Skip navigation.

navigation
Home

Ministry Vision Team Meetings

Ministry vision team meetings

Purpose: Bring the members of the Ministry Vision Team together to share information and ideas, pray together, grow closer as a team, discern God's vision for the congregation's ministry, develop ministry program proposals, and plan the church's next steps.

Why: Regular face-to-face contact is essential in order to accomplish the tasks necessary for ministry development, maintain momentum, nurture relationships, cultivate a team mentality, generate creative ideas, strengthen commitment to a shared purpose, and discern God's leading for the church.

What: The frequency of meetings depends on your overall time frame, the availability of team members, logistics, and the needs of the church. You should aim for twice a month. At certain times you may need to meet more frequently - especially at the beginning and end stages. If you find that no one is able to get together at least once a month, you should start looking for new team members with more freedom to participate. Try to keep meetings to about an hour and a half. The more on-time the meetings, the more willing people will be to attend the next meeting! And it bears remembering: All work and no food makes for dull meetings.

A central purpose of these meetings is to develop relationships, not just get done with business. If your church does become more involved in holistic ministry, people from this same core group will probably (hopefully!) work together on other projects in the future. The closer you grow spiritually and relationally, the stronger the foundation you are laying for future ministry endeavors. Encourage team members to care for one another holistically - i.e., spiritually, emotionally, materially. If a team member is facing a personal crisis, take time to give needed support. Caring for one another is not a distraction from the business at hand - being vessels of God's transforming love is the business at hand

If the team comes away from meetings with greater understanding of and commitment to holistic ministry, renewed energy for task group work, a more informed perspective on the church and community, a clearer vision for how the church can reach out with good news and good works, and a closer relationship with one another, then meetings are a success.

Meeting Agendas

What should you discuss at team meetings? It is up to the team to set the agenda for each meeting, but here are some suggested guidelines. Discussion topics might follow this general flow:

Meeting agendas can use the following framework (not all items need be included in each meeting, and not necessarily in this order):

  • Pray - bathe your team, your church and its community in prayer.
  • Report - allow task groups to share about their activities and learnings.
  • Reflect - discuss theological, practical, or personal questions or observations.
  • Brainstorm - summarize learnings, list possibilities, problem-solve.
  • Plan - discern direction, assess ministry proposals, decide on next steps.

Pray

  • Why: "It is God who works in you to will and to do His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). Your church's ability to do holistic ministry depends on God's working in your church. Group prayer can unite the team, transform minds and hearts, help you discern the Spirit's leading, and center your focus on the things that really matter.
  • Set aside a meaningful amount of time at each meeting for prayer - more than a quick, ritualistic invocation to check off on the agenda.
  • Pray for church ministries and leaders (perhaps make a list, focusing on one or two at each meeting), and concerns in the community. Especially remember requests shared by the people you network with in the community. Also include time for sharing personal prayer requests
  • Invite the Ministry Prayer Partners to lead this segment of the meeting a few times.
  • You can preface the prayer time with a short devotional, or the reading of a prayer or meditation from Christian writings.
  • See Tool #1, Holistic Mission Prayer Guide for suggested prayer points.

Report

  • Why: This portion of the meeting allows time for task groups to share about their activities and learnings. Effective planning requires shared information. Since task groups work independently, each group must stay in touch with what the others are doing in order to maintain a common purpose and vision.
  • Not every group need report at every meeting; groups can take turns, or simply report on an optional as-needed basis.
  • Note any issues arising from the reports that merit further discussion in the Reflection portion of the meeting. If reports call for the Ministry Vision Team to make a decision - for example, about what kind of training to organize, or which program model to adopt - you can follow up in the Planning portion of the meeting.
  • Give lots of supportive feedback and encouragement to task group members for their hard work.

Reflect

  • Why: A process of missional transformation will - and should - generate questions, discomfort, confusion, excitement, worries, dreams, epiphanies. Team meetings give people the opportunity to mull these over with a supportive group. In a community of believers there is wisdom, balance, spiritual discernment, and inspiration (Prov. 11:14).
  • Topics for discussion can arise out of past team meetings, task group work, personal devotions, Bible studies, etc. Reflections can consist of sharing by one or two persons (no surprises here - make sure they are willing and prepared in advance!), or a group discussion. Reflections may be of a theological, practical, or personal nature.


      • Structured reflection times are particularly essential:
    • After field trips and contacts with mentoring models (see How do we move from ideas to action? for suggested discussion questions)
    • After the congregational self-study report is submitted to the team
    • After the community analysis
    • At the end of a retreat
    • After a Ministry Month
    • During the process of developing a mission / vision statement
    • As the team is developing a strategic plan


  • Developing understanding and commitment to the church's mission is an ongoing process which entails living with a healthy degree of tension. Don't feel like you have to resolve every question or reach consensus on every dispute. In an effective team, differences create synergy. "Rather than staying a safe distance apart, the close working relationships within a team turn diversity into a source of strength," affirm the authors of Leading Congregational Change. Simply giving people space to think out loud in a supportive group setting is helpful.
  • Recurring questions and concerns can point to opportunities for congregational training. If team members are questioning a particular aspect of holistic ministry, it's a safe bet that others in the church are too.

