Missional Strategy – Start Here
by Rev. Mark E. Tidsworth, Founder and Team Leader
Before visioning, strategic planning, discernment, revisioning… or whatever we may call our efforts to identify the vision drawing our church forward, this is the place to begin.
Identity. Who are we?
Isn’t it Brene Brown who says, “Clarity is kindness,” or something very close to that? Yes, knowing who you are as a church is the starting place for designing your church’s missional strategy.
This means we can drop the comparison, competition, along with the low church-esteem resulting from these two unhelpful activities. Instead, recognize yourself as a church, receiving the gift of identity God has already given you. Then you are positioned really well for engaging the next question, “What might God have us do in the foreseeable future?”
When it comes to identity clarification, we work with churches to draw together two aspects of identity: Mission and Core Commitments.
I’m always intrigued what we will find when beginning a process with churches, inquiring about their mission statement. Common answers we receive are:
“Yes, and here it is,” reciting the mission statement from memory.
“Yes, and let me find it,” looking through papers and computer files, searching.
“Hmmm, maybe. Not really sure.”
“Yes, it’s on our website, on our worship guides, and integrated into worship every Sunday.”
Clearly, churches are all over the board when it comes to an actionable, helpful mission statement. These early responses communicate very effectively about their missional clarity.
Procedural Caution: Early in a missional strategy consultation is not the ideal time to create or renew the mission statement. If one does, it’s mostly an intellectual exercise, including theorizing about who the church hopes to be. A more helpful approach is to do the visioning and missional strategy work, allowing the mission statement to rise up during the journey. The best mission statements are recognized rather than manufactured. Often the mission statement is articulated and adopted toward the end of visioning processes. Early on though, we start with a review of the mission statement in place, inviting spiritual awareness as we move forward.
The second aspect of identity is often more immediately recognized and articulated: Core Commitments. Rather than Core Values, Core Commitments are more actionable, guiding the missional strategy to come. They often begin with,
We will…
We are committed to…
We are pursuing…
Some Core Commitments are similar to what other churches may adopt, while others are very contextually focused.
For those churches who also have a Vision Statement, we certainly include that in identity clarification. All of this positions the church for developing their missional strategy. When a Vision Guide Document starts with Identity Clarification, the actual vision is far more likely to be aligned with the actual identity of this congregation. Clearly, this makes for more effective, actionable, and spiritually congruent forward-leaning visions. Identity work positions churches for Missional Pathway identification, the topic of next week’s article.