Creative Ways to Cast Vision

Every church has a general vision.

They just don’t know how to get

From point A to point B.

Every church wants

To grow.

To be full of kids

To be well known in their community

Etc

Vision casting is

Helping the church see

The path

From where they are

To where they want to be.

This is completely unique

For each church.

Case Study of Auburn

During my interview

They told me what

They wanted to be.

They wanted:

Church filled with kids.

Very active in community service.

Soul-winning church.

The vision was there…

Additionally

Much ground work had been laid.

Once upon a time

they had great kids ministry.

They had put forth

much effort to

engage and serve

in their community.

They had already

official partner of local elementary school.

food ministry

chaplain of police department

connections with mayor

connections with local hospital

connections with women’s shelter

yearly school supplies ministry.

The area had a future

historically depressed community

now outskirts of Atlanta metro area

expecting major future growth.

When I arrived

we didn’t write

a new vision statement.

They knew what they wanted

they had made some progress

they just needed more

focused effort to

move toward their goals.

Growing Kids Ministry

We arrive during Covid.

SS class was dead.

average attendance of 50.

They said,

their children’s SS classes

were empty due to Covid.

We later found out

they had 1 SS class

for all kids

ages 0 to 12

before Covid started.

Children’s SS had died because

it wasn’t

focus of church

well staffed

well supported

done poorly.

We knew that

there were many

SDA families

in the area.

Our philosophy was simple.

Build it,

and they will come.

We immediately recruited

staff for classes

that had no children!!!

This was a step of faith!

My wife taught 1 class.

I taught 1 class.

We convinced 2 others to teach.

A lesson I learned,

if you are blazing a new path,

pastor is leading the charge.

My job is to create new XXXXX

create stability

hand it off to church member.

It wasn’t simple.

We had 1 class

with zero attendance!

Primary was empty!

Our plan was:

build it,

and they will come.

We had to have it ready

for a family to come.

Primary was empty

3 months

6 months

9 months.

Teacher begged for permission

to give up

leave class

wait for 10 minutes

got to adult class.

We doubled down on our plan.

Teachers show up on time.

Stay to end.

kids or no kids!

Vision casting

didn’t happen at board meeting

didn’t happen during sermon alone

It happened

talking to crying teacher

wanting to give up!

We needed small wins!

We needed a little success

to celebrate together!

And it happened.

People changed churches

to come to ours

for children’s SS classes!

We first attracted other SDA’s

who shared our vision:

great children’s ministry.

We relaunched our

Pathfinders

Adventurers.

Other churches were still closed.

Our goal was simple

build it,

and they will come.

We didn’t just think of it.

We didn’t just write it down.

We didn’t just read it.

We simply made choices

to live that plan.

Visions fail

because they are not

realistic plans

with intentional steps

to fulfill them.

We started VBS…

pretty soon we are booming

with more and more kids.

We now have

largest Adventurers club

in the Atlanta Metro area.

What did it take?

Intentional prayer

Intentional plan.

Intentional leadership.

a place poised for success.

Church Growth

We started getting visitors.

Our hospitality process

was embarrassing.

No greeter.

No welcome.

No members connected.

Nobody noticed you.

It was bad.

The church said,

we want to grow.

Your #1 opportunity for growth

are people who already show up!

People were showing up

and being ignored!

I shared with church board

we have lots of visitor

They are being welcomed.

They are not being processed.

No contact info.

No further invitations.

etc.

Church board denied

there were many guests

they were treated poorly.

I knew that if I

could track our guests

we could follow-up more.

Through much convincing

invested in church managment software.

Reasons

Track visitors.

Track leads.

Delegate lead.

Manage Attendance trends.

Manage volunteer service.

This proved to be

extremely useful tool.

We could track visitors.

How many.

Gather contact info.

Welcome them back.

Find out if they are SDA.

Invite them to next steps.

Join SS class.

Take Bible lessons.

Transfer membership.

I trained greeters

to engage the visitors.

We had started potluck

1 time per month.

There was little

engagement of guests

on other Sabbaths.