Brainstorm

  • Why: Sometimes a direction for holistic ministry comes as an epiphany in a flash. More often, however, the team will have to look at the possibilities from several angles and generate a number of options before hitting on the right one. Brainstorming allows the team to summarize learnings, generate possibilities, and incubate new ideas. Brainstorming sessions are also outlets for creative problem-solving, without which persons working alone can easily become frustrated.


    • Brainstorming sessions are especially essential:
    • As the team is organizing the task groups and coming up with ways of adapting the ministry development steps to your particular situation
    • When developing training programs to equip the congregation for ministry
    • When the team is seeking vision for a new holistic ministry venture (you will need more than one brainstorming session for this undertaking)
    • Before planning the Ministry Celebration Worship Service


  • Brainstorming sessions are facilitated by the appropriate task group, or a designated individual. The facilitators pose questions to keep the discussion moving, and make sure everyone has a chance to give input.
  • At this stage, no suggestion is too insignificant, implausible or impractical. You are not evaluating ideas, just generating them. So dream big! Group creativity exercises can help stimulate out-of-the box thinking.
  • Keep track of learnings and new ideas for future reference on laptop, overhead, flip chart or notepad. Don't be in a rush to eliminate ideas or make decisions, until the team feels satisfied that sufficient options have been proposed.
  • When the discussion reaches a lull, step back to examine your list. Do any common themes emerge? Which options stand out as immediately useful, and which belong in the back-up file (or back burner, for non-computer types)?
  • Bringing in an outside consultant or guest facilitator can sometimes be helpful, especially if the team feels stuck in a rut. Contact Phil Olson at Word & Deed Network for recommended speakers, or check out the list of potential partners.
  • Continue to ask the God who freely gives wisdom (James 1:5) to give you inspiration and guidance.

Plan

  • Why: Holistic ministry doesn't happen by accident. It takes planning. It doesn't always (or usually) happen as planned - but nevertheless, a plan is essential. Planning is the next step after brainstorming. Planning sessions allow the team to make decisions and develop proposals based on everyone's information, discernment and input.
    • Discern. Your reflection and brainstorming times will generate many wonderful ideas. Is a more specific direction emerging? Working together, the team must narrow down the options and settle on a new course.
    • Plan. Develop a set of action steps for following through on this new direction. In most cases, the team as a whole will decide on the outlines of the plan, and the appropriate task group will fill in the details.
    • Review. Is the proposed plan well-suited to your character and context? Does it meet a genuine need? Is it specific enough to lead to concrete action steps? And is it holistic - reflecting the fullness of Christ's Gospel?
    • Confirm. Ask for feedback from relevant persons outside the team. In some cases it may be necessary to seek approval for the team's plan from the church's governing board or a meeting of the membership.
    • Follow up. Designate who will carry out the action steps of the plan, and follow up at future Ministry Vision Team meetings.
    • Planning generally has five steps:
  • Listening to God and to one another is the key to good planning.
  • It is very hard to let seemingly good ideas go (especially your own!). Remind yourselves that your church is not called to do everything that it could do. Think long-term - some plans may represent the right idea at the wrong time.
  • If you find yourself getting bogged down in details, delegate working out the specifics to the appropriate task group. The Program Planning group's role, for example, is to flesh out the ministry vision of the team in a concrete proposal.

First Team Meeting

To get the team going, here are some suggestions for the initial team meeting.

  • Start and close in prayer, for one another, for the congregation as a whole, and for your church's community.
  • Watch the video, What Is Holistic Ministry? Use these questions as a springboard for discussion:


    • What jumped out at you as particularly appealing or challenging?
    • Which of the churches featured in the video seem most like your own?
    • How would you define holistic ministry?
    • What might holistic ministry look like at your church?


  • As an alternative to the video, read together, "How to Take a Congregation and Lead it into Holistic Ministry" by Phil Olson (available from www.worddeednetwork.org). Have fun thinking of ways to apply or add to the construction metaphor!
  • Discover what dreams people have for your church in ministry, and what they think holds the church back. (But dwell on the dreams, not the obstacles.)
  • At the end of the discussion, ask the group to summarize some main themes or ideas to emerge from the meeting, and have someone write these points down.
  • Decide together on a tentative timetable for the Ministry Vision Team. Your time frame should be flexible, but provide target dates so your meetings do not stretch on indefinitely, and so there is a framework for holding task groups accountable. Between six months and a year is a reasonable period to ask for a commitment.
  • Decide on a schedule for meetings. If people live close by one another, you might plan to gather at someone's home for a meal and meeting once or twice a month.
  • Close by asking two or three people to share why they want to be part of this team, and what their hopes and dreams are for the church. Or ask each person to describe (in 1-2 sentences) their goals for the group.
  • After the meeting, recruit other people as needed to fill in gaps in responsibilities, and fill them in on what the team has decided so far.

 

Tags: