Church Vision that Rescues through Need Adoption
The following post is an excerpt from God Dreams: 12 Vision Templates or Finding and Focusing your Church’s Future.
In part three of the book I walk through the 12 templates starting with a simple definition and providing a personal snapshot from my point of view as a vision consultant. Then, I explore the template biblically, providing historical and contemporary church examples and metaphors for communication. For the complete guide with team assessment questions, I recommend that you buy the book. You can also see all of 12 templates in one visual overview or visit the God Dreams resource site.
Quick Definition
Your church’s vision is to adopt a specific need you identify, often through compassion or mercy, typically triggered by studying the needs and then responding to them. You might state it as, “We will choose to respond to a specific need in our society, locally, regionally, and/or globally.”
Personal Snapshot
I was spending the day at LakeRidge United Methodist Church in Lubbock, Texas, with Mike Gammill who serves on the Auxano team. Founding pastor Bill Couch personifies the unique strengths of the congregation; the people blend the rugged, can-do spirit of a West Texas agricultural town with deep dependence on God, the virtue of acceptance characterized by the Methodist denomination, and a passion for helping people. The future picture that would develop from our process focused on the goal to eradicate hunger in their city as the first step of breaking the cycle of poverty. Specifically, they would funnel their resources toward ensuring that no kids of middle-school age in Lubbock go hungry. Their rescue mission became totally clear.
Every city has more needs to be met than one church can be called to address. But it is amazing to watch a team gel around a particular need that God leads them toward. Usually this happens when strong gifts of mercy and helps are evident in the senior leadership team, church council, or elder board.
The first time I ran into an active church culture operating out of the centering gift of mercy was Sagemont Church in Houston. One day during our consulting session, I was offended slightly (working hard to keep it unnoticeable, of course) by how many times the senior pastor, John Morgan, was interrupted by his assistant who would pop in with little notes to give to him. My curiosity deepened with each interruption. At a break I realized that the notes were pastoral care needs on which John wanted to be updated.
A new respect began to grow—pushing aside my shortsighted annoyance—for a leader and a church whose guiding value would be stated as, “Each individual matters.”
Shortly after my day at Sagemont, I consulted another church in another city where I learned of one of their key volunteers named Morgan after Sagemont’s Pastor John Morgan. The story was shared that her parents were attending Sagemont at the time of her birth, but they didn’t have the money to pay the hospital bill. When Pastor John heard of the need, he took off his boot in the middle of a sermon, passed it around and took up a financial collection for the family. His act of mercy inspired the parents to name their daughter after him.
This simple story illustrates what is now a community-wide reputation for a church. People in the community know Sagemont is a place that really cares.
Most importantly my story might help you recognize if the need adoption template “runs through the veins” of your congregation.
Bible Reflections
Throughout the Old Testament we see countless expressions of the heart of God toward those in need. In Psalm 12:5 we see Him spring to action: “‘Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,’ says the Lord; ‘I will place him in the safety for which he longs.’”
God’s wisdom is for His church to be “full of mercy and good fruits” (James 3:17). We are also to be marked by compassion: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col. 3:12–14, emphasis added). This emphasis came not in teaching alone but was also the practice of Paul and others: “They asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do” (Gal. 2:10).
In addition, God highlights people throughout His Word who paid special attention to those in need. In Acts 9:36 Tabitha is honored: “Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha . . . She was full of good works and acts of charity.”
In Acts 10:4, Cornelius is commended by an angel, “The angel answered, ‘Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God’” (NIV).
Starting Point Metaphors
The image above shows mirror images where one side has something identical to what the other lacks. This visualization affirms that a church has some resources and can match or plug into a hole created by clear needs.
Another image to represent need adoption are two hands reaching toward each other. One is in a position of greater strength, able to help the other. Another iconic biblical image is that of washing another’s feet.