We started Meet and Greet.

Food every week.

Guests invited to stay.

The greeters were taught

take attendance by name.

Dale Carnegie

"Remember that a person's name is to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

What were the results?

We sat down to plan our

vision statement.

mission statement.

One of our goals:

I insisted that we have

and evangelistic goal.

Faith dream:

double in attendance in 5 years.

Four years later,

our vision came to fruition.

Soul Winning

We go visitor because

of the children’s ministry.

The visitors

transferred their membership

because they felt welcomed.

Soon all these new SDA members

started inviting their

friends and family.

First few years

not successful at soul winning.

4 baptism in 4 years.

We tried.

Facebook leads

Mailers

Trained members as bible workers.

Friendship evangelism workshops.

Held reaping meetings

Very poor results.

The system was broken.

We were trying

to convince strangers

our truth is best.

No relationships.

No connections.

Just:

strangers come here

check out my truth...

Failure!

I new that

we were missing

relational component.

As church grew,

more people coming.

Not just SDA transfers!

People started inviting

SDA friends.

This is where

the magic is at!

We currently have

30 active leads.

Non-SDA people

coming to Adventurers

coming to church

taking Bible studies

getting baptized.

We have about 15

active Bible studies.

Where did they come from?

They walked in the door!!!!!!

All of them!!!!

All of the leads

where we had no

prior contact with them

before: “take these lessons”

completely failed.

The vast majority

of bible study leads

that started after

regular attendance at

church or other ministry

has led to baptism!

We are on track

to have more baptism

in this calendar year

than know history of church.

For soul winning

the formula is simple

it is built on relationship

ideally on

people who attend.

Reaping seminars are great

but don’t do them

if there is no fruit to reap!

They will discourage the church!

Community Service

We are doing things.

We have program.

They are not relational.

Our community service

is currently failing our goals.

This is the next step

focus on making our

community service

more relational.

This is hard,

it takes more investment of time.

Our church is mostly

busy young professionals with kids.

They are short on time.

They are free on Sabbath morning.

Maximize our reach on Sabbath.

Building Project

Before I arrived,

church bought property

considered building

planted a church instead.

But they were still

talking to architect

about building plans

with 60 people in attendance.

I never said,

building dreams are over.

I didn’t have burden for

building a church.

I would have rather

been open to planting again.

Bigger issue,

church was empty

could not promote

vision to build because

there was no need then!

We had to prove

to our members that

we had rapid church growth

could consider the project.

We evaluated our area.

15 SDA Church within

20 mile radius.

Conclusion

we should plant

another church.

Planting is easiers

in many ways.

Find 20 people who

will break off from group

and start over.

Much easier than

lets try to build

4 million dollar church

when church is

now half empty!

We officially decided

as a church to

move foreward with

a building plan

for new church

in 2023.

Our sanctuary seats

130 comfortably.

At 110

we agreed,

we need to build.

Not everyone agree

what is what we needed.

By last year,

we had at least

30 people in the

overflow room each week.

We knew we would

have to raise

at least

1 million cash

for the project.

This seemed like

a scary goal for

a church our size.

But we were

financially viable congregation.

Mostly a church

of young professionals

with small kids.

Financially healthy.

We were told by

fundraising director

at our conference

capital campaign

will increase giving.

I believed them,

but many were scared.

Many of our leaders

struggling with

scarcity mindset.

Only so many pieces in pie.

I told them

God has another pie.

Vision casting

is not a meeting

is not a sermon

it is a belief system

it is a way of life.

Result:

Church budget is flat but healthy

Building giving is on target

Tithe significantly increased

Praise God!

Conclusions

How do you cast vision.

Church probably already has healthy dream.

Evaluate resources

Evaluate desired destination

Make strategic, and intentional steps

to move toward goal.

Why are churches unsuccessful?

bad location

poor resources

sometimes.

More often,

pastors and churches

are too busy maintaining.

Too many resources go toward

keeping shop

not reaching toward dreams.

Make sure your

greatest efforts

around about

reaching goals.