Futuring Your Church: Finding Your Vision and Making It Work

A vision is not a mission statement declares George Thompson. In the throes of establishing their congregational identity many church leaders resort to developing a mission statement which gets put in a file drawer and forgotten until the next budget review. The problem is that mission statements focus on concrete achievements; a vision in contrast establishes the larger picture of aim broad purpose and hopes. In Futuring Your Church church leaders explore the congregations heritage its current context and its theological bearings. From the insights gleaned members can discern what God is currently calling their own church to do in this time and place. Once this vision is found Thompson provides a simple organization model for applying the vision--for making it work. A practical helpful tool for futuring authentic ministry. With one foot in Scripture and the other reaching toward the future George Thompson provides marching orders for congregations that are committed to discover their options for contemporary yet faithful witness. This hands-on step-by-step approach should give every church leader new confidence in the practical possibilities of renewal in their ministry. --Carl S. Dudley Codirector of the Center for Social and Religious Research and Professor of Church and Community Hartford Seminary George Thompson has given us a mature work that moves beyond the oft-frustrating exercise in perfunctory and unimplemented visioning on the one hand and the vacuous mechanics of planning on the other. He is sensitive to the arts of pastoral ministry as well as to the skills of congregational and societal analysis. Futuring Your Church encourages challenges guides admonishes and reassures those committed to helping a congregation live its way into a faithful witness. --Geddes W. Hanson Charlotte W. Newcombe Professor of Congregational Ministry Princeton Theological Seminary George B. Thompson Jr. is Professor of Leadership and Ministry Practice at The Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta Georgia. Thompson is the editor and coauthor of Alligators in the Swamp: Power Ministry and Leadership (2005) and author of Church on the Edge of Somewhere: Ministry Marginality and the Future (2007).