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God Dreams: 12 Vision Templates for Finding and Focusing Your Church's Future
Is your team excited about the next big dream for your church? You are a visionary leader and your church probably has a vision statement. Yet most churches are stuck in a trap of generic communication without a truly visionary plan. Just like a visionary restaurant needs a more specific focus than “serving food,” a visionary church needs something more than biblical generalizations like “loving God, loving people” or “making disciples and serving the world.” When a team doesn’t share an understanding of God’s next big dream, leadership grows tired, overworked by an “all things to all people” ministry approach. Too often there’s no unified picture of what success looks like. People can feel uninspired and your church’s programming can seem more optional than ever. Ministry without clarity is insanity. Are you ready for a better way? In this groundbreaking work, based on Will Mancini’s 15 years and over 10,000 hours of church team facilitation, God Dreams reveals a simple and powerful planning method that will bring energy and focus to your church like never before. First, God Dreams shows how to reclaim the role of long-range vision today by providing 12 vision templates, each with biblical, historical and contemporary illustrations. These vision starters will dramatically accelerate your team's ability to find complete agreement regarding your church's future. Second, God Dreams explains how to overcome the fruitless planning efforts that many church teams experience. With a tool called the Horizon Storyline, leaders can connect short-term action steps with the long-range dream, while leveraging the power of storytelling to make the plan “stick.” This tool will galvanize a diverse team of ministry leaders and volunteers with unprecedented enthusiasm. Imagine leading with a refreshed sense of freedom and confidence, with a totally new way to inspire your church. Imagine the ability to harness the energy and resources of your people towards a specific dream of gospel impact, in your church and in your lifetime. God Dreams is your passport to leading into a better future.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2016
146 people are currently reading
166 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
July 3, 2019
Will Mancini has written the best book I’ve ever read on creating and executing a vision for a church. God Dreams is incredibly practical and written not merely to inspire pastors to dream, but to craft executable plans for those visions.
Mancini encourages the reader that being a visionary isn’t some other-worldly calling. He says, “If you were ever excited about something that’s yet to be, then you are a visionary.”
“Why is it a gift from God that we can look forward to something?” Mancini asks. He answers:
“Looking forward…
• Creates energy on a team.
• Provides hope in difficult times.
• Pushes us to be our best.
• Deepens our dependence on God…
• Gives meaning to the mundane…”
In theological terms, when we create vision we reflect God’s image. Mancini says, “[O]ur God is a visionary God. He can turn the worst dilemma into eternal victory.”
It’s not enough to create an oatmeal vision for your church, though. Far too many churches have mission statements that could be swapped with the church down the street and no one would notice. Mancini reflects, “If left unchecked, generic vision won’t exactly kill you, but it will keep your church body from being fully alive. It will hold you back from your God-given potential. It will limit your joy.”
Mancini warns that there are common pot holes for those creating vision. He says, “Keep in mind that ‘growing bigger’ is not a compelling vision for the people who attend your church… Bigger can be viewed as prideful. Bigger can be spun as egotistic. Bigger can be viewed as less personal, less meaningful, and less caring.”
The way to move beyond our ruts of ministry is to push us to consider what God is doing through our church and to ask what he wants to do. Mancini asks, “What makes you think weekly participation of your programs is helping people experience God’s larger story?” He continues, “The problem is not the program; the problem is a lack of overarching, long-term vision.” You don’t have to blow up what you’re doing, instead “Blow their minds with a new context.”
We need both vision and execution. Mancini reflects, “It’s been said that a vision without execution is a daydream, and execution without vision is a nightmare.” The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann once said, “Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing.”
Mancini then breaks down how to craft this vision. He encourages us to consider it in four frames:
• Beyond-the-Horizon Vision (5-20 years)
• Background Vision (1-3 years)
• Midground Vision (1 year)
• Foreground Vision (90 days)
Mancini breaks down types of vision into four different categories:
1) Vision that advances;
2) Vision that rescues;
3) Vision that becomes;
4) Vision that overflows.
Which type of church is your church? Within each of those categories Mancini breaks it into four small sub-categories. Mancini walks through each sub-category and helps you self-assess which categories fit best. What is great in this is Mancini is asking you to consider how God is already using your church. We might long to be a church that is a leadership factory, but if God has created your church uniquely to be a place of care and rescue, then you aren’t being faithful when you deny his work within your church and try to self-generate a different work.
