How You Communicate Vision & Values Shape Mission
Most churches have a vision statement with values listed out that they’ve put a lot of work into creating. They might even have their people regularly stand and recite them. But is your vision compelling enough that people will give their lives to it?
In this episode, Caesar gives you a radical understanding of how your vision and values can shape the mission of your church, community, or family. And he’ll share a process for crafting a vision statement that will transform your ministry.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- The way language creates culture within your church.
- How a compelling vision statement brings unity and movement.
- How your values and vision clarify your ministry model.
- A proven process and tool for creating a powerful vision statement.
From this episode:
“So often both values and vision statements within the church just sound like a doctrinal thesis. They’re super uninspiring. Most people really don’t understand what they mean and the not-yet believer would have no clue. “What’s this about? Oh, weird, thick religiosity… or something with a lot of rules that sounds heavy to me.”
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Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Free Download of the Big 3 For Episode #330
Coaching with Caesar and Tina in discipleship and missional living.
Free Discipleship and Missional Resources
Transcript
So often both values and vision statements within the church just sound like a doctrinal thesis.
Speaker:They're super uninspiring.
Speaker:Most people really don't understand what they mean and the not-yet believer would have no clue.
Speaker:"What's this about?
Speaker:Oh, weird, thick religiosity...
Speaker:or something with a lot of rules that sounds heavy to me..."
Speaker:This should make total sense and be inspiring to the average person as well as the, not- yet believer.
Speaker:Remember language creates culture.
Speaker:If this sounds like a doctoral thesis, it won't inspire anybody.
Speaker:And it won't sound like a family of missionary servants out making disciples, experiencing the kingdom, bringing the kingdom to bear in greater and greater ways with more and more people.
Speaker:Welcome to the Everyday Disciple podcast where you'll learn how to live with greater intentionality and an integrated faith that naturally fits into every area of life.
Speaker:In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle.
Speaker:This is the stuff your parents, pastors, and seminary professors probably forgot to tell you.
Speaker:And now here's your host Caesar.
Speaker:Kalinowski.
Speaker:Hey, Hey, welcome back to this edition of the Everyday Disciple Podcast.
Speaker:Hope your week is going well, or your day.
Speaker:I know some of you listened to multiple episodes in a row.
Speaker:That's so awesome.
Speaker:I've been told that at least.
Speaker:So thanks for that.
Speaker:I hope you're having a great day.
Speaker:I am.
Speaker:I am a little bit older this week.
Speaker:Having celebrated another birthday a few days ago, last week.
Speaker:I never thought I'd make it to a hundred.
Speaker:So, you know, praise God for that.
Speaker:I, I really, um, but no, it was, it was a great birthday, very chill, very mellow.
Speaker:Uh, we went out to a really nice place for some dinner, Tina and I, and another really close friend.
Speaker:We've got a huge.
Speaker:Birthday family party still coming up.
Speaker:Tina got me some awesome new earbuds or the bluetoothy really great sounding once I've been going back and listening to, oh, a whole bunch of the stuff I produced, but also a lot of my favorite records.
Speaker:There's nothing like listening to.
Speaker:Maybe not everything, but a lot of stuff, especially big rock records and all that and headphones.
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Speaker:Anyway, loving it, loving.
Speaker:That was a great birthday anyway, back in the saddle and back to work now, but really glad to be with you before I go on, let me read a review that came in.
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Speaker:They said if like me, you've barely dared to dream that every day can be filled with kingdom purpose and your faith can be beautifully integrated into every area of life.
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Speaker:All right, well, let's get to today's topic.
Speaker:I'm going to be talking about how we communicate our vision and our values and how that then starts to shape exactly what we do on mission as a church or as a community.
Speaker:Even as families living on mission are oikos, right.
Speaker:Or Missional Community or whatever.
Speaker:And I'm going to spend some time breaking this down in some ways that are a little different than probably you've been taught or seen people write out vision and value statements and things like that.
Speaker:I'm sure your church probably has one.
Speaker:If you work for a business that's larger, I'm sure they have spent lots of money on that.
Speaker:And what I'm going to share with you is a little different.
Speaker:It won't take me that long to explain it.
Speaker:But I will tell you if you'll engage the work it's really hard to do, but the pay off is phenomenal and it'll bring such clarity and peace on your team, and you're going to avoid all kinds of conflict and weirdness, and you're going to know exactly what you're doing and why and how, and, and like I said, most churches probably have a vision and, or a value statement and they probably done a lot of work on that thing.
