by Sam Brock

At the beginning of each decade, our ministry takes a bit of time to look at what might happen in 20 years. This past month our entire resident staff team went on a retreat to take a few moments to look at our 20-year vision. Listed below are a few concepts and practical ideas if you are looking to share a 20-year vision.

Do

Be realistic—this is not a time to predict a future that would require three wishes from a genie lamp to be successful.

Start with the simple concept “if the Lord wills” (James 4)—if we plan without the reality that it is God who gives life and it is God who is in control, we will develop a self-centered plan instead of a God-dependent plan.

Put 20 years into perspective—as I looked at how much had happened in the past 20 years, I realized how much could happen in the next 20 years. Our team took a few minutes to realize where our ministry was 20 years ago. Not every ministry has a 20-year history, so even looking at where your team members were 20 years ago and what the world was like then puts a few things in perspective. For instance, in 1991 the digital cell phone was a novelty, the DVD was four years off, and Windows 3.1 had just debuted.

Don’t

Present the future as fact—we are human. We don’t know the future.

Propose all growth and success in terms of numbers.

Be afraid to not know all the answers—sometimes a bit of a vision about the future assumes that you know all the steps of how to get there (we like to call that the plan). First we must define where we are headed then we can begin to work on the details of the plan.

A Basic Plan

The work of creating the basic plan lies on the leader of the organization. It is his responsibility to do the hard work of thinking. For our staff retreat, we put together a small booklet that included six categories: providence, people, philosophy, processes, program, and property. Each category had two lists—a list of what it would look like in 20 years and then a list of how we would get there. The shortcut is to just make these two lists in regards to property—the sixth category, but the reason why you would build something a certain way is because of all the items on the previous lists. At the end of the booklet, we included a paragraph called our Big Hairy Audacious Goal; it summarized all six lists into a couple of sentences that encapsulated our plan for the next 20 years if the Lord gives life and if our plan is according to His will.

Once your 20-year vision is on paper, spend a few weeks mulling it over and fine tuning it. People will tend to read the booklet carefully, so don’t just throw it together the night before. Share it with a close friend or some of the leadership within your ministry. Get used to explaining some of the thoughts and concepts. Pay attention to where people have questions. If one team member has a question, chances are that others will as well.

At our staff retreat, we opened with 30 minutes of sharing the context of where our ministry is and what the last 20 years have been like. We then split into the four groups that make up our team, and each group took about an hour to review the 20-year vision and ask questions about each of the six categories. It was interesting to see how each group would key on different areas of the vision depending on what their specific role is. After the hour review and questions, team members spent an hour of quiet time looking at what the goals meant to them personally. What goals did they need to make in order to reach the goals set for the ministry?

Since the retreat, we have not spent much time talking about the 20- year vision. It is not something that drastically changes the way you do things today. Looking at the hill we plan to climb is good; but, honestly, if we didn’t get back home and concentrate on the steps right in front of us, we would trip up ourselves.

A 20-year vision helps define our path and keep us off the rabbit trails. Some may be disappointed by the plan—what you consider a rabbit trial they consider the path. However, it is better to know that now than battle it for the next several years.

Developing a 20-year vision is a hard thing for a ministry to do because it has no sense of urgency, but the importance is huge. The financial cost to go to a retreat or getaway does not seem to help the bottom-line, but it is a huge investment in your people. Hardest of all is the requirement that the leader honestly evaluate the ministry, its people, and what the future could be. The devil would rather us be in a state of reaction instead of action. Do the hard thing!