HCI Coaching Guides

Values, Mission & Vision

Dan Riemenschneider

Healthy Church Initiative

Missionary Church, Inc

Advance Preparation:

  1. The church will have two upfront costs to agree to before you coach this church:

A Percept demographics report will be used to help the church leaders grasp the potential for this church in reaching people. The report you want is the Neighborhood Analysis Report. The cost is around $340, but they do run specials at times. A 5-mile radius around the church is usually sufficient but this can be broadened or shortened depending on the church. You need to plan on a two week turnaround so order this at least a month before your coaching date. It is probably easier for you to order and pay for the report and have the church reimburse you. You can get the report at

The second cost is downloading the Core Values training theme from Building Church Leaders. The cost is $14.95. It is available at Look under Church Vital Signs for this training theme. You will be using a couple of adapted values surveys from this theme that are available on the coaching website. The copyright of this material allows a church to adapt downloaded material. You will have the adapted material so the church only needs to download the theme.

  1. As the coach, you will need access to some files from Coachnet.org. These files as adapted are on the website, but to legally use them in coaching a church, you need to be a member of Coachnet. Your district or local church should pick up these costs for you. The annual cost is $75.00. If you have not already done so, you can sign up at
  1. Spend a significant amount of time in prayer for the pastor and the people you will be coaching. Ask for God’s wisdom as you prepare for these sessions.
  1. Download materials you need for these sessions from the MissionaryChurch coaching website:

Mission, Vision & Values Bible study—participants

Mission, Vision & Values Bible study—leaders guide

Discovering and Clarifying Your Church Core Values

Discovering Your Church’s Hidden Core Values

The Good Value Test

Examples of Church Values

SampleChurchMission Statements

SampleChurch Vision Statements

  1. Have a marker board or flip chart available.

INTRODUCTION

  1. Share with the task force that the purpose of this coaching time is to rekindle a passion and vision for the community around their church, understand the values that drive their church, and rediscover why their church exists. These three areas are critical for the ongoing health of the church.

Values are what drive our behavior. Godly values will move our church forward. Unbiblical values will lead to doing church “our way” and that is doomed to failure every time.

Understanding why we exist as a church will keep us focused on the important issues. It will help us avoid the “Tyranny of the Urgent” that often keeps churches busy, but no impact in the community to show for it.

Passion and vision will keep us moving forward even when the battles around us are fierce. We are in a spiritual battle, and the forces of evil are strong. But God is greater and we are the ultimate victors. A proper vision is based on an accurate knowledge of our community, a knowledge that tells us who the people are in the community that we can reach. We can’t reach everyone, but we can reach some, and that is our vision that will give meaning to our passion for the lost.

  1. Remind the task force where mission, vision and values fit in the process of developing a healthy church. These three areas cannot be fully understood or appreciated without some groundwork already laid:

People should be praying for the lost so their hearts are becoming more open to those in the community we are trying to reach (prayer-base).

Random acts of kindness, living out the one another’s of scripture and being open to new people visiting our church are helping people live out the command to love their neighbor as themselves—key ingredients for biblical values, mission and vision (love environment).

As we help people “walk as Jesus walked” with changed minds, hearts and lifestyles as they live out being a disciple, people will begin to understand the heart of God for reaching the community (discipleship strategy).

  1. The coaching times will focus in fiveareas:

Looking at mission, vision and values through the Bible;

Understanding and clarifying the values that will drive us;

Understanding and clarifying why we exist as a church—our mission;

Understanding our community through a detailed demographics report; and

Identifying our vision of what we what to become as a church.

  1. Lead the task force through the mission, vision and values Bible study. It is designed for groups of two to work together on the various passages, then share with the entire group. There is a leader’s guide for you to use during the sharing time to make sure certain key points are covered. Feel free to add in other scriptures you feel are important to help the task force get a better understanding of these three areas.
  1. Spend time in prayer asking God to grant wisdom as you start on this journey to discern God’s plan for this church.

