A Vision Sharing Day

This page gives an outline for a vision sharing day with a church congregation. The aim of the day is to get the whole church pulling in the same direction, behind a common vision. It can also be run as a half day session, although this is considerably less effective. (For a half day meeting, omit the sessions in italics and use the timings in brackets.)

10:00 (9:15) - Meet for coffee and doughnuts (an incentive for a prompt arrival!)

10:15 (9:30) - Opening worship - including praise, prayer and a scripture passage.

10:45 (9:50) - Brief Introduction - aim of the day, and outline agenda, (if in an unfamiliar building, the location of fire exits, toilets etc.).

10:50 (omit) - Team Development Exercise. Any exercise to get people talking and working together in groups. Use some random way of mixing groups up e.g. birth month. If no other ideas, one simple exercise is for each team to create the highest possible tower in 20 minutes using newspapers and sellotape. As a 1 minute debrief, link the need for a plan before you start work to the need for vision for the church, and also stress the need to work together.

11:15 (9:55) - Presenting the Draft Vision - You could outline your views, suggest several possibilities, reveal your discernment of the Spirit's prompting of the church, talk about the social context, or whatever you feel is appropriate for you to provide input to guide the church in their thinking. You may find it helpful to write a short report in advance. Whatever you opt for, make it punchy and easy to listen to - possibly involving others, visual aids, questions, etc. You should set an appropriate time scale for the vision to prevent a focus on the next few months activities.

12:00 (10:25) - Confirming the Vision - Prayer and Discussion in groups - This gives the wider church the chance to reflect on what you have shared. One way of positioning this is as "sifting the vision" - for them to suggest what should be taken out of that which has already been shared, and what should be considered as additional elements to the vision. You may want to suggest that they start with a period of prayer in their small groups.

12:45 - Lunch - a "bring food to share" lunch can build fellowship.

1:30 (11:10) - Feedback from the groups. Sharing of brief summaries of the group discussions. Try to find a more exciting way of doing this than each group "reporting back" (which can be done later to capture the detail of what was said) e.g. cartoons on flip charts, newspaper headlines, "tv reporter interviewing group member"

2:00 (11:30) - Developing the Vision - Discussion in groups. This second stage allows groups to form to discuss how an element of the vision might be realised. This starts the progression beyond vision statement and into "what would it take for this to happen?"

2:45 (12:15) - Feedback from the groups. Again brief sharing of top line thoughts.

3:15 (12:40) - Leader's Wrap Up - Thank people for their contribution, highlight how the results of the day will be taken forwards, and leave people feeling excited.

3:30 (12:45) - Closing Worship - fairly upbeat praise, and time to commit plans to God.

4:00 (1:00) - Finish and depart.

This is the end of the Sharing Vision module. Please would you take a moment to give us some feedback on it. Thank You.