How To: Mission, Vision, Values

The last two years have been another reminder that leaders define reality but they also discern direction.

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One of the things I’ve seen in leadership over the last couple of years is a kind of discombobulating effect around the area of mission, vision and values. I’ve seen that and I’ve experienced that.

Because there was so much that we simply couldn’t do, it led to an enormous review of what we were all doing prior to lockdown, and a re-evaluation of priorities. It was a kind of reset moment. 

“Because there was so much that we simply couldn’t do, it led to an enormous review of what we were all doing prior to lockdown, and a re-evaluation of priorities. It was a kind of reset moment.”

The only issue was that with the goalposts changing almost every other week with the guidance, the ‘reset’ was happening almost on the same frequency.

I read an article by Praxis early on in lockdown 2020 and the article effectively said for churches the key is to keep the first couple of pages of the vision and strategy document and get rid of everything else.

There was something about that resonated and was releasing and caused me to dig deeper into the kind of community that we were being called to be and the big picture mission of where God was leading us. How would we get there? Well, there are 1000 different ways. As someone once said, there mission remains the same, but the methods can change.

So this whole area of mission, vision and values is a really important topic for leaders. The last couple of years have simply highlighted that importance.

That’s why we invited Libby Talbot and Wole Agbaje, two church leaders, to come and share at Stronger 2022, something of their experience in this whole area. Below is a tiny snippet of our conversation together:

Question 1: Mission, vision and values – why do they play such an important part in the role of leadership?

LIBBY: I think it's sort of two stranded because I expect that we all need our own personal vision and mission that God gives us. And that's to do with who we are as people. But when we're thinking about our vision and mission, it's going to be sort of in line with who we are, and our gifts and our personalities. And that will affect the choices that we make, how we lead, because we sort of filter things through that.

And of course, there’s the personal vision, but then there’s maybe the organisational vision and mission, that would we as leaders, or business leaders, or entrepreneurs sort of sit under as well. And so I sit under, the vision statement of my church and the values that flow through that, that then affect the things that we do, and don't do. So, for example, my church's vision, is that we're called to be ‘whole life disciples sharing the whole of the gospel with the whole of society through churches of grace’. So therefore, everything that we do sits under that vision that God's given us. Obviously, Jesus and the Kingdom are above that even, but that's what we feel God has called us to do. 

And so we may have a great idea one day, to do X, Y, or Z, and we go, okay, does it fit in with that vision? Does it fit under the values as well? We have a whole lot of values that are really important to us, as a church community, that act as a filter which keep us focused and make sure that we're still doing what we think God has called us to do and to be for that particular time or season. 

WOLE: Yeah, I think it really does protect you from just doing what everyone else does. I think especially when it comes to church leadership, it's so easy to compare yourself. And just because a great church down the road is doing something we can feel like it will automatically translate to our context. 

For example, we planted churches into both London and Leicester. There were some things we learned really quickly that didn’t work in both contexts like our small groups. In Leicester they are in peoples homes, but in London, people weren’t getting home on time, because some people are travelling an hour and people have awkward housemates and stuff like that. So we realised that, you know, there's this small group DNA that we had in Leicester, that we had to adapt for city professionals. 

Question 2: As leaders we need to embed vision, mission and values in our organisations and churches, so what have you found helps to do that? 

WOLE: I think when it comes to this, you have to be really creative. So I lead Imprint Church, because we love the idea that God first marks us, and then because God has marked us, he sets us free from our sin, our shame, insecurities, and, you know, we can go out to mark the world; hence, leaving that imprint in the world. 

And so you can have a vision for particular moment. For example, there was a time a few years ago, where we were just hearing about a lot of family breakdown. And we really felt like we needed to increase people's faith that actually they could be the people, by the help of God, who could bring healing and transformation into their households. 

So we basically had a series and had like a whole production called Game Changer. And so we just started calling people Game Changers. And we printed out wristbands called Game Changers, and we even made a song called Game Changer. It was like, maybe a four week campaign, but our community really got it. And we started hearing those stories of transformation. But the principle is actually finding ways to communicate the same thing, but just in different ways that land with people that resonate? 

LIBBY: We have had the same vision statement for eight or nine years now but the task is engaging with people with what this actually means in terms of what God is calling us to do at this moment, at this time. We really involve the church with this every few years or so.

We'll have evenings of prayer, and worship and listening to God, and use flip charts and people will email thoughts in and this will go on for two or three months. So actually involving people in the process of listening and discernment is really important. 

And then, you know, putting together really clear communication plan to help embed it across our community, whether that's digital or printed, or wherever, and just having it everywhere and a lot, but not just for the first two Sundays that you're going to launch your vision.

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As you can tell even from this little snippet, we really dove into some of the nuts and bolts of what this whole area of mission, vision, values looks like for leaders, and during what has been challenging time. We’re excited to share the rest of this conversation with you soon…