Speaker:I I've been part of churches where we're like, we gotta redo our vision statement.
Speaker:We gotta come up with our values and, oh, it takes months.
Speaker:And sometimes they pay consultants and there's a lot of wrangling over this word or that word, but what they ultimately so often what I've seen come up with is so generic.
Speaker:It could be from the bank across town.
Speaker:Or maybe the red cross or Goodwill or who knows it could be almost any business.
Speaker:Cause they come up with stuff that like here's our values.
Speaker:We value honesty or collaboration, transparency, integrity, trust, passion, you know, authenticity, authentic worship.
Speaker:That's what we, it's so generic that everybody gets to fill that in with whatever they think it means.
Speaker:But because it sounds like.
Speaker:The bank or, you know, somebody, some other non-profit or whatever it doesn't inspire.
Speaker:Think about your vision statement.
Speaker:If you have one or your church has one.
Speaker:And with that vision statement in mind, I'd ask you this question.
Speaker:Does the vision, I mean, for your team, your staff, your church, or your family, does it articulate life in the kingdom of God?
Speaker:In, in a clear way?
Speaker:And is your vision compelling and worth people giving their lives to, yeah.
Speaker:Let me, let me ask that again is the way you state the vision for this church or this community, or even our family.
Speaker:Is it compelling?
Speaker:And, and would it be worth people giving their life lives too, versus everything else in the world has to offer when they here the vision for what we're going to be about and what it's going to look like to live in the kingdom of God, would they be swept up into that?
Speaker:Now as we get started, I want to say that language creates culture, the words we use and how we articulate things will actually create the culture of our church or of our Missional Community.
Speaker:And even our family.
Speaker:It does.
Speaker:And the war.
Speaker:If we talk about things like our business and in generic ways, then that's how people are going to experience their faith and spirituality.
Speaker:And this church or this community it'll are, is this a program?
Speaker:Is this an event I attend when I feel like it?
Speaker:Or is this my family?
Speaker:And do we have a grand in eternal purpose to, to who we are and what we're about?
Speaker:See, there's a big difference.
Speaker:And I'm going to suggest a radical way of articulating vision and values today, which are going to actually lead to the vehicles we use.
Speaker:And I'll explain more what I mean about vehicles in a minute, and then how we value them, how we do our evaluations measurements and all for everything we do.
Speaker:But so often we craft.
Speaker:What we're going to do is the church, the types of events, things, programs.
Speaker:When we do what we do, how we do it, we craft all that first because maybe we inherited it or it's what we've always done, or that's what churches do.
Speaker:And it does not flow from a clearly identified, clearly communicated, compelling set of values and a vision.
Speaker:Now vision is about kingdom.
Speaker:Life lived out together and values are about relationships and they're, identity-based our relationship with, with God and with each other flows out of who God's created us to be.
Speaker:So again, vision is about kingdom life.
Speaker:So vision statements can articulate that and values are about relationship ultimately, and our identity.
Speaker:Values are about the call to a relationship of oneness with God and with each other, that's somewhat of an internalized set of values.
Speaker:If you think about that, that's what we value that's that's in our heart.
Speaker:Vision is the call of a community to represent God in his coming kingdom.
Speaker:How are we going to live?
Speaker:That's external.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Right away.
Speaker:If you're taking notes, write down values.
Speaker:Identity-based internal vision is our call and what our lives are going to look like in the kingdom.
Speaker:That's external.
Speaker:And we're also going to talk about vehicles in a moment.
Speaker:Now here's the things we do that help move people from one place to another.
Speaker:They help us live out and accomplish our vision.
Speaker:And then our valuations is an understanding of how we're going to measure what we're doing and is it effective in making disciples and accomplishing our vision?
Speaker:So let's start with our value statement.
Speaker:The question you're ultimately answering when you're trying to come up with your values is what do we value believe and embrace in connection to our God-given identity and our relationship with God and each other.
Speaker:For us.
Speaker:And if you are a listener of the podcast or follow any of our teaching books or videos I've done at all, we talk about being a family of missionary servants, sent his disciples who make more disciples, the that's entity language.
Speaker:And why, why do we make that?
Speaker:What we value because we want to value what God values.
