A few years ago, Cuyahoga Valley Church (CVC) worked with Auxano’s Will Mancini on developing a refreshed vision frame for our church. The graphic at the top of this post describes the various components of the vision frame. You can read more about this in Will's landmark book, Church Unique.
Our fresh articulation is as follows:
Mission: We are inviting people to New Life in Christ.
Measures (the profile of the disciple we are seeking to produce): Beloved Child, Self-feeder, Servant, Investor, Discipler, Missionary
Strategy: Worship, Groups, Service
Passions (Values): Living Truth, God Dependence, Caring Community, Linked Generations, Equipped Leadership, Missional Living
Tag line: Live New!
All these flow from our Kingdom Concept of “Restoring brokenness.”
It took 9 months for us to clarify our vision as a church family. Now, how do we implement it? How do we infuse this vision into the DNA of the church so that these concepts are not just words on a page?
“The visionary cares too much about the message to let it just blow in the wind, unattended. Rather, he grabs his message and affixes it to a kite for all to see. This can only happen with a tremendous amount of intentionality in the complex discipline of church communications” (Will Mancini, Church Unique, p. 221).
We've been seeking to implement our vision over the last 2 1/2 years. From my experience at CVC, here are 20 suggested ways to implement the vision frame into the DNA of your church.
1. Consider organizing ministry staff around the strategy by having a staff champion and team for each part of your strategy.
2. Write, rewrite, or tweak discipleship curriculum to lead people to live out the measures in the context of your values.
3. Insure that your all-staff and leadership gatherings orient, equip, or inspire people regarding some aspect of the frame.
4. Know how your weekend messages and music support some aspect of the vision frame and then be explicit about it in the message and music themselves.
5. Make sure all staff communications – FB, Blogs, Programs, Business Cards, etc. – support vision frame language.
6. Use your tagline often and ask your entire team to do so.
7. Ask staff members and volunteers to blog and tweet vision frame language on personal posts.
8. When personal testimonies are shared, tie them directly to your frame – especially to your measures.
9. Lead all your people to become story collectors and tellers that inspire the missional imagination of your church.
10. Create fun and non-threatening ways to “test” your elders, your staff, your leaders and your people about the components of the vision frame.
11. As you discover, develop, and deploy leaders, use the frame to reinforce vision and to insure effective team chemistry and culture fit.
12. Constantly remind your LifeGroup leaders that they are aiming at producing people in their groups who are actually, intentionally, and purposefully growing in the measures - the marks of discipleship.
13. Make sure you do not have competing brands, titles, and language in various departments. Require all departments to use vision frame language.
14. Consider using podcasts to communicate your vision frame, especially to your leaders.
15. As a team, use the vision frame as a way to evaluate last year and to plan for next year.
16. Make sure your vision connects visually to your logo and visual communications.
17. Use great signage throughout your building to reinforce the vision frame.
18. Experiment with organizing your worship services structurally in a way that reflects your mission, strategy, values, and measures.
19. Empower key staff people – especially in the communications area – to constantly be the “vision police,” but in a fun and empowering way!
20. Remain teachable as others remind you that you may have missed an opportunity to cast vision in a particular communication piece or in a message.
You can read much, much more about implementation in Church Unique, particularly in Chapter 20, Transform The Future: Delivering Vision Daily.
“Spiritual leaders are the carriers of God’s DNA in the church, the shapers of a church’s vision and core values. They are influencers of what the church embodies… The key to radical discipleship is the development of trainer-coaches that carry the DNA to the edges of the movement” (Michael Slaughter, as quoted in Church Unique, p. 215).
1. Consider organizing ministry staff around the strategy by having a staff champion and team for each part of your strategy.
2. Write, rewrite, or tweak discipleship curriculum to lead people to live out the measures in the context of your values.
3. Insure that your all-staff and leadership gatherings orient, equip, or inspire people regarding some aspect of the frame.
4. Know how your weekend messages and music support some aspect of the vision frame and then be explicit about it in the message and music themselves.
5. Make sure all staff communications – FB, Blogs, Programs, Business Cards, etc. – support vision frame language.
6. Use your tagline often and ask your entire team to do so.
7. Ask staff members and volunteers to blog and tweet vision frame language on personal posts.
8. When personal testimonies are shared, tie them directly to your frame – especially to your measures.
9. Lead all your people to become story collectors and tellers that inspire the missional imagination of your church.
10. Create fun and non-threatening ways to “test” your elders, your staff, your leaders and your people about the components of the vision frame.
11. As you discover, develop, and deploy leaders, use the frame to reinforce vision and to insure effective team chemistry and culture fit.
12. Constantly remind your LifeGroup leaders that they are aiming at producing people in their groups who are actually, intentionally, and purposefully growing in the measures - the marks of discipleship.
13. Make sure you do not have competing brands, titles, and language in various departments. Require all departments to use vision frame language.
14. Consider using podcasts to communicate your vision frame, especially to your leaders.
15. As a team, use the vision frame as a way to evaluate last year and to plan for next year.
16. Make sure your vision connects visually to your logo and visual communications.
17. Use great signage throughout your building to reinforce the vision frame.
18. Experiment with organizing your worship services structurally in a way that reflects your mission, strategy, values, and measures.
19. Empower key staff people – especially in the communications area – to constantly be the “vision police,” but in a fun and empowering way!
20. Remain teachable as others remind you that you may have missed an opportunity to cast vision in a particular communication piece or in a message.
You can read much, much more about implementation in Church Unique, particularly in Chapter 20, Transform The Future: Delivering Vision Daily.
“Spiritual leaders are the carriers of God’s DNA in the church, the shapers of a church’s vision and core values. They are influencers of what the church embodies… The key to radical discipleship is the development of trainer-coaches that carry the DNA to the edges of the movement” (Michael Slaughter, as quoted in Church Unique, p. 215).
If you need help in developing and implementing a clear and compelling vision frame for your church, please contact me at rick@auxano.com to be your Lead Navigator through the Auxano Vision Frame process. I'd love to see how I might serve you. Or reach out to another Lead Navigator for Auxano. You can find the Auxano team contact information here: Auxano Staff.
Question: What are some unique ways that you have sought to deliver your vision to your congregation?
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Leveraging the leadership transition at your church for growth
An indispensable ingredient in creating a contagious church
Question: What are some unique ways that you have sought to deliver your vision to your congregation?
Related posts:
Leveraging the leadership transition at your church for growth
An indispensable ingredient in creating a contagious church
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