Mancini tells us that we need to craft compelling statements to help our congregation to dream with us and move forward with us. The rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “Words create worlds.” Mancini urges us to craft word pictures (just as Jesus did in the parables). He says, “If you don’t use images and metaphors, your vision will likely come across as generic.”
Mancini urges us to rely on God and to think and pray big. Craig Groeschel once said, “If prayer isn’t necessary to accomplish your vision, you’re not thinking big enough.” Mancini asks: “What has God set me free to do with my one life?”
To move people forward, Mancini says, there has to be the awareness of what you issue you are contending with. He says, “People connect to the vision only to the degree that they are emotionally connected to the prior problem your vision solves.”
The leaders’ responsibility is to be continual conduits of the vision. Mancini says that “Vision dripping is more important than vision casting.” Vision has to be something that comes out of us in every moment we are around our people. They have to smell it on us. As Howard Hendricks once said, “No one will bless for your vision unless you are hemorrhaging.” It’s the leaders’ responsibility to multiply those who are carrying the vision: “Think of every person as a carrier of the vision.”
Then you have to do the hard work of asking “What do [I] need to subtract?” And how are you going to track progress? “What form of visual scoreboard will you use to hold everyone’s attention?”
I loved Mancini’s book. It was a master’s class in vision-casting that I am going to put to immediate work in re-clarifying and casting vision for God’s work at New Life. Mancini is a great guide and I’m grateful for his coaching as we step forward in faith.
For more reviews see www.thebeehive.live.
Mancini encourages the reader that being a visionary isn’t some other-worldly calling. He says, “If you were ever excited about something that’s yet to be, then you are a visionary.”
“Why is it a gift from God that we can look forward to something?” Mancini asks. He answers:
“Looking forward…
• Creates energy on a team.
• Provides hope in difficult times.
• Pushes us to be our best.
• Deepens our dependence on God…
• Gives meaning to the mundane…”
In theological terms, when we create vision we reflect God’s image. Mancini says, “[O]ur God is a visionary God. He can turn the worst dilemma into eternal victory.”
It’s not enough to create an oatmeal vision for your church, though. Far too many churches have mission statements that could be swapped with the church down the street and no one would notice. Mancini reflects, “If left unchecked, generic vision won’t exactly kill you, but it will keep your church body from being fully alive. It will hold you back from your God-given potential. It will limit your joy.”
Mancini warns that there are common pot holes for those creating vision. He says, “Keep in mind that ‘growing bigger’ is not a compelling vision for the people who attend your church… Bigger can be viewed as prideful. Bigger can be spun as egotistic. Bigger can be viewed as less personal, less meaningful, and less caring.”
The way to move beyond our ruts of ministry is to push us to consider what God is doing through our church and to ask what he wants to do. Mancini asks, “What makes you think weekly participation of your programs is helping people experience God’s larger story?” He continues, “The problem is not the program; the problem is a lack of overarching, long-term vision.” You don’t have to blow up what you’re doing, instead “Blow their minds with a new context.”
We need both vision and execution. Mancini reflects, “It’s been said that a vision without execution is a daydream, and execution without vision is a nightmare.” The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann once said, “Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing.”
Mancini then breaks down how to craft this vision. He encourages us to consider it in four frames:
• Beyond-the-Horizon Vision (5-20 years)
• Background Vision (1-3 years)
• Midground Vision (1 year)
• Foreground Vision (90 days)
Mancini breaks down types of vision into four different categories:
1) Vision that advances;
2) Vision that rescues;
3) Vision that becomes;
4) Vision that overflows.
Which type of church is your church? Within each of those categories Mancini breaks it into four small sub-categories. Mancini walks through each sub-category and helps you self-assess which categories fit best. What is great in this is Mancini is asking you to consider how God is already using your church. We might long to be a church that is a leadership factory, but if God has created your church uniquely to be a place of care and rescue, then you aren’t being faithful when you deny his work within your church and try to self-generate a different work.
Mancini tells us that we need to craft compelling statements to help our congregation to dream with us and move forward with us. The rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “Words create worlds.” Mancini urges us to craft word pictures (just as Jesus did in the parables). He says, “If you don’t use images and metaphors, your vision will likely come across as generic.”
Mancini urges us to rely on God and to think and pray big. Craig Groeschel once said, “If prayer isn’t necessary to accomplish your vision, you’re not thinking big enough.” Mancini asks: “What has God set me free to do with my one life?”
