Resources and Comments in Response to “The Vision to Embrace Change”
“The Vision to Embrace Change” (the June 21, 2010 Alban Weekly article adapted from Kenneth McFayden’s Strategic Leadership for a Change: Facing Our Losses, Finding Our Future) highlights several components of effective visioning processes. Each component, believes McFayden, needs to be utilized as congregations embrace change and move into a transformational future.
The first of these components is honoring the past and discovering vision “in existing values and stories.” This component aims to identify core values that reside in the congregation’s history and form its current identity. The second of these components is focusing on the future and discovering vision in emerging values and stories. And a third component is discerning, through studying Scripture and in other ways, how God is calling the congregation to faithful service.
What resources might support you and your congregation as you engage in each of these components in your visioning process. Some valuable resources are listed at the end of the article. In addition, we invite you to consider the “Change” and “Mission and Vision” sections of the Congregational Resource Guide. You might especially enjoy the latest edition of Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change as well as The Dance of Change.
What are your stories and thoughts on this topic? And what resources do you suggest? We look forward to hearing from you!
How long should the pastor’s/congregational leaders’ trip to examine the past last? Is this a year-long process? Should it be done at the beginning of a new pastor’s tenure? Can a pastor who has been at a church for a number of years engage in this process and reap measurable benefits?
Just a few of the questions going through my head right now.
Thanks,
Dean
“The first task for leaders who seek a new direction for their congregations is to uncover vision in existing values and stories.” Whose existing values and stories? Probably the values and stories of the members as members of the congregation. What would happen if another set of values and stories was sought? Suppose they were the values and stories of the members in their day to day living trying to make their various “worlds” more loving and more just with God’s help. Just imagine the excitement that would come from hearing what the members are doing on their own — sustained by their church, for sure — but on their own using their own imagination and putting their Christ-shaped values to work out from under the church banner. There are legions of stories out there waiting to be told!
One of the issues raised by this article came at the end, and I’m concerned that it should be the primary focus–Prayer. Richard Foster, in his classic “Celebration of Discipline” says “…to pray is to change”. It has been my experience that church who have lost their vision most often aren’t good at prayer either. As a result they have a skewed memory of the past, don’t recognize the present reality, and are fearful of future change. Maybe I’m naive, but my experience says otherwise.