david hayward. artist. cartoonist. teacher.

I come back to the issue of vision and mission statements again and again because it is very important to me. It is also extremely important to the church. I have witnessed and experienced this first hand. This is not theoretical, but practical help for churches. I have seen and experienced the negative impact vision and mission statements have upon the church, and I wish churches would stop needing them, creating them, drafting them and casting them. The church would be healthier for it.

So here are just 10 reasons why vision and mission statements should be expelled from the life of the church.

Vision and mission statements…

1. distract from the primary purpose of the church, which is to be a community… a spiritual family, and focus attention and energy on doing something. I’ve seen meetings where critical relational issues were ignored in order to prioritize a vision’s immediate demands.
2. tantalize the people to follow a code rather than their own hearts. How many times have I heard it said, when a unique need presented itself to the community, “Well, that’s not what we do!“
3. aren’t found from the earliest church right through to recent history. They are a modern phenomenon excited by their success in the business world. I believe they are necessary in business, but are a virus to the church. Inject just a small dose and in time it will crash the vitality of the local spiritual family. They might produce more activity, even positive activity, but the core health of the spiritual family will be compromised.
4. promise the success and longevity of the group rather than the individual health of its members.
5. transfigure what is meant to be a spiritual family into an energy unit, a lobby group, or an activist organization. There is nothing wrong with these things, as long as we understand that this is a forsaking of our primary identity as a family. It would be like Lisa and I insisting that we were put on this earth to raise 3 children, when in fact our primary identity and role is lovers from which child-rearing emanates.
6. insinuate competition between local churches. Whenever I’ve been in meetings where demands for vision and mission statements were given, it always threw me back to Israel demanding a king because all of her enemies did. God consented. We are allowed to create and employ vision and mission statements without God smiting us. But that doesn’t mean its the best way.
7. divert the pastor’s attention away from the primary practice of prayer, study of scripture and teaching. Rather, the pastor’s attention and energy usually get poured into inventing and crafting a sexy vision statement, convincing the leaders to endorse it, and inducing the congregation to comply to it.
8. assume we can predict the future and predetermine our actions in it. Almost all people I’ve spoken with admit that the vision and mission statement of their community is quickly redesigned, abandoned or forgotten as soon as tomorrow hits with full force.
9. behave like an addictive drug: once you buy in, you can never find the perfect high. They constantly lose their appeal and demand that they be traded up into something stronger and more satisfying.
10. tempt us to take our attention away from what is right now to what should be by now. They introduce a subtle dissatisfaction with who and what is, and instill an appetite for something better than what we already have right here right now.

Colossians 3: 14, extolling love, peace and unity, suggests that the burden of unity rests upon the offended, not the offender. As we have been forgiven, so we forgive. The supreme example is Jesus forgiving his murderers even while they are in the act. We cannot wait for repentance, restitution or retreat in order to enjoy peace. It is up to you and it is up to me to forgive and clothe ourselves with love. Now.

It begins with me. There is no point in giving me steps to peace if I don’t believe in peace to begin with. There is no use in explaining to me how to live in unity if I don’t value it, think it is impossible, or have a fundamental resistance to its manifestation. Laws might be made and kept to convey unity and feign peace, but these laws only betray my propensity towards hate, division and war.

Rather, it is urgent that I look inward. Why am I not at peace with the other? Why is it I cannot love the other? I might think it is because of anger. But what is at the root of my anger? Perhaps it is hurt. But what is at the root of my hurt? Perhaps it is fear? If I look closely enough, observe these movements in my mind, then I will begin to notice the release of this fear, the hurt, and even the anger.

I recently spoke with a friend who’s wife left him. He was bitter, angry and alone. He couldn’t forgive her. He was so angry with her. We talked. After a while, he noticed that his anger was rooted in hurt… he was deeply hurt, betrayed by the one he loved. We talked some more. He began to notice that at the root of his hurt was fear… fear that he would be betrayed, forsaken and finally abandoned. Once he recognized these movements in his mind, he noticed his anger begin to dissipate. After some time he even began to notice his capacity to trust in love again. The peace with his ex-wife began with him. In his own mind. Not by her repentance, restitution or return.

In today’s atmosphere of the interweaving of an incredible diversity of cultures, philosophies and religions, it is so easy for misunderstandings to occur. It is so easy to offend and be offended. If we could get past our anger, past our hurt and observe our fear of the other, perhaps we will watch our divisions dissipate. Maybe even a willingness to live in peace with the other will arise. If we will have an attitude of forgiveness (be-fore it is requested or required, give whatever is needed to make peace), then unity will be enjoyed.

