CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Developing a Vision

A Vision Statement
House churches can easily degenerate into self-centered groups of naval gazers, rather than God-centered soldiers of the King. A church is especially vulnerable to this within a few months after covenanting. Covenanting gives the church a clear task to focus on and good community skills are developed during this task. However, shortly after the church may find itself directionless and the members each “doing what is right in his own eyes”. This is a dangerous time since moral can flag, a critical spirit begin to grip the church and “biting and devouring ...(until) you are consumed by one another”. Galatians 5:15

To combat this, we encourage each house church to develop a vision statement. This will help keep the church a pilgrim people on the move toward a common goal. The vision statements tend to be for a 6-month duration and set out measurable goals with definite activities to achieve these goals. (They might choose to have a global statement from which individual vision statements can be written.)

The vision statement below is for a new house church which needs to develop leadership from scratch. Our vision statements are broken up into two sections: Evangelism and Edification. There should be periodical "health checks" for the congregation to evaluate their progress. As the Lord leads, the vision statement can be altered during the 6 month period. After 6 months a new vision statement should be drawn up.

The evangelism part should be drawn up by the congregation. This involves prayer, seeking what is pleasing to the Lord, as well as times of brainstorming how to make the Gospel good news to the social circles of the members of the church, as well as to seek out new social circles. You might review Consensus Decision Making (Appendix 8).

The edification part of the vision statement is drawn up by the leadership team. Its purpose is "equipping the saints for the work of ministry". That is, it should flow from the evangelism purpose, equipping the saints to fulfill God's purpose for them in reproduction. It may do this directly (e.g. We will have a 10 week study on how Jesus presented the gospel in Matthew), or more indirectly (e.g. We will study how to help those whose marriages have been broken by sin, and target a couple of friends with broken marriages to show them God's good news for them). The edification portion will also take into account the maturity of the church and target ways of bringing it to completion. For instance, a new church must learn how to recognize leaders and how they are appointed.

A Sample Vision Statement (for a new church)
Evangelism: This goal is a Reproductive Goal and is the responsibility of the congregation:

In six months we should have added 3 new families to the congregation and plan for a new church. These families will come from intensive evangelism and discipleship from social circles already represented by the member families of the church. These will come from our friends, relatives and coworkers. We will also try to find seekers in Jim's town, to start another gathering there. Specific activities to achieve the reproductive goal:

1. We will pray for our friends and relatives, and seek ways to present the gospel to them. We will set aside the first Tuesday of each month for a corporate night of prayer for this.

2. We will have 2 or 3 gathering meetings in members' homes.

3. The members of the church will follow up on those who attend, being sure that they understand the gospel.

4. The church will intensively survey the neighborhood of Jim Jones, to start a gathering meeting at his home with seekers which are found.

5. We will advertise in the local newspaper a series on child rearing, to meet on Wednesday evening at the Smith home for 6 weeks.

Edification: This deals with enabling the congregation to reach its reproduction goal.

We will train the congregation to effectively share the gospel with those of their social circle, to start multiple gathering meetings. This will include training two men to lead an evangelistic Bible study. We will also appoint 2 shepherding deacons so that the church planter will be free to help the evangelism effort. An elder will be appointed toward the end of the 6 month vision period. Specific activities to achieve this goal:

1. We will review Entering The Kingdom for five weeks in our community meetings so that all in the congregation can follow up new believers who come in from the gathering meetings.

2. The Bible studies in Matthew will be reviewed at the men's meetings in order to discern who God is calling to lead the gathering meetings. This will be done in the first month, with the gathering meetings scheduled to begin in the second month. The women will meet and pray and strategize on how to reach their social networks.

3. Reading schedules on leadership and shepherding will be used in the community meetings to prepare the church for the appointment of shepherding deacons and later an elder.

4. The men will arrange to rotate leading the teaching, worship, and Lord's table.

5. In the third or fourth month a ministry meeting will be set up to teach Biblical principles for child rearing. Recognizing the possibility of drawing in seekers, we will advertize this. It will be led by the church planter, and one other man from the congregation. Wayne Mack's book, Strengthening Your Marriage, ch. 7 will be used as a basis for this study.

Key Principles

1. Churches with no vision stagnate. Pr. 29:18

2. Just as God has a call for each person (Eph. 2:10), he also has a call for each church. Acts 20:24-27.

3. The church needs to know what its purpose is. Acts 1:1-8.