If Every Church in Town Could Say Your Vision, You Don't Have One

Here is an uncomfortable test for the vision statement framed on your church wall: could every other church in town say the exact same thing? If the answer is yes, then what you have is not a vision. It is a slogan.

I know that stings, because most of us inherited language about "loving God and loving people" and assumed that was our direction. It is true, and it is beautiful, and it is also true of the church down the street and the one across the city. A small church with no sharp, shared sense of direction quietly drifts. But a small church with a vision that is genuinely its own punches far above its size.

The research backs this up. Across the largest congregational survey ever conducted, a clear and compelling mission turns out to be one of the top correlates of growth and vitality. And here is the part we cannot delegate: the single most important function of a leader is to cast vision. The administrative work can be learned and handed off. Only you can set the tone and name where this church is going.

What a real vision actually is

A vision sits between two things. It is more specific than a dream, but more motivational than a goal. That tension is the whole point. If it is too vague, nobody can act on it. If it is too rigid, nobody is moved by it.

The specificity test is the gatekeeper. Draft your statement, then ask the hard question: could any church in town claim this? If so, cut deeper until you have named something only this church, in this place, is positioned to do.

And keep it short. The benchmarks are clear:

Under 100 words, always, so it stays memorable.

Ideally distilled to a 12 to 17 word statement.

Deliverable as a 2 minute spoken pitch.

If you cannot say it in two minutes from the platform, your people cannot carry it out the door.

Find your Kingdom Concept first

Before you write a word, discover what makes your church uniquely needed. One helpful frame is simple math: Problem times Passion times Potential. Another version asks you to combine your collective potential, your local predicament (the real need in your specific community), and your apostolic energy. Either way, you are hunting for the one thing this congregation is uniquely positioned to do.

This is worth a couple of slow hours, not a rushed staff meeting. The Kingdom Concept is the raw material; the short statement is what you mine out of it.

Name the "Who," not just the why

It helps to start with why (your vision and values), then immediately get concrete about who. Define three to four specific personas: real names, real life stages. "Jess, 35, single mum" tells your people far more than "young families." You are reaching actual humans, and naming them makes the vision visible.

Revisit these personas every two to three years. Your community shifts, and a vision aimed at people who have moved on slowly loses its grip.

Turn vision into a focused plan

A vision without a plan stays a poster. Here is the sequence that turns direction into action:

Run a planning retreat. Get your core away from the building.

Do a SWOT. Honestly name strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.

Write SMART goals. Translate the vision into measurable outcomes, like "20 people attending the new initiative regularly after one year."

Build an action plan with KPIs you actually review.

Then comes the discipline most of us skip: limit yourself to three to five strategic priorities. More than that means none of them. Focus is not a constraint on the vision; focus is the vision in practice.

And make at least one of those priorities about leadership development. It carries the largest trickle-down effect of anything on your list, because it builds the people who will carry everything else.

Deliver it until you are sick of it

A vision frame only works if you repeat it relentlessly. The power to communicate is the power to lead, and in a mostly volunteer church you cannot motivate with bonuses or threats. You appeal to the spiritual interest of your people, over and over, through preaching, conversation, bulletins, and every channel you have.

Here is a sobering vitality check: how many of your board or core can recite the mission with no prompting? That number is a direct read on whether the vision has actually landed. If they cannot say it, it is not real yet.

Finally, mark your doorposts. Alongside your forward goals, put up visible reminders of what God has already done. People need to see momentum, not just targets. A wall of past wins next to current goals tells your church, "We are not starting from zero. We are continuing."

Match the ambition to your size

For a church under 100, baby steps beat overreach. At 25 to 50, you may simply need a 12 to 17 word draft and your first one or two personas; honestly, at that size, the pastor is the strategy, so clarity matters more than process. From 50 to 75, run that first retreat and pick your priorities. From 75 to 100, resist priority sprawl and make leadership development explicit. (You can see where your church sits at /milestones.)

Your challenge this week

Draft a vision statement of 12 to 17 words, then run the specificity test on it: could any other church in town say the same thing? If yes, rewrite it until only your church could claim it. Then read it aloud and time yourself; aim to pitch the heart of it in two minutes.