Notes for Reflection: Leadership and Vision in Congregational Life
Prepared by Dr. W. Craig Gilliam
Tell me, what are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?
Poet, Mary Oliver
I offer the following random reflections on vision and congregational life. They grow out of two catalysts. First, vision is something I get asked about regularly and when the topic arises among ministers, I am always amazed by the tension and high exchange the word creates. Second, I find that in many churches who are in conflict with which I have worked, a common characteristic is that they do not have a common vision. Thus, I write the following random reflection on vision, hoping it will offer some food for thought, reflection and discussion and from it, you can take something you can use as you minister in your context.
Vision offers the community or organization vitality. If a sailor has no destination – no clear idea of where to go-the sailboat meanders or stay a drift. The sailor needs a destination in order to adjust the sails in relation to the winds. Communities are no different. Without a destination (vision), their responses are random, habitual, or meaningless. Communities with a vision set their sails. Leaders are sailors
· All forms of matter strive to organize into relationship. There is a pervasive search for connections.
· The congregation is an expression of the search for connectedness and purpose.
· Vision and mission are essential to the health and vitality of any emotional system/congregation.
· What is mission and vision? Mission reflects who we are; vision is who we are becoming. Vision has to do not only with seeing further, but seeing more deeply into . . .Seeing what others do not see . . .
· All healthy relationship systems exist in a creative tension between vision and reality.
Application of Five Principles to Vision:
The five principles are:
· Whoever shows up are the right people
· Whatever happens is what needs to happen.
· Whenever it happens is the right time
· To be open to God, whose middle name is Surprise!
· When it’s over, it’s over.
First Principal—Whoever Shows Up Are the Right People
reminds us that becoming inspired, electrified and turned on by any vision is always a matter of personal choice. A vision forced or coerced is a vision killed. Vision, after all, is a question and aninvitation to fulfillment.
Second Principle—Whatever Happens Is What Needs to Happen.
Visions (like parents) that specify end results in detail are bound to be frustrated. Big visions can’t be too tight. Such visions become limitations and not evocations. Good visions are big, attractive and do-able.
Third Principle—Whenever It Happens Is the Right Time.
Vision does not occur in time, but rather time occurs in the context of vision. When vision strikes, it creates its own time, and that is one of the ways that we know it is real vision, and not just a flash in the pan.
Fourth Principle—Be open to God, whose middle name is Surprise!
Vision sometimes emerges from the most unusual places, spaces, conversations, and situations. Surprise is often its middle name. The God who speaks. . .
Visions have a life span, and when it is over, it is over. Certainly visions may be renewed, or sustained, but there comes a time when a particular vision simply runs out of steam, and its capacity to focus Spirit wanes and ceases. That is true in the record of scientific visions, as the Ptolemaic picture of the universe gave way to Copernicus, from thence to Newton, and on to the quantum theorists. Each, in its own time, created a frame of reference from which to make sense out of what was going on in the world. Then the exception appeared and the anomalies grew. It was not that the vision no longer was true, it simply lacked the power to focus Spirit. When it is over, it is over.
Vision serves as a compass for a congregation. It helps us determine how to spend our time and resources. I believe one of the greatest pathologies of current congregations and other organizations is that we spend far too much time on things that are irrelevant to what we are really about, for what our purpose is. In fact, many times, things we are ask to do by our system(s) sabotages our deeper purpose. The ongoing question is: How does what we are considering impact the future we are called to create? How does this issue (whatever that is at the moment) serve to move us in the direction of our future? If not, why are we spending so much time on it?
Additional Comments on Vision:
Harrison Owens speaks of vision as having three qualities—“They are big, attractive, and do-able. Big is not a question of being grandiose, but rather commodious. The vision must be big enough to actually gather all the Spirit inside. Obviously spatial talk is not really appropriate when speaking of Spirit, but it may get the idea across. The point is that the vision must be large enough to provide room, and more, for all the folks who are likely to participate. There must be space for all the essential points of view, frames of reference, skills, occupations or whatever. When vision is too small, it is exclusive, and the power of vision to gather Spirit will be vitiated from the start, no matter how good or exciting the vision may be.”
Vision is always just beyond the words and the statement, not captured in them. If it can be captured in language, it is not big enough. In fact, some of the most profound visions I have heard articulated and seen lived out have been in prayers, questions, poetry and metaphors. I have come to believe that metaphors are great ways to articulate visions, for they hold together the opposites of knowing and not-knowing, of safety and risk-taking. As Sam Keen once said, “Metaphors are openings into a thicket revealing a path that leads farther into the darkening wood than we can see with the naked eye.”
Not only must vision be big enough for all the parishioners, as they are at the moment, there must also be plenty of room to grow. Vision is never an answer, but always a question or prayer which initiates a quest toward the fulfillment of the participants. It is a journey which elicits the best that everybody has, and simultaneously provides the space in which they might become infinitely more than they ever imagined. Certainly a vision must have a focus, just as a journey must have a destination, but when the journey’s end is totally known in advance, it is scarcely worthwhile undertaking.
Mystery, awe, and uncertainty are experienced in the presence of a powerful vision, which also usually means the presence of fear. In extreme cases, fear may prevent some from entering into the vision, and it may well be that they should not go on the journey; but unless the tingle of fear is known somewhere at the beginning, there is a strong likelihood, indeed absolute certainty, that the vision is too small. Tame visions go nowhere.
There is not a right or wrong way to write a vision. It is always around what the community produces—for what happens is what needs to happen. The litmus test is does it work for the community? Can the community live with it, be challenged and inspired by it? Does it define the communities’ values, culture, spirit and soul?
In the words of Paul Lederach, “Who are we in this particular place and what is the nature of this place where we are located—figure prominently in strategic work. Who are we to this neighborhood, town or city or country?” or “What is the deep character of this place (locality), and how might God be calling us to contribute to that character?”
The futurist, Joel Barker, stated, “The biggest problems for most organizations and individuals is not that we dream to big, but that our dreams and visions are too small.”
Gil Rendel and Alice Mann comment on vision statements:
“A vision statement is a word picture of what our congregation would look like if we were, in fact, able to fulfill our mission statement. . . It includes hints of the criteria by which we will measure our ministry by describing what will be different about us in three to five years. Vision statements are descriptive and therefore usually not as brief and concise as mission statements. They draw a picture of a future that is sufficiently rich detail to offer some direction and guidance for the trip.”
1. Axiomatic: What is self-evident for all congregations or all congregations of a particular denomination.
2. Unique: What is important to the particular congregation because of who it is, where it is located, and the historical moment it is in—all of which separates this particular congregation from other congregations of other locations, gifts, and times.
Agree or disagree, we invite you into the conversation!
QUOTES ON VISION
“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.” Yogi Berra
“ You don’t invent your mission, you detect it.” Victor Frankl
“If any one idea about leadership has inspired organizations for thousands of years, it is the capacity to hold a shared picture of the future we seek to create.” Peter Senge
“If your line of vision is even with the floor, you can starve to death in a full pantry.” Leland Kaiser
“How do we deal with self-interest and deceit that seem currently to be the keys to success? From my experience they cannot be dealt with directly. If an institution is governed by a shared vision—one that points the institution towards greatness—it seems to me that negative forces will gradually be submerged. But they will always be there to threaten if the leadership is not powerful enough in keeping the governing vision always in clear focus. I believe we have an apt analogy in the human body. All the destructive organisms we know about are probably present in most people most of the time. They only take over when we get sick, when our immune defenses are not sufficient. Vision—a widely shared vision—is the immune defense system of an institution. Trustees are needed to supply a complementary gift of vision that is absolutely essential to the long-run health of an institution.” Robert Greenleaf
“And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain upon tablets, so he [or she] may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” Habakkuk 2:2,3
Where there is no vision, the people parish. Proverbs 29:18
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.
Henry David Thoreau
What I said was this: If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds, people with a new vision. It will not be saved by people with old visions but a new program. . .
Vision is the flowing river. Programs are sticks set in the riverbed to impede its flow. What I’m saying is that the world will be saved because people living in it have a new vision. . .
Programs aren’t forbidden. What’s important is to understand the difference between vision and programs. Programs are inherently reactionary. This doesn’t mean they are bad, it just makes them reactionary, meaning that they always follow, never lead (because they only react to something else). Programs are like first aid. This doesn’t make them bad, it just makes them provisional and temporary. Programs are invariably responses to something bad, which means they must wait for bad things to happen. (Again, this doesn’t make them wicked, it just forever makes them playing catch-up.) By contrast, vision doesn’t wait for something bad to happen, it pursues something desirable. Vision doesn’t oppose, it proposes. It doesn’t stave off defeat, it opens the way to success.
Daniel Quinn
I dwell in possibility.
Emily Dickerson
Rouse up my slow belief—
Give me some vision of the future;
Give me, for once, its prophecy and joy.
Walt Whitman