How to Develop Your Church's Missions Vision & Strategy

For any organization, having a clear vision and strategy is needed to answer why that organization exists and what it does. Alignment around these questions is a crucial part of creating the synergy needed to accomplish it’s goal. Writing down that vision and strategy in a simple document is helpful for bringing that alignment. This resource will provide a tool for aligning the vision and strategy of global missions in your church. Download the “Worksheet for How to Develop Your Church's Missions Vision and Strategy.”

Sending Church Element #4, Building a Strategy, is about taking the vision that you have defined as a church regarding global missions and coming up with a way to accomplish it. Defining the strategy helps align the leaders and members of the church not just in what you are accomplishing together, but how you are going to do it. Many churches have come to agreement on the what, but because they have not found alignment on the “how” do not work together with the synergy needed to make their biggest impact. 

Organizational expert, Patrick Lencioni says in his book, The Advantage:

Every policy, every program, every activity should be designed to remind employees what is really most important...The single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health. Yet it is ignored by most leaders even though it is simple, free, and available to anyone who wants it. 

There are many tools that help to provide strategic alignment. One that we have found helpful is the “Vision Frame.” It was developed by church planter and consultant Will Mancini and is outlined in the book Church Unique. 

The idea of the vision frame is to capture the most important priorities for your team or for that individual’s ministry. As life and ministry happen, the vision frame helps the team or the individual keep the main things, the main things. It provides a framework for where energy is given. It focuses efforts and staves off sideways energy. 

The vision frame is based on the relationship between the frame of a painting and the painting itself. The frame of a painting provides the support of the painting, the boundaries of the painting and even influences the painting by its design. If the painter does not think about the frame when painting they could end up with part of the painting being unseen, as well as, a clash of color from the frame.

Similarly, an organization needs to set up the right support and frame for the vision they wish to execute. When this is set up correctly, it allows for the church to color in the vision they desire to have with clear parameters to guide them.

The Vision Frame is originally written to help churches understand and become their vision, but it also works for teams and individuals. It contains four components, one for each side of the frame. And then a grid for working through the timelines and action steps needed to accomplish the vision. Its components are as follows:

• Vision: What do we do? The vision is a clear and concise statement that describes what the team or individual is ultimately supposed to be doing. 

• Values: Why are we doing it? The missional motives are shared convictions that guide the actions and reveal the strengths of the church. 

• Strategy: How are we doing it? The missional map is the process or picture that demonstrates how the church will accomplish its mandate on the broadest level.

• Measures: When are we successful? The missional life marks are a set of attributes in an individual’s life that define or reflect accomplishment of the church’s mandate. 

• Horizon Storyline: Where is God taking us? This is the picture in the frame. What picture you are going to paint? What outcomes you are hoping to see and when.

Before going into each of these questions, take a moment to download or print off the Upstream website: “Worksheet for Creating a Vision Frame for Missions in Your Church” to apply the key points of this resource. Let’s look at these five components and how they impact the development of a defined vision and strategy for your global missions vision.

1. Vision - What do we exist to do?

Vision is trying to get to the essence of why your team is doing what it does. Make sure you read “How to Develop Your Church’s Missions Vision Statement” and complete the “Church Examples of Missions Vision Statements,” as these resources will complement this section. 

The vision is that catchy statement that you can say quickly to someone that inquires about who your team is and what you do. Something you can put on a coffee mug, on a banner, or say to someone in an elevator.

If you did not get the opportunity to look at “How to Develop Your Church’s Missions Vision Statement” or the corresponding worksheet, here is a quick overview of the process for developing a vision statement:

1. Write down some key words that describe some current and aspirational realities of your global missions initiatives as a church. Think 5-8 words. Utilize predominately verbs or nouns about what you do, where you do it, who it is towards, etc.

2. Utilize those verbs and nouns to write a mission statement. Don’t limit yourself here. Just write something that encapsulates your vision/mission.

3. Once you have completed that first vision/mission statement, edit it down to 12 words.

4. If it doesn’t flow with 12 words, you can add some of those prepositions or articles to make it flow. But don’t add anymore nouns, verbs, or adjectives. Keep it simple as possible.

You will always be revisiting your vision/mission statement. Avoid perfection at this point. Get this first draft going and as you build the rest of the frame you can refine your vision statement.

2. Values: Motivational & Cultural

The second step of the vision frame is to look at what you want the team’s values to be. We are going to break up values into motivational (the why behind what you do) and cultural values (the feel of how you do it).

Starting out, Motivational Values are trying to answer the “why” of our team. If you had the opportunity to look through the resource “Establishing Missions Convictions” you will have come up with 5-10 convictional statements about your church’s beliefs on global missions. Refer back to that list to come up with some key “motivational” values that capture the heart of why you want to have a global missions vision as a church. As an example, when I was developing the motivational values statement of the missions department at my church I came up with:

• God’s Glory - God desires worshipers from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

• University Driven Vision - Campus ==> City ==> Country ==> World. 

• Better Together - This vision is a natural extension of our national church planting vision. It is better and more fun to do together.

• Opportunity - The multiplication of churches and laborers nationally, if cultivated, can lead to the multiplication of churches and laborers globally.

For global missions teams these are probably going to start with a value or two that would be true for most churches. See if you can have at least half of your statements be something that is motivated from a unique aspect of who you are as a church in the kingdom of God.

Beyond the motivational values, I would recommend, especially with a team, developing some cultural values for your global missions vision. These are the “what you want to be known for” values. They describe some of the characteristics you want to describe your missions team and the outworkings of your missions vision. This isn’t as much about specific outcomes, but the culture of your missions vision. It is the “means” by which you will work towards the end. Some questions that may help you in describing your culture values include, but aren’t limited to:

• Are we going to be more broad or focused in what we give ourselves to in ministry?

• Are there ways that we want to treat one another on the team?

• Are there ways we want to treat the nationals we are ministering to and partnering with?

• How will we balance the tension of being ambitious and healthy?

If you’re having trouble identifying some of these cultural values, think about the characteristics of someone who has championed missions at your church or a missionary that has been successfully on the field for some time. What did they embody in both their principles and their actions. 

When I did this with the missions department I was leading, I developed following values:

1. Strategic - Follow the leading of the Holy Spirit to choose our targets slowly, wisely, and strategically. 

2. Generous - We will work hard to catalyze and partner with other churches generously. 

3. Healthy - While being ambitious we will prioritize the health of our missionaries and teams over expansion.

4. Focused - We will decide what we Own, Catalyze, and Bless based on what degree the partnership involves our People or People we like; strategic Places; and the types of strategic Projects we want to involve ourselves in.

Now that you have framed your vision statement and your values for global missions, you can move on to developing the specific strategies whereby you will work together as a church towards the vision.

3. Strategy

Strategy is answering the questions of, “How do we do it?” While the mission gave the big picture idea of what your team does; the values helped define the why and what you want to be known for; the strategy is where the rubber meets the road into action. It is the playbook whereby members of your church will work together, with the greatest synergy towards your vision. Not working against each, but working together.

One of the best examples of working together is a rowing team. A rowing team needs to be so perfectly in sync that they add the weight of one person to the boat whose sole purpose is to keep everyone rowing at the same pace. Leaders in the church should see a major portion of their role as keeping the members of their church working synergistically towards the same goal.

In my missions leader role I had our church focusing on 3 priority global missions endeavors that helped guide who we supported, what new partners we brought on, and what we helped facilitate:

1. Church Planting - Plant churches amongst the least reached university students as lead catalysts of a student focused vision.

2. Church Strengthening - Strengthen the developing church to deepen their strategy, networking, and theology.

3. Community Development - Develop communities impacted by poverty through churches we are strengthening.”

Likely, in your global missions strategy you would have similar strategies as these three strategies encompass much of what we see in missions today. But notice how the statements get very specific about the strategy. They frame the strategies so that there is clarity around where we were going as a church.

I would encourage you to come up with 3-4 key strategies and set up parameters with specificity. This will guide you in your missions budget and the missions endeavors you choose to say yes and no to.

4. Marks/Measures

Mancini describes the Measures for a church as what you want a disciple to look like in your church. For your global missions vision, you would want to consider the types of outcomes you would dream up. This is more of the story that you want to tell than the concrete goals. We’ll get to those in the next section. You may come up with Marks like:

1. We want to see members of our church who are sent out as missionaries have a positive view of the way we take care of them as a church.

2. We want our members involved in prayer and care for our missionaries.

3. We want to see the average term length of our missionaries increase.

You will define success by what you begin to see, smell, and feel as stories of these marks/measures are talked about, noticed, and valued amongst members of your church and the nationals you partner with. 

You’ve now got the frame for the painting built. Now you can begin painting within the lines of what God has uniquely called your church towards in global missions and the specific steps you want to take to realize that vision.

5. Horizon Storyline

The final section of the Vision Frame is called the Horizon Storyline. Looking back to the picture on page one, there are four sections within the picture that you’ll notice: 

1. The top of the mountain.

2. The base of the mountain.

3. The part of the road going over the hill that is just out of sight.

4. The road easily seen in the foreground

This picture sets up four aspects of the Horizon Storyline:

1. Beyond the Horizon Vision (5-20 years) - This is the mountain-top. This is getting specific with your vision/mission statement. What do you quantifiably want to see happen in the next 5-20 years of global missions endeavors coming out of your church.

2. Background Vision (3 years) - This is the mountain itself. In this area, are four boxes where you will put specific, measurable, action items that your church will do to move towards the vision/mission for global missions.

3. Midground Vision (1 Year) - This is the road just over the horizon. This is one overarching goal you have for the coming year for your global missions endeavors. 

4. Foreground Vision (90 Days) - This is the road in front of your team now. Like the “Background Vision” you will come up with four measurable action items that members of your church will do to help move your church one step closer towards realizing your “Mid-ground vision.” These goals are re-evaluated every quarter to help you reach your intended target.

One question that often comes up in the Global Horizon Storyline is, which should I do first, the “Beyond the Horizon Vision” or the “Mid-Ground Vision.” Ideally, you would be able to create the “Beyond the Horizon Vision” first. However, if that’s not coming clearly, start with the Mid-Ground Vision. That mid-ground vision might simply be, “Figure out the Beyond the Horizon Vision.”

We hope that the Lord will give you and your church great clarity as you define and further tweak your vision and strategy. A vision and strategy paper will not automatically lead to success. Continued prayer and seeking the Lord are a necessary part of the preparation of this document, alongside a readiness to shift as the Holy Spirit would lead. The vision and strategy paper will, however, allow you to put your sails up to catch the wind of the Holy Spirit where he is blowing. It will serve as a rudder to keep you on the route God has called you to and a compass for when you get off that path.

Next Steps

The journey toward sending well happens one step at a time. Here are three ways you can continue moving upstream:

1. Locate any existing church vision and strategy documents. Talk with other staff members about their relevance and if they need updating.

2. Download the “Worksheet for How to Develop Your Church's Missions Vision and Strategy.”

3. Ask missions leaders from other churches for their vision and strategy documents. Glean what you like about the format and the content of those church’s documents.