Lisa (my wife), Casile (my daughter) and I went to see Eat Pray Love yesterday. (Right off the bat I would say the movie has to augment the book. The movie by itself, I surmise, wouldn’t do as well. Read the book first.)

I cried right from the start! This happens once in a while. I recognize, even while it is happening, that there is something much deeper going on than me being emotionally touched by a chick flick. Same thing happened when I saw The Notebook after I was fired from Streams International Ministries in 2002. I realize it is unlocking pent up emotions. Usually grief.

I’m a master of pretending that I am stoically braving the fallout. I need to exhibit control to you. I need you to see that, in spite of the severity of my circumstances, I am Christlike on the cross of my affliction.

Then, like an ambush, a movie will pierce through my pretense and unlock an ocean of hot tears, betraying my charade. To myself. And to others.

I cried for the rest of the day. We went to the matinee. It was a long day.

At the beginning of the movie, as in the book, Liz realizes that in spite of the fact that she invested everything into her marriage and that she built it into what it had become, she was very unhappy. It was killing her. After much anguish, in one fell swoop she ended it. Thus began her year long road to recovery where she had to forgive herself and move toward her own happiness and trust love again.

This is what broke my heart open. I realized that I had spent 30 years building a ministry. I fully invested myself in it. I gave everything to it. I sacrificed so much for it. I couldn’t begin to tell you how much it cost me. I’m not trying to raise a pity party. I’m just telling you how much it meant to me and how much I was willing to relinquish for it. I took it seriously.

And then one day I realized I wasn’t happy. I realized, much to my shock and sorrow, that it was killing me. I… no one else, I had to end it. I had to do it. Believe me, I would have continued sacrificing everything to it. But I’m afraid I would have, if I kept going, sacrificed my own children, my own wife, and my own soul to it. I would have sacrificed everything in an unholy immolation and lost my own happiness forever. Even my soul.

But I hurt so many people. I disappointed them. I confused them because I had built this and wanted it. I loved it! I was the most seriously invested in it all. So why did I ask for a divorce? It didn’t make any sense to them. But I had to do it before it really did kill me and everything I cherish. And I did it in one fell swoop. Suddenly.

It’s only been a few months. When I first resigned I felt the immediate loss of the burden. The weight was lifted right away. It felt good. But I still haven’t forgiven myself for what I did… to the church, to my family, to my friends… and to myself. I have brought complete insecurity, instability and financial ruin to my home. I have lost so many friends (again), and I have left people and my church bewildered. I know we will all be better for this. One day. But no one sees it yet. Including me.

I will find my happiness. But I have a ways to go. And every time I allow my heart to break, it will open it up even further to forgive fully, to trust without caution, and to love again completely. Of this I’m certain. Sort of.

The most mature spiritual person can actually seem to be the most childlike. There is a confusing enigmatic character to the spiritual life in general.

But when you gather different spiritual lives in one community, the anomaly compounds exponentially. Community life should feel paradoxical. Especially the religious community life. The healthiest churches might actually appear to be the least healthy.

This because diversity is more valuable as a sign of health than homogeneity. In my experience, homogeneity is usually forced and should always be held suspect. Homogeneity, again in my experience, has always been a thin veneer of conformity necessitated by the powers.

Paradox is not easy to live with. The mind is uncomfortable with it and wants to settle on one or the other of the opposing ideas. But as one matures and develops the art of holding two apparently opposing ideas simultaneously in the mind, paradox is understood at a very deep level. Then one can see life at work where death seems to prevail. And one can also see death at work where there proposes to be life. Or, as in a church, one can perceive a deep order in the midst of chaos. And one can perceive deep division where the primary presentation is homogeneity.

I saw love in our chaotic community, and that was its order. Love is the bonding agent manifesting the unity of the Spirit. It is not agreement. It is not compatibility. It is not adherence, obedience, charismata, style or anything else. It is love that manifests itself in voluntary and willing fellowship with others who are different, even on significant levels.

Which is why it is difficult to keep a church together that is paradoxical in nature. Different people, from the pastor to the visitor, are always pressuring, lobbying, praying, expecting, longing and working for their own fantasies of what the church should be to become a reality.

We must rest in the paradoxical truth that the church can seem alive and dead at the same time.