Mission Vision: The Secret Sauce of All Effective Missional Endeavors (part 2)
A 2-part special on how to set the mission vision for your missional community
Before you read this post, make sure you’ve first read Part 1 on Mission Vision
Some General Mission Vision Thoughts
If you have a bunch of options that you can’t choose between (e.g. your neighbors, the friends at the gym, your son’s soccer team families, your work colleagues, your spouse’s extended family, etc), remember these things:
Prayer is the foundation. As you pray, where do you sense the Lord leading?
You have the freedom to experiment. It’s all good! In the absence of a word from God, whoever you choose to focus your missional efforts on is a great choice. God desires that every person is saved and walking in a relationship with Him. He is so happy when we try in any way to actively join Him in this great task!
Be pragmatic in the specific outworkings. Don’t try to be more spiritual than Jesus! Where would make sense to be on mission? Who would you have the most fun reaching? The Parable of the Shrewd Manager in Luke 16 reminds us that it’s not wrong to make a shrewd decision. Specifically, in most cases it’s fine to decide your focus based on balancing your limited resources (especially time and energy).
Your mission vision will probably evolve over time and not unfurl in a straight line. Picking something now doesn’t mean it can’t shift as relationships develop. Like Paul and his companions in Acts 16, you might need to push a few doorways before you receive your Macedonian call!
Remember that people aren’t robots, which means you can’t control their responses. Sometimes you make the right choice but they don’t respond as you would hope. That is not failure on your part.
Sometimes the issue is your skill set is lacking. But that will improve over time as you gain experience - but that can only come when you jump into the game, in spite of not knowing it all!
God’s will sometimes is a specific target (“This is the target I’m showing you. Go hit the target”) and sometimes His will is a meadow to play in (“This is my meadow. Play in it. You choose what to do within it”)
If in doubt, simply pick something good and fairly obvious and go for it. Don’t be frozen into inaction. Get going!
Start simple and imperfect. ‘Find your passion’ is one of the most popular self-help phrases, but it’s quite misleading and sometimes even harmful. Researchers call this a fit mindset of passion, or the belief that you’ll find an activity or pursuit about which you are immediately passionate from the get-go. Although over 75 percent of people hold this mindset, it rarely leads to lasting passion. People with fit mindsets tend to overemphasize their initial feelings, search for perfection, and quit when the going gets tough. Better than a fit mindset is a development mindset, in which you understand that passion takes time to emerge, thus lowering the bar for further engagement in something from ‘this is perfect’ to ‘this is interesting.’
PLUS
The leaders of the group (or the ones with the vision to start a new group) are the ones who set the mission vision for that group. It should NOT be set by the church pastor (unless it’s their group)! Also, we strongly suggest you don’t set a mission vision by a group vote - you will end up with something unworkable. This is a task for the leaders of the group.
The Principle of the White Field
When people have lots of potential connections, they often struggle to figure out where to focus. We would propose that this is a time to use what we’ve named the Principle of the White Field.
When helping the disciples process the experience of the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” (John 4:34–35, ESV)
In Matthew 9:37 we read, “Then [Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few’.”
And in Luke 10:2 Jesus declares, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
What we see is that Jesus wants us to understand that there ARE spiritually hungry lost people out there, who are ready to receive Him, often without an enormous amount of effort on our part.
And the strategy that He gives to us is to go look for such people first! Don’t burn tons of energy on those who are hostile or disinterested. Be kind and loving, but focus your limited proactive time and energy on the ones who are spiritually open (the Person of Peace from Luke 10:6).
In other words, identify where the fields are whitest and start the harvesting there.
What this means in practice is that you should be asking the Holy Spirit to show you:
Where are the fields whitest around you?
Where is the (spiritual) lowest-hanging fruit?
What would be the most obvious spot to be on mission?
Who is most open to you?
With whom do you have the most favor?
What makes the most strategic sense for your whole household?
These might sound a bit overly pragmatic, but as we said earlier, in the absence of a specific directive word from the Lord, these are Jesus’ clear instructions to us.
5 ‘P’ Words to Exegete Your Culture
As you prayerfully look around and consider your options, you might want to use these 5 ‘P’ words to exegete (or interpret) your culture, to help you discern the best Kingdom opportunities:
Pain - Where is relief needed? Where does it motivate and move? What are the big issues?
Pennies - Where is money spent? Where is it most needed?
Power - Who controls those levers? Where are people most oppressed?
Parties - What is most heartily celebrated? What needs celebrating?
Person of Peace - Who could be your Person (People) of Peace, according to the principles laid out by Jesus in Luke 10:1-11?
Write Down Your Mission Vision
Your next step is to write down your mission vision in just 1 or 2 sentences.
Make what you write as specific as possible. It should not be a general or vanilla statement (”We exist to reach all the young people of our city”!), but rather something specific and full of flavor.
It should be written in a way that plenty of people won’t be able to join the group! It should be pointed enough that it will enable you to say no to worthy ideas that are outside of your specific focus (for instance when your group is considering options on how to serve your wider community).
2 Sentence Examples from Real Groups
Faith + Family - We are a group of families with tween and teenage children, trying to learn from Jesus in this journey of either going through middle school and high school, or trying to be a great parent.
Cancer Warriors - This group is to serve, encourage, and support those who have been affected by cancer. Together we are strong warriors and will put on the full armor of God to serve others during this physical and spiritual battle.
Team ROAM - This group’s focus is to use the love of the outdoors – such as hunting, fishing, camping, shooting, and other activities – to build bonds between men and cultivate these bonds into a closer relationship with God, and to share those bonds with the next generation.
Companions Go! - Our vision is to further God’s kingdom by working within area nursing home communities.
6:1 OPS - Every other Saturday this group of High School guys blesses people anonymously, ding dong ditch-style (police permission). Matthew 6:1 inspires this community to serve undercover!
Jewelry For A Cause - For ladies and girls to come together in fun and friendship to learn how to make two beautiful (and free) pieces of jewelry – one to take home and one for a lady or girl at risk – such as those living in a domestic violence shelter
Reflect and Plan
→ Write down your missional community mission vision in 1 or 2 sentences:
Now show it to a mature believer and ask if it is clear and specific enough.
Remember: Your mission vision is not your life calling! Instead it is a declaration about who your group will focus most of its proactive energies on for the next season of time.
Now consider:
What is Good News for these people? What would fullness of life look like for them?
Brainstorm 3 ways to do UP that would connect with this group
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
What does an expression of spiritual family need to look like to reach these people?
Brainstorm 3 ways to do IN that would connect with this group
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
If the Kingdom was more fully present in this place, what would be different? How can we be present in the gap between what is and what could be?
Brainstorm 3 ways to do OUT that would connect with this group
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Write down some specific ways you will seek to find Persons of Peace in this context.
Name 3 lost people in your place of mission who you will pray for by name every day
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Want some custom help?
There is no need to reinvent the wheel! You can learn from our several decades of experience, as we have personally planted and run half a dozen missional communities, and overseen the launch and support of over 130 groups.
We offer a limited amount of paid personal coaching, including in this area of developing your missional culture.
To find out more, please follow this link to let us know more about your specific context and how you think we might be able to help you!