VALUES

  1. Understanding our values come before being able to understand our mission and vision. Without biblical values any mission or vision statement will only be words on a piece of paper. Biblical values will drive the leaders to fulfilling their vision which develops out of their mission. So we start here. Handout “Discovering and Clarifying Your Church Core Values” that you downloaded from the coaching website. Have each task force member complete this assessment. The assessment will take some time, particularly Part I and Part II-C. To help people wrestle with Part II you can handout “Examples of Church Values” that you downloaded from the coaching website. This will give people ideas of church values in healthy churches.
  1. When everyone is finished you will begin the process to identify church core values. Since church values must be shared values, the most important thing you can do as a coach is to get people talking about what they believe. As people share, people will begin to notice common responses. You will want to make note of these common responses, as they are clues to already shared, but unspoken, values. Let each member of the task force share their answers to Part I. It is probably best to take each question in turn and let everyone share what they said about one question. Then go to the next question. When this is finished lead a discussion in three areas:

Ask the task force what they learned through this process.

Ask them to share what they heard as common responses and themes. Write these on the flip chart or marker board.

Ask each member to share their top five values from Part II-C. Write these on the flip chart or marker board.

  1. Once everyone has shared it is time to finalize the values. Lead a discussion to identify five to ten priority values that drive the church. This will take some time as people wrestle with what is truly important for the church and agree to church values that may not have been on their own list of values. Take some time to pray during this process as God will work on hearts to meld them into the church that He wants them to be. Do not vote on values. Ultimately, there will be agreement on values or you have not prayed long enough and discussed this long enough. Since these values will guide the church for years to come, take the time necessary to work this process. The goal is health, not checking off an item on a to-do list.
  1. With an agreed list of values, it is time to evaluate each value in six areas. Handout “The Good Value Test” you downloaded from the coaching website. Have the task force look at each value and determine if they each meet all six qualifications. If some of the values fail the test (and failing means missing just one qualification) discuss this value as to whether you should really have it on the list. Maybe there is a better value we should add, or maybe we have fewer but more meaningful values. When you are finished with this discussion, there should be an agreed good value list.
  1. Work on a statement of explanation for each value that will help the congregation understand these values. Examples of church statements are on the “Examples of Church Values” handout you gave out earlier. As an option, these statements could be written by a task force member during the month and shared at a future task force meeting.
  1. With the completed values and explanatory statements finalized, brainstorm some ways to introduce these to the congregation.
  1. Hidden values can strangle a church. What you have worked through as a church are biblical values you want driving the church. But we must also address values that are keeping us from being truly healthy. Handout “Discovering Your Church’s Hidden Values” and give task force members time to read it.

Ask task force members to write down any hidden values they think are at work in the church.

Have task force members share what they have written. Write these on the flip chart or marker board.

Ask some follow-up questions: What have we learned from this experience? What similarities are there in what task force members shared? Which of these does the group agree are hidden church values?

Obviously, hidden church values that are unbiblical must be changed or the church will be in conflict over stated church values and hidden values that are really driving the church. The key insight here is that values cannot be changed by more teaching or preaching. Values are not in the head, they are in the heart and these heart matters drive our behavior. So to change values we have to address the heart. As we have learned through the healthy church process, hearts are changed through experiences. So have the task force members brainstorm some experiences that they need to introduce to the people to begin the heart change process. The church by now should already have several experiences going: praying for the lost, compassion projects in the community and other experiences introduced while working through the discipleship system material. Maybe there are people not involved in these experiences. How do we get them involved? What other experiences do we need?

  1. Spend time thanking God for helping you with the values part and asking for continued wisdom as these are introduced to the congregation.

