Mike 
One of my pet peeves is when a leader casts a vision that sounds great on the surface but lacks substance. That was my reaction when I recently read about a new clean energy commitment made by the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The leaders of the 3 countries have pledged that half of their overall electricity demand will be generated with clean power by the year 2025. This is not my area of expertise, and I’m not opposed to clean energy, but the idea seems far-fetched. As I read an article about the initiative, I saw language about what we can do (with technology, etc.) but very little about what we will do or about how this goal will actually be achieved.
When I first began consulting with churches and ministries more than twenty-five years ago, I often observed vision problems. Specifically, many of these organizations didn’t have a clear and compelling vision of where God was leading them. In fact, many had never articulated any kind of vision.
Today, a different kind of vision problem is much more common. I can’t think of the last time that I encountered a church or ministry that didn’t have a vision or mission statement. But I can think of plenty of times that those statements lacked substance. It’s relatively easy to craft an inspiring statement that describes where we’re going. But just like the clean energy goal, it’s much more difficult to actually put a plan in place to get there.
So here are four tests to evaluate your vision:
- Has a “visionpath” (or multiple ones) been created to move toward the vision?
- Do key leaders know what they need to do differently in light of the vision? This relates to the visionpath and may involve changing existing programs or launching new ones.
- Do resource commitments (funding, staff, volunteers, communication) reflect the vision?
- Have metrics been defined to track progress toward the vision?
