Guide Decisions with Mission, Vision, & Planning

Part of The Congregational Handbook

Diagram of Mission, Vision & Covenant

Congregations that have a sense of shared purpose tend to thrive. Growth happens—not only in numbers—but also in the depth of membership commitment, and attraction of new members. Purpose has two dimensions: Mission and Vision.

  • Mission: A concise statement of the congregation’s core purpose. What the congregation wants to be known for, or known as, within the wider world? What the congregation wants to mean to the community.
  • Vision: A carefully defined picture of where the congregation wants to be in five or more years. It is the dream of what the congregation can become in alignment with their “vow with the Universe.”

These two guiding documents (accompanied by a congregational covenant) are a way that a congregation as a whole can give direction and authority to its leaders for maximum agility.

Design an Inclusive Process

There is no one perfect way to develop your mission or vision. Some congregations do it as part of a congregational retreat, while others do it as part of a single-day program or one that takes place over several weeks. Just make sure that it is accessible by giving plenty of advance notice and providing child care.

Tip: With any of these processes, save the final wording of the statements for one or two “congregational poets” to create using what came out of the process. Wordsmithing in a large group rarely produces good results.

You may wish to have an outside facilitator assist, but that is not necessary. Make sure that you allow adequate time for the process to unfold; rushing people through these important steps doesn’t contribute to a good process. If exercises take longer than you originally thought they would, stop and talk with the members about that fact. Then work out a way you can continue the process, either through having additional sessions or perhaps agreeing to allow a smaller group to complete the activity and bring the results back for the larger group’s input and feedback.

As with any generative, open process, you need the participants to respect the facilitation and engage with the process. You may wish to start with a covenant at the beginning to be able to address any attempts to derail the process.

The key to a good vision, mission, and covenant process is making it easy and fun for people to be involved.

Here are some general guidelines and sample processes. You can also contact your regional staff for assistance.

Sample Vision Processes

Sample Mission Processes

Use Mission and Vision as Leaders

The mission and vision captures the people’s sense of who they are and who they want to be as a religious community. It is the clearest articulation of why the people think the congregation should exist, and the results can help the congregation in all areas of its decision making:

  • Where should we build our new building? The answer can be found in the congregation’s vision.

  • Where should we put our money? And why should we even bother to donate money to the congregation? The answer, you can say, is found in the mission—this is what we have said is most important, so therefore we should focus our money, time, and effort where we said we wanted them to go.

    Here is an example:

Pie Chart showing mission categories.

Creating a Purpose-Based Budget

By Renee Ruchotzke

From LeaderLab

We often claim that budgets are moral documents, and that congregational budgets should reflect our values. But line item budgets that include “office supplies, utilities, salary” and other such descriptions don’t show how these line items serve the mission of the congregation. How might…

Creating a Purpose-Based Budget

Resources for Using Mission and Vision Statements

Setting Annual Goals

Strategic Plans