No. 5: Come up With a Strategy

On one level, Jonathan’s military strategy seems foolhardy. He exposed himself in broad daylight and conceded the high ground. But Jonathan knew what he was doing. He had studied the Philistines. He knew their mindset, their patterns, their proclivities. He wasn’t acting out of ignorance. He knew exactly what he was getting into.

Vision is something revealed to us by God. But once God reveals a vision, you have to do your homework. You have to come up with a strategy. Here’s how we do that at NCC: Every fall we do a planning retreat as a staff. We analyze our annual survey. We dream together and pray together. And we come up with a strategy for everything. We leave the retreat with a discipleship strategy, marketing strategy, preaching strategy, outreach strategy and staffing strategy, just to name a few. From there, we ...

No. 6: Go Public

I don’t know how long Jonathan thought about climbing this cliff, or how long he prayed or strategized. But there comes a point when you have to go public with the vision God has given you.

For the record, you’ll never be ready. You’ll never be experienced enough, educated enough or spiritual enough. For what it’s worth, not one person on our staff had ever worked at a coffeehouse when we got the vision to build a coffeehouse. We had no business going into the coffeehouse business. But God had given us a vision.

Don’t get me wrong: Our business-administrator-turned-coffeehouse-manager went to work at Starbucks before we opened. We did reconnaissance at dozens of coffeehouses and studied up as much as we could. But we still weren’t ready. For that matter, we weren’t ready to become a multisite church. If you don’t have enough volunteers at one location, how can you staff two? Cast a vision.

Here’s how we sequence our vision casting at National Community Church. It starts with staff. We want to make sure we have buy-in. Then we broaden the circle and cast vision to our leaders. We do this at our annual leadership retreat in January. You want to make sure your leaders are on board before you cast vision to the congregation. Once they’re with you, go public with the vision. For us, that happens the last Sunday in January during our State of the Church message. We pattern this after the State of the Union address that happens a few blocks from our church, casting vision for the next year with our congregation just as the president does with a nation.

Back to Jonathan. Before making a move, he tells his armorbearer about his crazy plan to climb the cliff. And instead of laughing in Jonathan’s face or pointing out the foolishness of his master’s plan, his armorbearer says, “I am with you heart and soul” (1 Sam. 14:7, NIV).

Mark Batterson is the lead pastor of National Community Church (theaterchurch.com) in Washington, D.C., and author of Wild Goose Chase and In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day.

Get Spirit-filled content delivered right to your inbox! Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.

Dr. Steve Greene is now sharing stories, teachings, and conversations with guests who lead with love on Love Leads, a new podcast. Listen now.

Dr. Mark Rutland's

National Institute of Christian Leadership (NICL)

The NICL is one of the top leadership training programs in the U.S. taught by Dr. Mark Rutland. If you're the type of leader that likes to have total control over every aspect of your ministry and your future success, the NICL is right for you!

FREE NICL MINI-COURSE - Enroll for 3-hours of training from Dr. Rutland's full leadership course. Experience the NICL and decide if this training is right for you and your team.

The NICL Online is an option for any leader with time or schedule constraints. It's also for leaders who want to expedite their training to receive advanced standing for Master Level credit hours. Work through Dr. Rutland's full training from the comfort of your home or ministry at your pace. Learn more about NICL Online. Learn more about NICL Online.