Casting vision and developing a mission is a critical component of every successful leadership strategy. There are many approaches to this process, including the positive and building process Appreciative Inquiry, which focuses on abundance, not scarcity, and possibilities, not barriers.
How might we form a faith community vision that most resembles God's community?
The first aspect seems to be to ensure the vision focuses on loving and worshiping God first, then focusing on loving our neighbor. This can be very difficult for many churches and faith communities who struggle over the details of loving God and worshiping Him rather than focusing on God's grace and the heart of that love and worship. While this is important we are going to assume the faith community has discovered genuine and heartfelt love of God along with authentic worship celebrating differences and passion for God.
How might the church move toward God's community after learning to genuinely worship God and love their neighbor?
The second aspect of God's community represents significant and important challenges on what is the focus and heart of the faith community. There are two steps in this process that are need to build on each other.
- Move from 'I' to 'We'
- Move from 'They to We'
Move 'I' to 'We'
As an individual we are called to humble ourselves and act as servant leaders. As a faith community we are called to look beyond our church / faith community into the broader community which we reside. Sadly many churches fail to make this transition to a 'We' community because energy is focused on the church members and those who may wander into their community that are like them.
Examples of 'I' faith communities:
- churches who open their doors and hope people come inside that are like them
- churches who have facilities like gyms, yet fail to open them to the community youth
- churches whose worship uses words and traditions that form a barrier to new people
- churches whose food ministries do wonderful meals for their own members and the only time the community is welcome are fund raising opportunities
- churches who have small groups forming disciples where no outsiders are invited or welcome
Example of 'We' faith communities:
- churches that go outside their walls to meet people of the community where they live
- churches who open their facilities like gyms to the communities
- churches that offer multiple ways to worship God that invites new people
- churches that focus more of their ministries such as food on people not part of their faith community than their own members
- churches who form discipleship groups and paths focused on those who are not part of the church community, welcoming all seeking knowledge in to the discussion
These are the churches that seek to do God's work outside of the walls of the church. There are few faith communities that effectively and consistently practice this vision that is close and yet not all of God's Community. Most churches are thrilled to be living into this kind of faith community. These are the healthy churches.
Move from 'They to We'
There is another aspect to God's Community. There are people sitting just outside every community that the people and leadership do not believe belong. These people have characteristics that the faith community does not find desirable. These people can be generalized as "them" based on characteristics like education, community position, style of dress, race, ethnic group, sexual orientation, age, gender, culture, political thinking, theology, and religion.
Faith communities that worship and love God along with showing the willingness to serve the community as 'we' outside the church have the need to continually focus on reducing the 'them' found in their community. An example of this might be a youth program in the church that reaches out into the community yet excludes or fails to connect with the 'them' youth - youth that cannot afford the fee or are excluded because of race or ethnic group. Another example might be a church that has food outreach to the community and yet looks down and fails to invite homeless 'them' into their fellowship.
What is your vision? How do you worship and love God while loving your neighbors in the community? How do you are you defined by a 'we' not 'I' community? How are you focused on reducing the 'them' in your faith community?