To move people forward, Mancini says, there has to be the awareness of what you issue you are contending with. He says, “People connect to the vision only to the degree that they are emotionally connected to the prior problem your vision solves.”
The leaders’ responsibility is to be continual conduits of the vision. Mancini says that “Vision dripping is more important than vision casting.” Vision has to be something that comes out of us in every moment we are around our people. They have to smell it on us. As Howard Hendricks once said, “No one will bless for your vision unless you are hemorrhaging.” It’s the leaders’ responsibility to multiply those who are carrying the vision: “Think of every person as a carrier of the vision.”
Then you have to do the hard work of asking “What do [I] need to subtract?” And how are you going to track progress? “What form of visual scoreboard will you use to hold everyone’s attention?”
I loved Mancini’s book. It was a master’s class in vision-casting that I am going to put to immediate work in re-clarifying and casting vision for God’s work at New Life. Mancini is a great guide and I’m grateful for his coaching as we step forward in faith.
For more reviews see www.thebeehive.live.
December 29, 2018
My review of this book is "eh." Although my birthplace in the USA, this book and the ideas in it feel very "American/Western." The cliches kind of turned me off as I read through it. I found myself skipping over things I've already heard and read in other places. At the same time, I can see how perhaps for certain types of leaders in a certain context this would be inspiring and helpful--just not for me and where I find myself at this point in time.
February 11, 2020
Compelling book on vision casting and execution
There are many books about vision. This one separates itself from others I have read by giving you templates and action plans that allow a vision to be more than lofty words on a page. We all want to feel our lives make an impact and that collectively our church family multiples that. I look forward to allowing this book to help us transform both.
There are many books about vision. This one separates itself from others I have read by giving you templates and action plans that allow a vision to be more than lofty words on a page. We all want to feel our lives make an impact and that collectively our church family multiples that. I look forward to allowing this book to help us transform both.
January 9, 2018
I'm a visionary, heavy in the Ideation catagory according to the Gallup StrengthsFinder...so this book speaks to me at a deep level. My appreciation for Mancini's thoughts are due to the process of taking right-brain, usually obscure creative thoughts and allowing us a structure to flush them out and articulate them to the masses.
Excellent!
Excellent!
April 2, 2018
I'm not exactly a strategic planner, so books like this help me a ton. Thankful for the wisdom in it, and I will be using some of the strategies in the book to supplement some weak spots in my leadership. Mancini's first book, Church Unique was more helpful in a lot of ways, but this was a great compliment to what it had to offer.
March 21, 2022
The Horizon Storyline, which is what this entire book is about, is an incredible tool to vision cast for your ministry and I’m definitely going to use it! But, it absolutely did not need to take 250 pages to explain it. Easily could’ve been done effectively in 50 but the authors drew this one out a ton. This made it really hard to keep picking up.
February 13, 2023
Pretty typical leadership book. The only thing that I noticed to be different and somewhat helpful was that this is the only leadership book that I’ve read that proposes that sometimes your vision needs to be that you are waiting for God to supply you a new vision.
I do appreciate that God Dreams provides a “step-by-step” evaluation for helping a church identify a vision.
I do appreciate that God Dreams provides a “step-by-step” evaluation for helping a church identify a vision.
August 26, 2018
A good guide for anyone working with their church to re-imagine its future. Pretty dry and most references to successful church endeavors referenced white men but this book did help our committee stay on-task and organized.
November 11, 2019
I finished this one quickly! I already knew the concept of the Horizon Storyline but wanted to dig deeper. This is an incredibly practical book. Written for church leaders but could be used by any leader. It’s the perfect tool for vision & strategy!
September 21, 2021
A fine framwork for thinking about vision casting and strategy within the church. Nothing completely revolutionary, but accessible and provides a good vocabulary for a team working through the exercise
September 4, 2024
Mileage will probably vary based on your ecclesiological presuppositions. Likely practically helpful if you share the authors' presuppositions and want a unique, differentiating flavor of church centered on a practical, measurable corporate goal.
December 21, 2017
Good thoughts and ideas for making an organization, specifically a church, more productive by focusing on where one is heading and how they are going to get there.
June 4, 2017
Balanced views of Churchs temperament
Powerful and practical, this book can encourage you to do some changes or reaffirm the changes happening in the church.
Powerful and practical, this book can encourage you to do some changes or reaffirm the changes happening in the church.
