1. Vision,
Identity,
Transition
The dynamics of doing visioning in a transitional setting
by Bill Kemp
a Reality Check 101 Presentation

2. 5 Developmental
Tasks
Task 1. Coming to Terms with History
* Task 2. Discovering a New Identity
* Task 3. Allowing Needed Leadership Change
Task 4. Rethinking Denominational Linkages
* Task 5. Forming a commitment to New
Directions in Ministry

3. Role Clarity
Clergy Itinerate: They move from congregation to
congregation, sharing with each the common
understandings about faith and order that are held
across the denomination

4. Role Clarity
Congregations Locate: They become rooted in their
context, discovering how to be the kind of church
that is vital and transformative for their community

5. Who is responsible for vision and identity in
the local church?

6. Interims Heal
•Restore healthy group
process
•Rebuild relationships
•Interpret clergy/laity
roles
•They teach by example
listening skills,
discernment, and
consensus building

7. Things to remember…
• You don’t have to call what
you do visioning or goal
setting
• The process is more important
than any one result
• For many congregations, the
intentional interim minister is
their last hope. They need a
vision to justify the next
appointment

8. Implementation
Range
Process
Time
Leadership
expectation
Authority Soon Short Decisiveness
Majority Weeks or Months Medium Fairness
Discernment Long Long Resource provider
3 ways to make a decision

9. Deciding a Congregation’s
future:
Discernment is appropriate for issues
relating to vision and identity
Let an expert
decide?
Take a vote?
Try
discernment?
72
84
96
108
120
132
1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
National average Your Church

10. Our Mission is to get...
a heart
Bacon
a braincourage

11. 3 Questions
1.What is the real nature of Church?
2.Where is society taking us?
3.How can we do God’s will?
* 3 business questions in “Confronting Reality” by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan

12. 1) What is the nature
of the church?
✤How should we design our life together
so that the church becomes what Christ
had in mind?

13. Which is more
“Church” ?
a) 200 people gathered for one hour on
Sunday in a religious building...
b) 20 groups of 10 people, meeting in
coffee shops, nursing homes,
workplace lunch-rooms, etc...

14. For Jesus, all healing
happens in community
Christianity is inherently
congregational

15. Church is:*
A gathering of people for prayer,
study, and worship, who relate to
each other and to the world as
Christ desires.
✤Seek a definition that is both universal,
flexible, and relevant

16. 2) Where is society
taking us?
✤How is your church changing to remain
relevant to the people of this
neighborhood?

17. You’re halfway there...

18. A shift
in
focus:

19. A shift
in
focus:

20. W W A A D
What Would Ansel Adams Do?

21. The innovation involves
seeing a problem or
need in the world and
implementing a solution
for it.
✤Churches that Innovate seek to
fully understand their neighbor’s
needs,
and then offer some aspect of the
Gospel as a relevant response.

22. Postmodern Religious Changes
cause
Church Size & Structure Transitions
resulting in
The need to rethink your church’s
target demographic and discerned
vocation

23. 3) How can we do
God’s will?
✤What specific vocation does God
have for your church?
You know,
Maybe we’re stuck
here
for a reason

25. Play the hand you have
been dealt

26. The Roundabout
A church can...
✤Take pride in leaving
a Legacy
✤Adapt so that they
can attract the next
generation
✤Love like Jesus in
Mission
✤Strive for Quality

27. Enter
here
Best
Road
Lovely Heart
Highway
Tomorrowland Pike
Chapel
Road

28. Exit 1: Chapel Lane
This slow meandering path leads
you towards fixing your building(s)
and caring for your members.

29. Legacy (Hospice) Churches✤Shift focus from
building as idol to
building as gift
✤Look for ways to
balance care for
current members
with wise
stewardship of
kingdom resources
✤Stop looking for
savior and start
looking for

30. New poorly marked road is headed
towards doing the things that will
attract the next generation to
church.
Exit 2: Tomorrow Land Pike

31. Ordained Expert
Material Concerns
Hierarchy
Friend
Relationships
Networks

32. Toll road; you must be willing to
spend time and money to help
others.
Exit 3: Loving Heart Highway

33. This expressway leads the church into
the marketplace, where you will
advertise the one or two things that you
do better than other churches in the
region.
Exit 4: Best Road

34. What will cause people to drive by
other churches to come to yours?
Best Road Churches Market Themselves:

35. OZ UMC Mission Statement:
Our goals is to keep what we have, connected
with young people through contemporary
worship, give our all to mission, and attract new
people to pay the bills.

36. ✤As transition nears completion,
the mirror becomes a window

37. 1. Promote healing and understanding by
interpreting the reason for this time of
transition
Example acceptance and hope while both
listening to history and advocating
change
Restore appropriate administrative and
decision making processes
Guide a nucleus in the congregation
through the Three Questions
If possible, reconnect the church
leadership with United Methodist polity
and identity
Kemp’s Tasks for Transition:

38. Simplicity
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs
be as two or three, and not a hundred... Simplify,
simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be
necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes,
five; and reduce other things in proportion.
- Henry David Thoreau

39. Check out:
twice weekly blog
Tuesday - Lectionary
Insights
Thursday - Fixing Church
@
www.Billkemp.info
Other Resources
@
www.notperfectyet.com
a Reality Check 101 Presentation
Vision, Identity, Transition

40. The Spiral Rule
• Congregations that focus
Outward, Travel Upward
• Congregations that focus
Inward, Travel Downward