Speaker:So often we, like I said earlier, we throw out these generic value statements, like honesty or authenticity or trust, maybe that's what we value, but how about we start valuing what God values and he values his glory above everything else.
Speaker:His glory, the way he is.
Speaker:That's what we were created.
Speaker:To be about and to extend and fill the world with his glory.
Speaker:That's where our identity flows from.
Speaker:And that's why I'm suggesting that values the values in our value statement are identity-based family missionary, servant, disciple, and, and perhaps the why connected to each of these.
Speaker:Why is this value of being a family important to us?
Speaker:And remember these are internal.
Speaker:So you want to be careful not to have your values start to leak into doing right.
Speaker:Do to be stuff there they're identity-based so here's four questions that we ask to try to get to our values in like within a value statement.
Speaker:How can you express your value of being sons and daughters of God?
Speaker:Is that a value to you?
Speaker:As part of being family.
Speaker:How can here's another question?
Speaker:How can you express your value and belief that you were living as sent ones that's missionary language versus a closed inward focus group?
Speaker:Third question.
Speaker:How can you express your value of living as servants?
Speaker:We say, get to servants.
Speaker:Like we get to live this way because it shows what God's like.
Speaker:That's his, that's what he's like our identity flows from there.
Speaker:And then answer this question.
Speaker:In what ways do you value being disciples of Jesus sent to make more disciples, filling the world with his glory, wrestle through those four questions, and then maybe put that into a statement that's not super long, very clear normal language, put it all together.
Speaker:This is what we value.
Speaker:I understand.
Speaker:Now I've got a worksheet.
Speaker:I'm going to talk about how you can get a hold of this later.
Speaker:So if you're thinking, well, this is a lot to write down.
Speaker:Yeah, I can, I can make that a lot easier for you.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So that's how we get to, what do we value?
Speaker:We value it.
Speaker:God values, it's identity based, which is gonna make it in a term.
Speaker:It's an internal thing.
Speaker:It's not a doing just yet.
Speaker:That's what our vision statement is going to be like.
Speaker:And, and our vision statement, then the question you're ultimately answering will be what will our lives together look like increasingly as we live more fully out of our values, believing what God says is true of us.
Speaker:Let me say that again.
Speaker:The ultimate question you're answering with a vision statement is so what will our lives look like together?
Speaker:Increasingly as we live out the kingdom, as we live more fully out of our values and out of believing what God says is true of us, And by the way, your vision statement should make total sense to a, not yet believer as well as a Christian.
Speaker:So often both values and vision statements within the church.
Speaker:Just sound like a doctrinal thesis.
Speaker:They're super uninspiring.
Speaker:Most people really don't understand what they mean and the not yet believer would have no clue.
Speaker:What's this about?
Speaker:Oh, weird, thick religiosity.
Speaker:Or, or something rule a lot of rules that sounds heavy to me.
Speaker:This should make total sense and be inspiring to the average person, as well as a, not yet believer.
Speaker:Here's four questions that you can ask yourself in starting to craft a really compelling vision statement.
Speaker:First one, what do we want our family or group our church more?
Speaker:Maybe it's your organization.
Speaker:What do you want it to look like?
Speaker:What's the culture, the ethos, the mood, like what's it feel like.
Speaker:That's important from a vision statement.
Speaker:Second question I'd like to ask is where are we going?
Speaker:Or another way of saying that is what are we becoming and vision for?
Speaker:The vision means it's out there.
Speaker:So where are we going?
Speaker:What are we becoming together?
Speaker:Increasingly third question.
Speaker:What can we realistically achieve?
Speaker:And how quickly.
Speaker:That's a good question to put in a vision statement.
Speaker:So sometimes I see envision statements that we're going to change the world.
Speaker:You know, one household, one neighborhood, one city, one state, one country at a time it's like, okay, I don't know that's compelling.
Speaker:Cause that sounds like that might be 50 lifetimes away and maybe impossible for any one group of people to accomplish.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So keep your vision statement realistic.
Speaker:And, and how quickly, perhaps, depending on, is this an organization?
Speaker:Is this a family?
Speaker:Is this your group?
Speaker:Is this your full church?
Speaker:And then fourth question is what words or phrases depict the type of community and end goals we want.
Speaker:Remember language creates culture.
Speaker:If this sounds like a doctoral thesis, it won't inspire anybody.
Speaker:And it won't sound like a family.
Speaker:Of missionary servants out, making disciples, experiencing the kingdom, bringing the kingdom to bear in greater and greater ways with more and more people.
Speaker:So you answered those four questions.
Speaker:You put that together in a bit of a narrative sense.
Speaker:Now I know you're probably thinking, well, I'd sure like to see one of these or here at one of these sounds like, let me share a couple, let me share a couple of them with you.
Speaker:Uh, that aren't, they're not perfect.
Speaker:They're still a work in progress, but, but I really do like them.
Speaker:Here's one from a person we coach and they're working on this, then they said their church.
Speaker:I won't give you the name.
Speaker:I don't know if they probably don't care, but it has been called and this is their, um, their vision and they put vision before their values, but I like to actually do values.
Speaker:First, so that your vision flows out of it.
Speaker:I know that's the work he did, but on the page and often we say vision and values, so they have vision.
Speaker:First, our church has been called and empowered by God to live everyday life for the glory of God.
Speaker:We're being transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ and empowered and sent by the holy spirit to bring restoration to the brokenness.
Speaker:That's all around us.
Speaker:It's pretty compelling.
Speaker:I'd like to see something about perhaps for their vision discipleship in there, or becoming more like Jesus or moving from unbelief to belief or something like that.
Speaker:But it's still a work in progress.
Speaker:And then here's what they valued.
Speaker:And they have a, a larger statement that goes with each of these, but I'll give you the sort of the top line because it's, I find it really powerful.
Speaker:So here's what they value at the, at their church being gospel formed.
Speaker:We're being formed in renewed by the gospel of Jesus in every part of life.
Speaker:They value that notice.
Speaker:That's not a value of like, we value authenticity in our worship service or something.
Speaker:You, you see what I mean?
Speaker:It's like so different.
Speaker:We value.
Speaker:This is internalized.
Speaker:We value what God values.
Speaker:There's a next value family.
Speaker:We are children of God who care for each other and live as a family.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Pretty powerful.
Speaker:And they have a little paragraph underneath that.
Speaker:For the, you know, for the family to be able to see what that, what that spells out like a little bit more, next thing is they say servant we're servants of Jesus who serve him by serving others.
Speaker:This is a value of ours.
Speaker:And then missionary were sent by spirit to restore all things to God, through Jesus Christ.
Speaker:Now it gives you a little idea how somebody has worked out now flowing out of that is their vehicles and notice the things they'll do.
Speaker:We're going to get to that in a minute.
Speaker:So you mean you might listen to that and be very compelled.
Speaker:You might go, I would do that differently, but what I really like about this is it's simple.
Speaker:It's clear.
Speaker:They're valuing, valuing what God values.
Speaker:It's identity language, and then their vision is simple.
Speaker:It's about 75 words and it's about living together and experiencing the gospel in everyday life as we're being transformed and sent out to help others and be a part of the restoration of all things.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:That's I think really what all churches should be about, but I don't know that I've seen too many.
Speaker:That would say that's what we're here for.
Speaker:There's usually have language.
Speaker:Like our vision is to be a place where blah-blah-blah, it's like, no, the church is in a place.
Speaker:The church is a People, so right away let's scrub any of that, a place where that let's just scrub all that up.
Speaker:Now here's another example.
Speaker:This one's not for a full church.
Speaker:This one's for a family.
Speaker:A family living on mission in their neighborhood.
Speaker:And there again, there, this is still a work in progress, but I really like it.
Speaker:So they say our vision.
Speaker:This is for their family is to cultivate grace based relationships, trusting ourselves with God and others.
Speaker:We seek transformation through the good news of the kingdom of God.
Speaker:As we move from unbelief to belief in the gospel in all aspects of it.
Speaker:Isn't that powerful.
Speaker:Isn't that powerful.
Speaker:We invite others to share life with us and walk in the ways of Jesus.
Speaker:That's their vision.
Speaker:That is so simple.
Speaker:Imagine their kids, this is what their kids are hearing seen.
Speaker:I know another family actually lead a church, but they created vision and values for their family.
Speaker:And then they had it all calligraphy up and put on their dining room wall and they think, and pray through it.
Speaker:When they have their family dinner times.
Speaker:Now here's this family's values simple, powerful.
Speaker:We treat others like family.
Speaker:We depend on the holy Spirit's leading.
Speaker:We make time for neighbors and People of Peace.
Speaker:We live our identity up in and out connected upward to God inward, increasingly with our community and outward toward those around us.
Speaker:As we eat and bless and celebrate and rest and listen intentionally and get to know each other's stories.
Speaker:Oh, you know, it's a little wordy.
Speaker:It, you know, you're not going to put it up on the plaque above the narthex wall there, you know, as you go into the, into the church, sanctuary, whatever, but this is there, what they value and it's in a, it's in a narrative form.
Speaker:And like I said, it's a work in progress, but do you feel the difference between these visions and values?
Speaker:How values are internal, their identity.
Speaker:They're about relationship and vision is how we're going to increasingly live that out where we're going, what we're looking to accomplish and be like together, both of these one for a church, one for a family they're so clear and powerful to me.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And they could be wordsmith.
Speaker:We could spend forever wordsmithing them and these early drafts.
Speaker:I know that, but I thought maybe they'd help you.
Speaker:Now, once we've done the hard work of crafting our vision that flows out of our values, then we can get to what we there's two more V's here.
Speaker:We, we call them vehicles and then the valuations that how we measure those things now, vehicles, we call them vehicles and there's others.
Speaker:I know other tribes that, that we probably learned some of this from 3d MNO uses this type of language with vehicles, vehicles.
Speaker:Are think about it.
Speaker:There's something that are used to transport a person or things from one place to another.
Speaker:That's what vehicles do.
Speaker:And not all vehicles are created to do the same things.
Speaker:Meaning a motorcycle, I think is a great vehicle for getting the wind in your hair.
Speaker:Maybe going on a date.
Speaker:Going on a little short vacation with just you, maybe some friends, whatever, but it's not a great vehicle.
Speaker:If you are looking to move your house and you got a lot of couches and boxes and furniture to move well on the other side of that, a moving truck or a huge 16 wheel, or, you know, semi-truck is a great vehicle for moving lots of stuff or heavy equipment or whatever, but you wouldn't want to do that on a motorcycle.
Speaker:You could, you could, you know, you wouldn't want to go on a date night.
Speaker:In a moving truck, you could, it gets you there, not the best vehicle for the job.
Speaker:And what we found is a lot of arguments within ministry and models and all that, about how we're going to do ministry arise out of not having a clear articulation of your vehicles that flow out of your value and vision.
Speaker:Does that make sense?
Speaker:There's, we've just sort of came up with what we do and now we're going to bolt on some generic V V vision and value stuff, but we're not even sure if these vehicles are best crafted to move people from here to there in this area of their life, in that area of life or those people from here to there, not everybody, but just those people.
Speaker:Now, when you're working on your vehicles, the question you're ultimately answering.
Speaker:Is which vehicles will we employ to help us accomplish what specifically connected to our discipleship, our vehicles.
Speaker:Aren't just a big list of, well, this is what the church has always done.
Speaker:So we'll just call those, our vehicles.
Speaker:Those are all different events or whatever.
Speaker:We're not exactly sure how it's connected to discipleship.
Speaker:No, we get to select and employ and use vehicles.
Speaker:To help us accomplish discipleship.
Speaker:And we get to have specific understanding of, Hey, this vehicle is really good for this, but it's not good for that.
Speaker:And in other words, like our large weekend gatherings, there, that's a great vehicle for doing certain things for maybe sharing of our greater broader gifts as a community, as a body, as the body of Christ, maybe it's a great vehicle for learning the word of God.
Speaker:And having our minds and hearts opened up in some new ways, but you know what, a large, huge public gathering, it's not a great vehicle for deeply going after someone's heart or sin or sinful actions or broken emotions.
Speaker:Like you don't want to, Hey, by the way between songs, I was just going to go ahead.
Speaker:I'm going to bring Mike and his wife up.
Speaker:They're having some marriage problems and we're just going to go ahead and we're going to fix that, right?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:See it's the wrong vehicle.
Speaker:It's just, you see what I'm saying?
Speaker:So though we have vehicles that might be great.
Speaker:They don't, they're not great for everything.
Speaker:They're not great for everything.
Speaker:And so often in the church, what we've done is what I call we've created a clown car, this, you know, have you ever been to a circus where you're at the you're at the, you know, you're in the tent or whatever three-ring circus and all of a sudden this little crazy clown car comes out, it's really tiny.
Speaker:And then clown piles out of it.
Speaker:And you're like, wow, that's a pretty big guy.
Speaker:How do you going to, well, no, here comes another clown.
Speaker:Oh, wait.
Speaker:There's like 12.
Speaker:They're all jammed in there.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:That's how we usually do our church services on the weekends.
Speaker:We kind of make them like a clown car.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We want everything jammed into that one hour and a half.
Speaker:So it's gotta be everything.
Speaker:And then maybe we'll throw a small group, which would be like a vehicle, but we'll throw that in midweek, but then we'll just make it like a little version of Sunday because we're going to study the sermon notes and pray together now, or whatever you see what I'm saying?
Speaker:It's like, we don't, you can't jam everything into one vehicle and expect it to perform well.
Speaker:And for people to be, have their needs met and to grow and mature, just like a Missional Community is not a meeting once a week in the night.
Speaker:Uh, one night a week.
Speaker:I mean, it's, it's bigger than that.
Speaker:It, you're not going to be, if you try to jam everything that's going to be going on in your spiritual life.
Speaker:That's not Sunday morning into one night, a week for a couple hours.
Speaker:You're going to be bummed.
Speaker:You're going to be sorely disappointed.
Speaker:It's not going to be compelling.
Speaker:You're probably not gonna maturing Christians, making disciples who are maturing.
Speaker:You can't do that.
Speaker:So there, again, the question we're ultimately answering is which vehicles will we employ to help us accomplish what specifically?
Speaker:And it's all got to be connected to discipleship.
Speaker:So what I would suggest is you make a list of your vehicles.
Speaker:That'll help you live out your vision that flows out of your values.
Speaker:And then after that, you'll, you'll need a sort of next to each of those you'll want to say, well, how will we measure the effectiveness of this vehicle?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How will we know if this is being effective?
Speaker:Cause maybe we need a different vehicle.
Speaker:We used to have a two door vehicle.
Speaker:It was great, but then we had babies and we didn't realize we needed something a little bigger and it needed to have back doors so we can get in and out with baby seats.
Speaker:And so maybe we don't use the same vehicles forever.
Speaker:Maybe the vehicles we established when we planted this church, or first started this oikos or Missional Community.
Speaker:Maybe some of those need an upgrade.
Speaker:Maybe that serves to a point and maybe new peoples are involved in using that vehicle, but maybe others, the different vehicles now to help them move from here.
Speaker:Two there in their discipleship.
Speaker:Now here's some examples of different vehicles that you may employ.
Speaker:So already kind of mentioned your large gathering, maybe it's on Sunday, right?
Speaker:So let's just say the Sunday gathering.
Speaker:That's a vehicle.
Speaker:What specifically are you trying to accomplish?
Speaker:What, what are you moving from here to there?
Speaker:With who.
Speaker:Is it, everything is it have to be discipleship and evangelism and children's ministry and this and that and that, and worship and this, and, and family business and announcements and collect the money.
Speaker:And you see it.
Speaker:Maybe that's not the best vehicle for all of that.
Speaker:DNA groups is another vehicle that we employ.
Speaker:Those are like triads with like three guys or three girls in a group.
Speaker:And that's a vehicle that we use to move deeper.
Speaker:Into relationship with a few people that you can grow in trust and really gospel people's hearts, help them address sin or negative emotions or unbelief in the gospel.
Speaker:Those are smaller groups.
Speaker:It's a different type of vehicle.
Speaker:Not everybody's jammed into that same vehicle.
Speaker:Just three people.
Speaker:Because it's got a different purpose.
Speaker:It's trying to help people move from here to there in a different way than what we do in a large gathering.
Speaker:We use the open table.
Speaker:That's a vehicle.
Speaker:What's that vehicle about?
Speaker:That's a vehicle.
Speaker:Hi invitation, meaning, Hey everybody, anybody can come, but it's low challenge.
Speaker:We're not trying to get you to, you know, uh, say a prayer or join something or.
Speaker:Crazy.
Speaker:We're trying to build relationships with potential people, a piece that open tables, a vehicle that helps people move from friends and acquaintances towards being People of Peace and maybe disciples of Jesus.
Speaker:We know exactly what's going on.
Speaker:So we don't jam our open table night full of a whole bunch of worship service stuff and, and deep praying in other languages and stuff.
Speaker:You see what I'm saying?
Speaker:That's not the right vehicle for that.
Speaker:Serving opportunities.
Speaker:That's another vehicle for many communities.
Speaker:It was for us.
Speaker:We, we used to do something real regularly.
Speaker:We called sacred space and that was a vehicle that helped us live out our servant identity out among the people we were looking to make disciples up, to invite them, to do this with us and walk in the ways of Jesus.
Speaker:So they might come to experience the truth of him as a servant, as we serve them, as they helped us serve others.
Speaker:That was a vehicle for that.
Speaker:Family dinner nights.
Speaker:I've seen many, many people that we work with now.
Speaker:They list that as a vehicle.
Speaker:They want that to be a vehicle within each family.
Speaker:That is a place that centers.
Speaker:The gospel and fun and a connected yes.
Speaker:Within their families and serves as a model for that family, as they begin to invite others to their table C but it's not a, it's not a vehicle where they're going to have a hundred people at it.
Speaker:It's not a vehicle that has to fit in every aspect of spiritual life and discipline.
Speaker:There's certain goals.
Speaker:Within family dinner nights, we do something called cigar and theology in our community.
Speaker:That's a vehicle.
Speaker:And that helps guys who have never been discipled and feel very disconnected often from other men.
Speaker:And probably at least in our case, the church and in a deeper understanding of who God is and who he says, they are, have a casual environment, a safe environment, a fun environment to learn.
Speaker:Really theology.
Speaker:And so that vehicle doesn't have all the stuff from a Sunday gathering, jammed into it.
Speaker:It also doesn't have an hour and a half meal on the front end.
Speaker:It's a different type of vehicle, a huddle like a coaching huddle is another type of vehicle.
Speaker:That's a vehicle that's meant to move leaders from unmatured to mature, from less engaged, to more engaged, to help them learn, experience and pass on what they're learning to others.
Speaker:That's, but you're not going to put everybody in the church in a huddle to huddle, Christians to huddle more Christian to huddle more Christians to do what?
Speaker:No it's as we make disciples and we're raising up leaders to multiply community and send them on a mission.
Speaker:That's the vehicle we use for them.
Speaker:And some people say a Missional Community is a vehicle.
Speaker:And some don't see that as a vehicle because it has several vehicles of its own.
Speaker:Like within a Missional Community, you might have a family dinner night just for the Missional Community.
Speaker:And that Missional Community might also have a vehicle of an open table and out serving as doing a regular serving project within their community.
Speaker:So some people see the Missional Community as a vehicle, others don't they see that really as their primary expression of being the church.
Speaker:And that's what they have vision and values for.
Speaker:So that that'd be up to you now, sometimes we confused and we'll call it a tool, a vehicle.
Speaker:So, so for instance, the, maybe you've heard of the gospel primer.
Speaker:It's an eight week study to go deep in the gospel together in community to a little bit each day, some journaling, there's some going out and experiencing things together and all that.
Speaker:That's a tool.
Speaker:That's not a vehicle.
Speaker:It's a tool that we might use within the vehicle of say our family dinner night as a Missional Community.
Speaker:Hey, after we get done eating, we're going to go through the gospel primer together, or the story of God, or maybe a series of training videos.
Speaker:Those are tools used within various vehicles.
Speaker:Make sense just like your worship team is a tool within your larger gathering to help that maintenance sense.
Speaker:And I hope it's making sense how, what the value there is.
Speaker:We want to value what God values.
Speaker:That's our identity.
Speaker:That hits his identity, right?
Speaker:We're creating his image and now being restored by the power of the spirit to live the truth of that image, bearing out, filling the world with his glory, how that those values flow into our vision.
Speaker:How are we going to live as a community?
Speaker:And then we select, or which, which vehicles help us accomplish that and take us from here to there, but we're not going to try to jam everything into one.
Speaker:So when someone says, you know what you should be doing, we should be doing this at that.
Speaker:No, that fits into this vehicle.
Speaker:That's where we do that say, oh, that makes sense.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Cause I value that.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:So do we, but we don't, we don't create clown car and then you want to figure out how will we.
Speaker:Do our valuations, how will we measure each of these?
Speaker:And depending on what they are, I can't tell you how to measure them, but, and those are things we talked through in our coaching with others as they establish these vehicles and they get, get going and say, well, let's talk about, is that effective in how you'll know?
Speaker:But it's, it's important to otherwise.
Speaker:We'll just do things we like and our preferences or.
Speaker:The way it's always been done or that's the tradition or that's what our denom does.
Speaker:No, cause we're not doing any valuation.
Speaker:Is it actually helping us accomplish the mission, which is make disciples.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So I hope you see how that all one flows into the other.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, I got to start wrapping things up as always.
Speaker:I want to leave you with the big three takeaways from today's topic.
Speaker:If nothing else, you don't want to miss these.
Speaker:And by the way, you can get a printable PDF of this big three.
Speaker:And I'm going to add that vision and values and vehicles worksheet to the big three this week.
Speaker:So you can get a copy of the big three here that I'm about to give you.
Speaker:And that whole worksheet all you have to do is go to Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash big three.
Speaker:Just go to the app.
Speaker:It'll pop up in a little box.
Speaker:Patrina address in there.
Speaker:Zip send it right to you.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Here's the big three for this week.
Speaker:Don't miss this first language creates culture.
Speaker:Don't be stuck using outdated unconnected language.
Speaker:That sounds more like a business than a family on mission.
Speaker:How we speak about who we are and what we're doing will shape the ethos and trajectory of your church or community and family.
Speaker:So choose your words carefully.
Speaker:You don't have to keep using old stodgy, weird theological doctrinal language and stuff.
Speaker:Make it real second without vision, your people will perish.
Speaker:This is important and you know what vision leaks your vision will need to be over communicated and woven into everything you do.
Speaker:And say, I used to be a communications director at a mega church.
Speaker:And when I realized early on, we're not communicating anything, unless we're over communicating it in multiple ways and without vision.
Speaker:People do perish, they start to dry up.
Speaker:They don't know what we're doing.
Speaker:And then, well, let's go over here.
Speaker:Let's shop that church and let's shop that program.
Speaker:Or let's, let's argue about why don't we do more of this.
Speaker:So ask yourself, is your vision compelling and worth people giving their life to is the way you communicate your vision and values understandable and inspiring to the average person to a, not yet believer it needs to be.
Speaker:And can the people who hear your vision, could they communicate it clearly to others?
Speaker:That's how things pass on.
Speaker:That's how we kind of go viral.
Speaker:If you will, within the church, this is our vision.
Speaker:This is what we're about.
Speaker:This is so exciting.
Speaker:And if no one can communicate it well, and I'm not talking about reciting some dry, all thing, we value bomb, bomb bomb.
Speaker:They all start from the same letter he had written.
Speaker:Our church has made to do that.
Speaker:Nope.
Speaker:I'm talking about a clearly articulated vision that inspires people to live this life that we get to live.
Speaker:And third, do the hard work, craft your vision, values, and vehicles, and be sure to identify how specifically you'll measure your progress and success.
Speaker:Like I said, many of the disagreements over ministry philosophy comes down to not having clearly defined vehicles.
Speaker:So everyone understands why you're doing what you're doing when and how we're doing those things.
Speaker:And again, you get my vision and values worksheet and get started on this today, but it is hard work.
Speaker:I promise you with the people we coach, this is of sledding and it's always a lot of rounds and a lot of crafting and we.
Speaker:and.
Speaker:Everybody tends to drag in a bunch of old meaningless language and it has nothing to do with discipleship or the mission.
Speaker:So we're like, okay, let's keep working on it.
Speaker:But I want to challenge you to get started today.
Speaker:Download the big three.
Speaker:It'll be attached to it.
Speaker:Just go to Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash big three.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, that's it time's up for today.
Speaker:Now next week, as more and more churches in Christians are experiencing a greater Missional presence in their neighborhoods and homes.
Speaker:We talked about micro churches and all that last episode and different versions of that people are experiencing more and more presence in their neighborhood.
Speaker:I think it's important to talk about how we're treating people.
Speaker:How are we engaging folks?
Speaker:So they don't feel like they're hassle or just project, or like they're attending our event or something.
Speaker:So join me next week is we're going to talk about how we can help people feel like part of the family whenever, wherever we are, as we build relationships of trust with them, you're going to love that super important.
Speaker:Talk about ethos, right?
Speaker:I hope you'll join me for that.
Speaker:I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker:Thanks for joining us today for more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit Everyday Disciple dot com.