WHEN A CHURCH SEES A VISION
I once heard Rabbi Edward Friedman advise a pastor on how to respond to conflict in his church. At the time, a popular subject for continuing education was how to deal with conflict resolution. Rabbi Friedman suggested that instead of focusing on how to resolve the conflict, a better strategy was to begin preaching vision and hope. As I understand his advice, when people are filled with a vision for what can be, conflicts fade into the background. They become energized about the future. To paraphrase the wisdom of Viktor Frankl, give a person a why and they can endure almost any how, but take away the why, and all barriers become insurmountable.
PREPARING YOURSELF
What is the vision that you have for your church community?
See if you can write ten short sentences describing God’s call for your congregation.
Look at your list, and refine it until you are satisfied.
BE THE SPIRITUAL LEADER
Looking at your ten statements, identify a key theological issue that undergirds each of your ten statements.
Take your ten statements and theological rationale to your governing body.
You might even send it out in advance so that they can think about them.
At your meeting, work with them to refine the ten statements into a vision for the church that they can support. They can change, alter, or add to the statements but each must be accompanied with a theological rationale. Your goal together is to envision steps towards a more faithful congregation.
IT’S TEAMWORK TIME
Working with your leadership, agree on four of the theological issues that you will develop in sermons to the congregation.
Identify one Sunday each month that you will focus on each issue.
Ask the Elders to provide personal feedback and
Ask them to keep their ears open to other people´s responses.
Together identify questions and areas that can be developed further in future sermons, though not necessarily in that month.
At the end of this four month journey, discuss with the session whether you would like to continue to work together to identify issues of faith as a team.
As an additional twist, the congregation can be informed about this team project of pastor and leadership. You can share some of the issues that have been developed, and encourage feedback.
SEEKING TO FOLLOW
GOD’S CALL
Note a critical feature in this process. What you are asking the session, and perhaps the congregation, is to focus on is the witness of the church and the spiritual development of the membership. By deliberately shifting the attention to the theological issues underlying the issues, you are asking people to ponder what God wants and not just personal preferences.
If the pastor is feeling in tension with the Session, he or she may at first feel reluctant to enter in to this experience. I would suggest there are two advantages to taking the risk.
First, you are still the one developing the sermon but this will allow you to focus in on areas of understanding that need to be developed. They are not suggesting what you say but only the doctrine or area of faith that you should address.
Second, by engaging them in this process, they, and perhaps the congregation, will listen with different ears and will have an investment in the overall vision that you are developing.
IMAGINING GOD’S DREAM
Imagine the impact is a whole congregation can be excited about what God is doing among them. Like Israel and the early church, it won’t always be perfect among the people, but the vision can keep pulling the community forward and the disciples can continually grow in faith.
