings who are parents regularly take their children to church, compared with two-fifths of parents in their thirties and half of parents who are 40-years-old or more.

...David Kinnaman, the director of the research, pointed out, “There is considerable debate about whether the disengagement of twentysomethings is a lifestage issue ... – or whether it is unique to this generation...this debate misses the point, which is that the current state of ministry to twentysomethings is woefully inadequate to address the spiritual needs of millions of young adults. These individuals are making significant life choices...while churches wait... for them to return after college or when the kids come... ”

...Loyalty to congregations is one of the casualties of young adulthood: twentysomethings were nearly 70% more likely than older adults to strongly assert that if they “cannot find a local church that will help them become more like Christ, then they will find people and groups that will, and connect with them instead of a local church.” They are also significantly less likely to believe that “a person’s faith in God is meant to be developed by involvement in a local church.”

"....There are certainly effective youth ministries across the country, but the levels of disengagement among twentysomethings suggest that youth ministry fails too often at discipleship and faith formation. A new standard for viable youth ministry should be – not the number of attenders, the sophistication of the events, or the ‘cool’ factor of the youth group – but whether teens have the commitment, passion and resources to pursue Christ intentionally and whole-heartedly after they leave the youth ministry nest.”

Source: The Barna Group, LTD 2006