MISSION

  1. Mission is a general statement that describes why your church exists in this particular community. Many churches already have a mission statement. This mission statement can be evaluated after you lead the task force through the next brainstorming time.
  1. Spend time in prayer asking God for wisdom as you craft a mission statement that reflects God’s desire for this church.
  1. Identify key words that describe why the church exists. Write these on the marker board or flipchart.
  1. Work this list down to 3-4 broad general categories that describe why the church exists and what the church does based on the values the church holds.
  1. If the church already has a mission statement, evaluate this statement based on the Bible study and the brainstorming the group just did. Does the current mission statement reflect what the task force believes God is saying to the church today? If not, complete the following steps.
  1. Develop short key phrases that describe the church’s ministry through these broad categories.
  1. Draft a potential mission statement for the church.
  1. Look over the handout “Sample Mission Statements.” Have we missed anything? Is our statement biblical? Is it accurate? Is it enduring and energizing? Is it memorable?
  1. Rewrite the mission statement if necessary.
  1. Brainstorm ways to introduce the mission statement to the congregation.
  1. Spend time in pray thanking God for direction in writing the mission statement and for continued wisdom as the mission statement is introduced to the congregation.

VISION

  1. Vision is a statement that reflects how you will carry out the mission and values of the church in the community. As such, it is dependent on an accurate understanding of the mission and values of the church as well as understanding the community. The task force has worked on values and mission. Now it is time to understand the community. This is where the Percept Demographic Ministry Area Profile comes in.
  2. With the Ministry Area Profile, there is a coaching guide to help you guide the task force through the materials. Go through the first four sections of this guide: introduce goal, engage group, present answers, and group discussion. Stop at this point.
  1. Spend time in prayer asking God for wisdom and discernment on what to do with this information about the community and who God may be asking you to reach.
  1. Based on the information in the Ministry Profile Area along with the values document and the mission statement, brainstorm some statements that answer these questions:

“What are we going to be as a church?”

“Who are we going to reach?”

“How are we going to do this?”

Remind the group you can’t reach everyone and you can’t do everything. That is why we have many churches. Together, we form the body of Christ. By working together we can more effectively reach a community. We want to do our part in reaching who God wants us to reach.

The first question begins to define the ministries and the kind of people the church wants to project to the community. This should be based on the values the church holds and the mission the church feels God has given them.

The second question begins to define the church ministry area and who they will most likely be able to reach. This is based on the demographic profile and those that are in the church now.

The third question begins to address the systems that are in place or need to be put in place to be the church God wants the church to be and to reach the people God wants the church to reach.To guide them you can remind them of the key healthy church areas. These are critical if we are going to reach people effectively and give guidance on how we can reach them: an effective prayer-base, a loving environment for those both inside and outside the church, inspiring worship that is culturally relevant, helping people “walk as Jesus walked with changed minds, hearts and lifestyles, equipping people for ministry, outreach into the community and developing servant leaders.

To help the group process the first and third questions you can handout “Sample Church Vision Statements” that you downloaded from the coaching website.

  1. With several statements for these questions, assign someone on the task force to put these statements into a presentable form and bring the document back to the task force at a later meeting. The vision document will be shared with the congregation, so it needs to be easily understood.
  1. Now it’s time to make the vision become a reality! Brainstorm with the group the critical areas the church needs to focus on in the next five years to become the church God wants them to become and reach the people God wants them to reach. Narrow the list down to 2-3 critical areas the church can begin to work on in the next twelve months.
  1. Pick one of the critical areas and brainstorm the steps that are necessary to put this critical area into practice. Pick one or two of these areas for the group to begin working on during the next month.
  1. Spend time in prayer asking God for continued wisdom and direction as you put God’s vision for this church into practice.
  1. As a coach your time with the church is now optional from this point. Discuss with the task force the best time for you to end the coaching relationship. You could go back for one more meeting to check on progress with putting the vision into place or walk alongside the task force for two or three more meetings to get them well down the road. Your goal is to help the church begin to put into practice their values, mission and vision and to show them how to do strategic planning so they can carry on without your guidance. By the time you get to this point, you have accomplished your goal. So let the task force decide how much additional assistance they would like.