February 11, 2018
I would not try to lead a church in any visionary process without reading this first!
April 16, 2018
Mancini's Church Unique was the best book I read last year and God Dreams is the early leader in the clubhouse this year. Fantastic!!
November 3, 2019
This is a very useful book, not necessarily fun to read. It was helpful to me and my congregation as we pondered our mission and calling.
March 24, 2021
A well defined approach to the vision casting process. It seemed geared towards large churches with large staffs.
October 6, 2021
Mancini makes some great points about the necessity of a unique vision for a specific church. He provides a helpful process to narrow down a church’s vision.
September 24, 2024
Corny in places and some of the church examples didn't age well, but surprising helpful
February 18, 2017
God Dreams blows up the concept of vision and mission "statements." If you are looking for a super-practical resource to guide your team to a meaningful future, God Dreams is it.
October 15, 2018
If you've read Church Unique, you need to read God Dreams. Will Mancini and Warren Bird provide the explanation and tools for finding and focusing your church's future. This is a Visioneering gold mine.
Having worked this process individually, with our church collectively, and after helping others put it into practice, I can say "it works." God Dreams will help you gain clarity as to where God wants your church to go.
Here are five things I appreciate about God Dreams:
1. Will's experience: Will Mancini has invested the 10,000 hours to become an expert in helping others gain clarity. He's invested the painstaking time to share his concepts through this resource.
2. The books biblical underpinnings: God Dreams is not "theory strong/theology light." I have never met (I know Will)/read anyone who addresses the subject of more biblically and practically than Will.
3. The Vision Framing Process: God Dreams is a start-to-finish process. It is simple, but not simplistic. Work through the book (let it work on you). Invest the time. Your path will be clearer.
4. The Tools: I've heard Will say, "People need tools more than sermons." God Dreams is packed with tools.
5. The way it serves as an idea generator: God Dreams is the proverbial "whack on the side of the head." I've read it twice. The second reading led to greater idea generation than the first. It's that good.
Having worked this process individually, with our church collectively, and after helping others put it into practice, I can say "it works." God Dreams will help you gain clarity as to where God wants your church to go.
Here are five things I appreciate about God Dreams:
1. Will's experience: Will Mancini has invested the 10,000 hours to become an expert in helping others gain clarity. He's invested the painstaking time to share his concepts through this resource.
2. The books biblical underpinnings: God Dreams is not "theory strong/theology light." I have never met (I know Will)/read anyone who addresses the subject of more biblically and practically than Will.
3. The Vision Framing Process: God Dreams is a start-to-finish process. It is simple, but not simplistic. Work through the book (let it work on you). Invest the time. Your path will be clearer.
4. The Tools: I've heard Will say, "People need tools more than sermons." God Dreams is packed with tools.
5. The way it serves as an idea generator: God Dreams is the proverbial "whack on the side of the head." I've read it twice. The second reading led to greater idea generation than the first. It's that good.
September 10, 2016
Great companion book for Church Unique, also by Will Mancini. Both books really help churches find their unique vision. God Dreams is a practical book that I highly recommend to pastors and leaders as they work through what God is calling them to do.
January 2, 2016
Fantastic resource for church leaders.
Do you have a clear and unique long-range and short-range vision for your church? God Dreams gives you the tools to know why you exist and how to live out your unique contribution to God's kingdom every day.
Do you have a clear and unique long-range and short-range vision for your church? God Dreams gives you the tools to know why you exist and how to live out your unique contribution to God's kingdom every day.
March 4, 2019
What a wonderful and insanely helpful book that will walk the leadership of a ministry team to discover the purpose of a particular church as they dream God Dreams. It you want to improve, give clarity, and strengthen your Church this is a must read.
April 26, 2016
Stimulated my anointed imagination to co-labor and co-create with a good, good Father !
December 7, 2016
Great book!
Excellent Strategic planning. God envisioning! I would recommend this to all pastors and church leaders. It is a definite must read. Get it today.
Excellent Strategic planning. God envisioning! I would recommend this to all pastors and church leaders. It is a definite must read. Get it today.
April 29, 2020
Fantastic read that gives both the logic and the how-to of vision.
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March 14, 2017A practical book. I found the illustrations of the principles in each chapter helpful in envisioning the process of writing out a vision for a church. There was a moment when I realized my search for a legacy was actually the process of leaving a vision behind that others could understand.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews