Madison’s Question to Matthew: Walk us through how your vision for NP came to be. What kinds of things solidified your convictions? How do you push through barriers, or people who doubt you/the vision?
As someone who loves to engage in strategic conversations, this is an intriguing question for me to write about. In fact, the two words that draw me in all the time are “strategy” and “leadership”. I am a student of both of these.
First, let me start by declaring that no vision for a local church, North Park included, could and should be the vision of one person. As a community of believers in Jesus, there needs to be a collective agreement as to the vision, the big picture of what God is calling the church to engage with.
Second, a vision can’t be developed by a large group. This may sound counter to the previous statement, but in reality, a vision that is in essence created by or voted on by an entire local church will always be a watered down, non-descript vision with little overall focus.
I love talking big picture, 4-kilometre-high visions. I was trained in this way of thinking in my banking career. My personality (ENTJ) naturally gravitates to this type of conversation as well. I read vision and leadership books as a hobby – it is part of my makeup, my DNA. Now this doesn’t mean that I can come up with the best vision, there are many things that need to feed into the discussion to come up with a solid vision that is executable. But I definitely enjoy engaging in this aspect of life and work.
For a local church, some would declare that the work of the church is obvious, so why should any church spend anytime developing a vision. “Go and make disciples” Jesus declared. “Love God and love others”. Isn’t it obvious? Yes and no. If you spend any amount of time in any local church context, you will quickly learn what is important to them, what they focus on, where they choose to spend their limited resources, what they choose to avoid. This is their vision, either by intention or by default.
So, how has North Park chosen to move forward? What was our vision process and what is my role as Executive Lead Pastor in all of this?
The initial journey was actually quite simple – two full days with 12 people in a room led by an outside consultant. He guided us on a journey reflecting on our past, reviewing our current state (strengths and weaknesses) and moving through a process of what area of ministry we believed we were called to and best capable to moving to reality. During the process I often wondered if this was too simple, if we should be going wider, having more conversations, engaging a broader spectrum. And yet, two years later, I believe that this journey was exactly what was necessary – no more, no less. We had prayed and discerned prior to gathering, and as such truly believed that the Holy Spirit was guiding those days. And that is also a key difference in developing vision for a church versus a business or any organization that is not Jesus focussed. We have the Holy Spirit available and active in the process, if we choose to allow this.
The journey after these two days has been a fascinating progression of 6-month decisions. I don’t believe that I have engaged in this type of roll out previously, but I know that I have used it in other organizations I am involved with since learning about it.
With our vision in front of us, every 6 months we determine what we believe are the 3 things we need to deliver on in the next 6 months in order to keep moving toward this vision. The 5-year picture is before us, yet who knows what is going to happen in 1 year let alone 5 years. As such, we simply look 6 months into the future. It is such a beautiful process. I can see clearly enough 6 months into the future, it just seems so doable that it gives strength to the process. It is not some nebulous thing, it is very tangible, something you can hold onto.
And the journey has continued for the past two years, and we are progressing toward our vision.
The second part of the questions, pushing through barriers and dealing with people who doubt the vision, is also good to explore. When we began this journey, I was anticipating some push back and was wondering how I would be able to engage in the conversations, particularly since I am the Lead Pastor and it falls on me to communicate this vision publicly. Looking back, there are two things that stand out to me that have helped me on this journey.
First, it was a group decision. This wasn’t me bringing a vision to our elders and key leadership and trying to “sell” it. We came up with this together and as such we were now in this together. This was such a reassuring aspect, and one that I continue to lean on. And, the leadership has continued to believe in it and live with it.
Second, the key leaders around me who are involved in rolling this out are also fully on board. In retrospect, I believe that I was expecting that they would go back to their jobs and expect me to keep bringing this vision forward, that I would have to continually cajole us all to talk about and own it. It is almost shameful to realize that I was thinking this way, even if it was a subconscious thought. And yet, just the opposite occurred. They have fully embraced it. And at times they are coaxing me to stay on course. When I realized that we were truly doing this together I can’t tell you how energizing that was. We became a team in an entirely new way which was so encouraging.
This visioning journey has been fun. It has stretched us all and forced us to make key decisions to enable us to take on what we believe God has for us as a local church. It is my prayer that we continue on this path as we refine the details.
For the kingdom.