What is your favorite book on vision, purpose, mission, etc. for congregations (not individuals). And does anyone know one that gives an overview of various approaches to the issue?

Hi Marvin,

Actually I am not really current on new visioning books.  My old stand-bye’s have been:

The “vision” section in the early chapters of Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church. 

Aubrey Malphurs book (s) on vision casting .  One is STRATEGIC PLANNING: a new model for the church.  .  But he has others.  Go to http://www.aubrey malphurs.org.

Anybody out there in cyber-land have a favorite on the subject?

Lynn

I ran across an excellent resource on vision recently:  Will Mancini’s “Church Unique.“  I’ve been working through it with members of my team in a church planting context and I have found it to be one of the most helpful resources on the subject.  Covers vision, mission, values, strategic planning, and how these work together in a on-the-ground setting as leadership tools.  Good stuff.  Andy Stanley’s Visioneering is also a good read, rooted deeply in the book of Nehemiah.

Blessings!

Will Mancini’s book (see above by Jason Campbell) is a great one. The kicker is most people, and dare I say 100% of elderships, would be unable to work Mancini’s ideas into a doable plan. Why? Attention, focus, experience and accountability.

Attention: what’s the average life span of a good idea in a church?
Focus: requires a spark plug that keeps the engine turning
Experience: unless a person has done this before, it’s all new, scary and overwhelming
Accountability: without someone outside to whom we feel a sense of “beholding” it is easy to simply let time and opportunity go by.

Answer: get a trained, experienced coach!

Thanks guys for another suggested resource & for an evaluation of it. We are still working on vision and praying about it here. One thing we hear from a lot of sources, that we need to hear but don’t particularly like hearing, is that it will take significant time to develop vision that will be meaningful and lasting. We certainly have a way to go.

Marvin,

One of the best books on Vision, which everyone else will be reading, is Burt Nanus, Visionary Leadership: Creating a Compelling Sense of Direction for Your Organization (Jossey-Bass, 1992).

You may find George Barna, Turning Vision into Action: Defining and Putting into Practice the Unique Vision God Has for Your Ministry (Regal, 1996) helpful for thinking out what this might mean in a church context.

I have a few other books in mind, but don’t have them at hand to give you the correct bibliographic information right now.

Stan