Every church I have ever been a part of has a mission statement. At Marysville, our mission statement was, "To build and be the body of Christ." At Trinity Evangelical it was, "To know Christ and make him known." At Kansas and St. Paul's we used the standard UMC statement, "To make disciples for the transformation of the World" and now at Sulphur Grove, our mission statement is, "to grow disciples, to live and share God's love."
And all of these are noble statements of purpose, describing what we do; however, mission statements fail to build robust consensus for the same reason that most fail to serve as a north star for determining the direction of an organization. Mission statements fail, all to often, because they vaguely describe what we do, but they do not describe why we do it.
Here recently, in an attempt to guard against breaking my four month old son, I have found myself reading books related to neuroscience and human personality. And the consensus of the scientific community (as it relates to human interaction) is that our brains do not operate as a single functioning unit, but rather that our pre-frontal cortex (PFC) is the emoting desire center of the brain, while the frontal cortex (FC) is responsible for higher functions like language and reasoning. The PFC is hard-wired to survive by releasing positive emotion chemicals when we are interacting with people who talk like us, walk like us, believe like us, look like us, etc. If you are like me, and grew up in a community with very little diversity, and couldn't understand why your minority best friend in elementary school spent less time with you and more time with other minorities when you got to high school where there were other minorities, this is one reason why. Our brains are hard wired to seek out sameness as a survival tactic. So while reason (done in the FC) might tell us that our shared history is what is truly important, and we should still be the best of friends, the overwhelming chemical response put out by our PFC means that, in most cases, our friend if given the opportunity to be friends with others who look more like her, sound more like her, believe more like her, etcetera--she will take it. Now, this is a general idea that requires much greater nuance in the real world, and no situation can be seen as strictly determined by brain chemistry. The intersection of nature and nurture can lead to a plethora of outcomes; but, in general, scientists agree that the way our PFC works is to draw us in to people who look like us, believe like us, and talk like us. We want to agree with those who our PFC tells us are our kind of people.
So what does this mean for vision casting?
If you want to build consensus, if you want the vision to be communicated powerfully, it all comes back to the community's shared belief. Don't tell me the things that you do, tell me the belief that explains why you do it. So your mission is to make disciples, that's nice. Why? What is so great about disciples? We have these mission statements that are so obtuse and so dependent upon everyone who hears them making the right assumptions about our motivating beliefs that they have no real meaning outside of the mental exercises performed by our frontal cortex.
If you want to powerfully cast the vision for God's preferred future, speak to the heart (or at least the pre-frontal cortex). Don't tell me what you are going to do or how you are going to do it, tell me why!
Here is an example of how umc.org describes itself:
We are the United Methodist Church. We make disciples for the transformation of the world.
We have 12.5 million members who are committed to being a global, connectional, inclusive, scriptural, wesleyan, missional, ecumenical, socially just church.
Not very inspiring is it...
But here is how we might better cast the vision for what it is to be United Methodist:
We believe that knowing Christ and being filled with the Holy Spirit transforms individuals, families, communities and our world.
There are 12.5 million of us who are committed to being global, connectional, inclusive, scriptural, wesleyan, missional, ecumencial, and socially just.
We make disciples for the transformation of the world. We are the United Methodist Church.
What do you think? Do you respond to the second vision for United Methodism more strongly than the first?
For a more detailed look at this idea, read Simon Sinek's, Start with Why.
