Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Vision

The Difference Between Vision, Strategy, and Values for your Church or Ministry

By

Let’s talk about where your church is going, what it’s going to do to get there, and how it’s going to do what it needs to do.

Recently I filmed a 90 Second Leadership video for LifeWay Leadership on how to distinguish the difference between vision, strategy, and values.

I hope you enjoy it!

If you like what you saw on this video, I elaborate on this concept further, and provide audits and templates to help you develop your vision, strategy, and values in my book, No Silver Bullets: Five Small Shifts that will Transform Your Ministry.

Click here to watch other 90 Second Leadership videos by LifeWay Leadership.

 

Stop Getting Sidetracked by the Urgent

By

focus

Take a look at the agenda and minutes of one of your recent leadership team meetings:

  • What percentage of the meeting incorporates administrative or operational functions and what percentage focuses on high-level strategic issues?
  • Which items will significantly help advance mission?
  • Is there a way to delegate some or all of these operational issues to another team? If so, how? [1]

These questions, as outlined in Shelley Trebesch’s Made To Flourish: Beyond Quick Fixes to a Thriving Organization, are intended to help you diagnose a common mistake that many organizations make: allowing the urgent to overtake the strategic. 

Oftentimes, in meetings, it’s easier to brainstorm ways to solve the immediate parking issues, rather than plot out the church’s long-term strategy for city impact. Or, it’s easier to talk about ways to increase generosity and funding to meet this month’s budget, rather than thinking about how to move your church towards self-sustainability once the external funding runs out. The fact is, unless you consciously take steps to do otherwise, the urgent will always trump the strategic in your meetings.

How did we get to this place? Why is this the case?

Well, here is what typically happens in a growing church or organization. Let’s take a new church as an example. You start with the leader. As the church grows and you develop leaders to head up the different ministry departments, you begin having meetings with them. This team essentially becomes your leadership team because they are the ones in charge of getting things done in those areas. So right away, your leadership team is representative. While you might try to talk strategy in your meetings, the fact is, they weren’t recruited into their positions because they were good at strategy—you recruited them because they were responsible and knew how to get things done. Or, even better, you recruited them because they were warm bodies and had a lot of free time…okay, also because they love Jesus. No wonder the topic of your meetings always returns to logistics and operational matters—this is why they joined the team in the first place!

So how can you change the course and stop getting sidetracked by the urgent, so that you can focus on strategic issues?

[Read more…] about Stop Getting Sidetracked by the Urgent

Why We Need to Be Mean About The Vision

By

 photo-1414775838024-666765beb5d9

A Personal Conversation with Shawn

I remember having a conversation with Shawn Lovejoy a year after starting my new position with LifeWay Christian Resources. I had moved my family down to Nashville, TN to figure out how LifeWay was going to resource church planters, multisite churches, and multiplying churches (we started NewChurches.com as a result).

So we were together at the Exponential conference, and Shawn asked me, “How’s everything going?”

I just responded the way I normally do with a big grin, “It’s going great!”

But then, he stopped, looked at me straight in the eyes and asked me one more time, “How’s everything going?”

I remember thinking to myself, Shawn’s a really nice guy, and I enjoy working with him, but why is he asking me this question again?? We’re in a public place at a conference…does he expect to “counsel” me here?

Sure, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed, but who wasn’t anyway? After all, in the previous months, I was rewriting Planting Missional Churches with Ed Stetzer, developing and launching the strategy for NewChurches.com, leading a major software redevelopment initiative with the North American Mission Board to better assess, train, and coach their church planters, launching The State of Church Planting research project, and now speaking four times at the Exponential conference, but this season was eventually going to pass, right?

I was at a conference and had to put my “game face” on, so who was Shawn to be confronting me like this? Well, the reality was, Shawn was just being himself. He was acting as a wise mentor who had travelled this path many times, and was seeing someone else who was heading down the same path.

So he looked at me and said, “I’ve been where you are bro, I’ve burnt the candle at both ends, and it just wasn’t worth it.”

At that, I decided it was time to sit down and have a real conversation with him.

[Read more…] about Why We Need to Be Mean About The Vision

4 Tips to Casting a Compelling Vision

By

casting vision
Flickr – Ken Teegardin

Every leader needs to be able to cast vision. Casting vision is about painting such a compelling picture of the future that others are willing to follow you on the journey that you’re on. So whether you’re a church planter gathering your launch team, a pastor working on a building plan, a contractor focused on a renovation, or a parent needing to deal with your child’s behavior, being able to cast a compelling vision is leadership 101.

Casting vision is about painting a compelling picture of the future

Click To Tweet

Here are a few tips on casting vision:

[Read more…] about 4 Tips to Casting a Compelling Vision

a breathing portrait

By

I just came back from an amazing and encouraging time at my small group. We are studying Erwin McManus’ Soul Cravings, and as we were talking about destiny and our dreams for the future, a breathing portrait entered my mind. Here is my attempt to paint it out for you:

…God smiles and looks at us with excitement…

He extends his hand towards us as he begins to run,

although we reach out and grab hold of his hand,

we pull back and attempt to slow him down.

“How can we leave now?” we ask God, “what about all of our responsibilities and commitments?”

…God smiles and looks at us with excitement…

God motions to run with us, but we pull back and refuse, saying,

“Are you sure we are going the right way? I see so many people going that other way! They must be right.”

…God smiles and looks at us with excitement…

He reassures us that there is nothing to worry about and that we should trust him.

As he begins to run with us again, we hold back and say,

“Can we go tomorrow?


Here is my question for you:

If you have committed to follow God, are you really trusting him with everything? Are you running? Or are you still stretching, hoping that no one realizes you are just stalling time?