The Big 3

Mission – Vision – Strategy

“The founding of a movement should be organic.” 

A valid statement, for sure, but a little muddy when it comes to the specifics. These are three general ingredients to address on the road to building community. Not 3 steps, or 3 must haves. These pieces will be confronted in the natural process of acting on the call to Christ in you, however, if we define and shape these ideas beforehand, I believe we will be in a receptive position that recognizes and acts on their approach.

Mission – the specific thing we will accomplish (example: Bring salvation to the unchurched population)

Vision – what God gives us to accomplish mission (example: the direction and leading of the Holy Spirit)

Strategy – the plan we apply to the vision to accomplish mission (example: draw ppl to community serve others and weekly small groups)

They may be consecutive in application but they are definitely not consecutive in conception. Sometimes God births a vision that draws you to a mission, sometimes you get mission and nothing else, I’m my case I responded to an opportunity to develop strategy and out of that process I found a mission to invest in and God started to grow a vision in me. If starting the movement or being a catalyst to community or change is in your heart, studying these themes may be extremely beneficial.

We should not become so tied to any of the three that we get them confused with each other or the bigger picture of what God is trying to do in us. We should re-approach them at common intervals to see if we are still “in step” with what God actually wants. I have friends who experienced deep (even tragic) loss that pulled them away from ministry. At the time failure is all anyone could see, but I can say with confidence that the plan of God isn’t predictable and many times the immediate struggle is necessary to get to the place where the right mission can be accomplished effectively.