Church Leadership Basics: Two Articles

Create Your Church’s Vision Statement

It starts with a dream

Every church has the tools necessary to attain a clear vision for their future. Leaders must dream what their ideal church will look like and then implement a specific plan so they can achieve those dreams. Churches that are achieving their dreams started through creating vision and mission statements.

All churches need to have a vision statement and a mission statement to clearly communicate the church’s future as well as strategically plan how to get there. Vision statements help congregations acknowledge their past (who they were when they were established), identify their present (who they are now), and prepare for their future (who the church wants to be one, three, or five years from now.)

However, leaders cannot simply create vision statements without purpose behind them. They have to allow themselves to dream first. In order to have any sort of healthy, reproductive organization, you must begin at the beginning. You have to start dreaming about where you would like to see the church in one, five, or ten years.

A vision statement is a succinct, one-sentence statement encompassing all you want to achieve as an organization. A mission statement, on the other hand, is longer and specifies the steps your organization is willing to take to achieve the overall vision.

After a church creates a vision statement, they then create steps within their ministries to achieve the vision. This is achieved through their mission statement. All ministries should possess two missions.... Keep reading

The Eisenhower Matrix and Three Thoughts for Leaders

Dwight Eisenhower is noted as saying, “What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important.” He is credited with the quote because of his emphasis on planning and strategy. From this quote, the Eisenhower matrix was born, which Stephen Covey later popularized. Here is my sketch of it.... Keep reading

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