It is common for us to talk about “having” a vision” for our congregation? In fact, often church consultants are asked to help congregations “have” a vision–statement.
Without offering a judgement, I do want to offer a perspective.
I would simply state that a vision is not something you merely “have.”
We all know that no matter how laminated that vision statement of your congregation may be, no matter how often it appears in an order of service or an annual report, this vision statement does nothing.
We do!
Having Is Not the Same as Being
At the risk of sounding too esoteric I want to point out that in our culture we often confuse “having” and “being.” We often define ourselves by what we “have.” We are hardly aware of how this confusion of language impacts our individual or corporate souls.
Erich Fromm addresses this confusion in one of his books, Having and Being. Let me hold up one of his examples:
To say, ‘I have great love for you,’ is meaningless. Love is not a thing that one can have, but a process, an inner activity that one is the subject of. I can love, I can be in love, but in loving, I have nothing. (To Have and to Be, p. 19).
Likewise, If we simply put a big checkmark next to the item, “Have a congregational vision,” we might just be limiting ourselves by this confusion of verbs to understanding that vision is not a possession. It is enacting and becoming in a particular direction that is worthy of our best efforts.
The Point Is
I experienced this confusion around “having” and “being” a vision most poignantly one day, when in a religious organization where I once worked, the senior department head announced with as much fanfare as he could muster, “We now have a vision for our organization!” Imagine a lame drumroll in the background as each staff member dutifully received a copy of “the vision” of the organization. It was beautifully enshrined in a spiral bound booklet, of course with a laminated cover!
Sadly, although we now “had a vision,” it lacked momentum.
Little effort had been made to gather the wisdom and stir the imaginations of those who were and would be actually working day-to-day to enact on behalf of our constituencies what we could be and would become.
This experience opened my eyes—and so, you might say, I “had” vision from that day on!
So What Then?
It is clear to me that “having” a vision, no matter how articulate or snappy it is, in and of itself, does not engage a congregation in “being” that vision.
The visioning process I have found most effective in helping members be their vision includes bringing together representatives of the whole system of a congregation or organization together to review the past, assess present challenges, discern deeply and develop a common vision with the steps that participating members choose to own and commit to achieving.
The delivery method of “the vision” from on high, that I have experienced sadly enough more than once, reminds me of Moses running up and down Mount Sinai a few times to try to convince the people, “This is it!”
The reception he received in this delivery method is often the same as similar approaches in contemporary organizations: a lack of real ownership and participation can leads to passivity and low spirit (or morale). It is hard to “be the change we want to see”—if you haven’t even been in the conversation.
So if you crave a congregational vision, I’d suggest asking preliminary questions such as these:
- Why now?
- What outcomes are you seeking?
- What are the critical questions that want to be addressed?
- How will you connect who you have been, with who you are, to what you feel called to be?
- What inklings do you already have of the future that wants to emerge here?
- Who needs to be in the room?
- What way can we build ownership and commitment to what comes forth from our conversations along the way and beyond the visioning process?
All too often, congregations have the energy for wordsmithing a vision, but no energy and momentum to embody the vision in their day to day decisions and activities.
Fortunately, there are some great exceptions to this as well.
In those exceptions vision “is not a thing that one can have, but a process,” an inner corporate activity that is enacted in the day to day recommitting to what a congregation feels called to be and to become.
So when we consider a vision for our congregation or organization, we might heed these words of social ethicist, James Luther Adams:
“We deny the immaculate conception of virtue and affirm the necessity of social incarnation.”