The third Strategic Envisioning Process meeting was held on March 9, 2020 at the Three Forks Baptist Association.  The goal of this final meeting was to develop a vision for the future.  

 

The first step was to define what a vision is, and what our vision needs to be. A vision must be clear to everyone, so that everyone understands, it must be shared by the majority of those involved, and it must be exciting and make people want to be part of it. But most importantly, it must be where God wants us to go!

 

The first step in the process was to determine what our current culture is in the Association, and what shifts would have to occur in our way of thinking in order for the member churches of our Association to maximize their impact in the community. Based on a comparison of where we are now, compared to where we would like to see the Association in five years, we developed the following vision: “We dream of igniting a movement of churches that are unified in impacting the High Country for the Kingdom.”

 

We then developed three descriptors of what success in achieving this vision would look like. They are:

Churches are collaborating to met the spiritual and physical needs of the community

Churches are resourced to flourish and maximize their impact

Churches are joyfully investing in planting churches locally and globally

 

Next, we looked at what needs to change in the culture of the association in order for this to come true.  After looking at several things that could be changed, it was determined that the most important culture changes would be:

Developing a culture of humility

Prioritizing an active faith

Having a missionary mindset

 

Lastly, we began to develop some concrete steps to reach our mission statement of mobilize, maximize, and multiply.  The first objective will be to increase the number of churches participating in a High Country Impact event from 15 last year to 20 by the end of this year. Other steps will follow for maximizing and multiplying.

The next meeting of the Executive Council will be held on March 31, 2020. The purpose of this meeting will be to watch a training video on how to implement the strategy we have developed, and to continue the discussion regarding new leadership for the Association.