Think of images that convey the acts of serving, helping, treating, nurturing, fixing, listening, nursing, caring, or supporting. Picture a foster parent, a child being sponsored, a food kitchen, a bandaged knee, or a serving towel around someone’s arm. Imagine the tearful storytelling in a support group with listening friends or a construction work crew ready and willing to build a house.
Historical Examples
“Immigration reform” may always seem to be in process, but modifications in 1965 were the most far-reaching revision of US immigration policy in more than fifty years, opening doors to new waves of immigrants. In response tens of thousands of churches championed the idea of sponsoring a refugee family, many from a Southeast Asia country such as Vietnam. This in turn led to any number of need-meeting church ministries, the most popular being classes to teach English as a second language (ESL).
Several years ago when visiting Bethlehem Chapel in Prague, I was moved by a “need adoption” story from before the Reformation, as priest and future martyr John Hus led the congregation. While touring the church building, I was immediately struck by two oddities: the first is a large stone water well in the middle of the sanctuary, and the second is the prominence of babies in the larger-than-life medieval-style murals on the walls. The tour guide shared that in the early fifteenth century the town experienced setbacks due to influence of criminals and prostitutes. Evidently the prostitutes disposed of their unwanted babies in the town’s local water source, polluting the water. The horrific acts ignited the people of the Bethlehem Chapel to take up the cause of these murdered children (symbolized in the large mural) and to provide a clean, safe water source for the community. Non-church members were invited, even during Sunday services, to come in and draw water from the well.
Contemporary Examples
Although Rick Warren of Saddleback is most known for the widely successful book Purpose Driven Church, I wonder if his greatest contribution comes from building a church that meets real needs. Rick has always challenged pastors to know more about their community than anyone else. The first line of Saddleback Church’s vision says, “It is the dream of a place where the hurting, the hopeless, the discouraged, the depressed, the frustrated, and confused can find love, acceptance, guidance, and encouragement.” Saddleback has developed more than seventy ministries to targeted felt needs within the community like Empty Arms for women dealing with miscarriages or Hope for the Separated for people trying to save their marriage (A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir).
But perhaps the church’s best-known and widely adapted ministry, Celebrate Recovery, is a fusion of the Sermon on the Mount and the classic twelve-step approach of Alcoholics Anonymous. What started in 1990 has today brought the Christ-centered approach to recovery to more than twenty thousand churches worldwide helping people recover from “hurts, hang-ups, and harmful behaviors” including drugs, alcohol, pornography, anger, depression, and abuse (A God-Sized Vision).
Leaders at The Life Church, Memphis, Tennessee, were surprised by a newspaper headline saying their city had the “hungriest zip code in the United States,” where 74 percent of children went to bed hungry every night. They focused their outreach efforts on that area and bought an old bread delivery truck to distribute food. The church was able to partner with schools in the neighborhoods with the greatest need—showing up after school on Friday to distribute bags with enough groceries to feed a family for a weekend. Volunteers in the growing ministry do more than hand out food; they do it all in Jesus’ name. “Volunteers line up outside the school,” explains Pastor John Siebeling. “When the kids come out, they give them hugs and pray for them. They tell them, ‘You’re a champion’ and give them their bags.”
Another specific need churches adopt is the opportunity to adopt orphans within their sphere of influence. In Colorado, LifeBridge Church, for example, has set a goal—and invited other churches to participate as well—to zero out the number of kids waiting for adoption through Colorado’s child welfare system. Over a six-year period, that number of waiting children has already reduced by 70 percent (Vertical Church Bible Study).
Another way we see the need adoption template expressed is through the starting of separate nonprofits and parachurch organizations to cooperate with the church in meeting particular needs. According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, more than ninety-one thousand nonprofit Protestant organizations filed tax forms for Christian work last year in the US. Mack Stiles writes, “This dizzying array of parachurch ministries feed the hungry, focus on families, evangelize youth, and send missionaries. They publish, lobby, and educate. They broadcast, fund, clothe, and heal. Parachurch ministries serve the Christian community around the world" (Christianity Today).
Realizing Your Own Vision
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