Video Transcript: Why Team Casting?

Welcome back. We're continuing with our course developing great commission  skills, and today we're going to be wrapping up our discussion of skill number  two, casting vision and creating ownership. Specifically, we're going to be  looking at the skill topic of Team casting. Team casting. Now, why? Why are we  going to be talking about team casting? Well, proper vision casting with a view  toward creating ownership, is a labor intensive process, a labor intensive  process. It demands time, energy, effort and diligence on the part of the vision  caster. So what we need to do is we need to distribute that responsibility  throughout a vision casting team. Unless your congregation is very, very small,  it's going to be too much for any one person, often, the pastor, to take on. We  need to have a team of vision casters, more than likely, the team of people that  were catalytic in discerning that vision and developing it in the first place. Well,  as that vision is going to be distributed throughout the congregation, we want to  use that team, a team casting approach to casting vision and creating  ownership. This is going to be much, much more effective than one person  trying to do it all, and this concerted effort of a team is what's going to have  maximum impact. Now how, how does team casting work? How does it work?  Well, in connecting some of the dots here, what teams are going to do is they're  going to function under the rubric of private vision casting. Private vision casting, this is going to be a tactical use underneath that umbrella of private vision  casting. In particular, we're talking about the divide and serve principle. Now in  this case, we're adding to the divide and serve principle, the idea of a division of  labor. So we have a double dip with the concept of dividing here. First of all, the  divide and serve principle, in and of itself, is about spreading a congregation out  into subsets. It's smaller units because we're going to privately cast vision in  very small settings. But the other version of division is this division of labor, you  know, let's say we've got, you know, seven or eight people on a team, and so  those smaller units are now going to be divided by seven or eight, and each  team member is going to receive assignments of speaking to this person, that  person, that couple, or whatever, maybe a small group, some, some scheme of  approaching vision casting through a team effort. We don't want to be redundant in having different vision casters visiting the same people. We want to make  sure that where we've got coverage, but we don't want to be redundant. We  don't want to be duplicating our effort. Now let me give you let me give you one  example of how this has worked in situations that I've been privy to in the past, a number of the churches that I've worked with over the years have come up with  a concept of leveraging something that you might call talking points or bullet  points, that are part of this team vision cast. So the way that this works would  be, you know, let's say that we have, we have articulated our general vision in  the form of six or seven or eight bullet points, talking points that are expressed  in in very short sentences. One church I worked with actually printed out these  bullet point statements in a something, probably a brochure, type size, like a 

double. A double sized bookmark and printed out the different bullet points and  then had that piece of cardboard laminated. And, you know, women stuck it in  their purses. Guys stuck it in their pockets. And the idea is that whenever you're  conducting one of these vision casting conversations you are going to make  certain that you cover these particular talking points, these particular bullet  points. Now, why is that valuable? Why is that significant? What is the point of  having these very carefully worded bullet points. Well, here's the thing. We need our vision cast to be consistent. We need to know that when someone speaks,  when someone speaks with someone in the congregation, or a couple or a small group of people, maybe a ministry team, some combination. We want to make  sure that everyone who is casting vision is casting the same vision. The  communication is standardized Now, depending on the personality of the vision  caster, depending on the particular points of view, the interest, the emphasis  might be a little bit different here and there. There might be a slightly different  flavor to the vision cast, but the ingredients are the same. We're going to cover  these, say eight points, with everyone that we speak with. That way, we can  know that once we have delivered this message, which is really what vision  casting is about, once we've delivered this message to everyone. We know that  everyone has heard the same story, the same vision, at least we can be sure  that everyone has heard the same talking points. This avoids confusion. This  avoids misinformation, miscommunication. You see, we don't want to live it up.  Leave it up to the vision caster to figure out what to say, because I promise you,  if you have eight people that are casting the same vision, but there isn't a  standardized pseudo script for them to follow. They're going to be eight different  representations of that vision. It's just going to happen. That's just the way it is.  So we're going to be very careful, very careful that a a unified, standardized  vision cast is being delivered to everyone so that as conversations ensue.  Following this exercise, you know if, regardless of who you heard the vision  from, you heard the same message, it's very important that the language be  unified, that the same vocabulary is being used, that the same concepts are  being emphasized. Now, again, it's fine to flavor the presentation with the  personality, with the interest, with the perspective of the vision caster, but it's  vitally important that that central core of the vision be represented in  standardized bullet points that are delivered to everyone that way, when we are  soliciting ownership and asking for commitment, we know that people are  committing to the right thing, that they're committing to the same thing. We don't  want to have 20 different versions of the vision floating around in the  congregation. That's going to lead to confusion. It's going to lead to  misunderstanding, and it's going to lead to undermining the whole point of the  vision cast. Now I might add, while I'm thinking about it, that while team casting  is going to function primarily under the heading of private vision casting, there  are going to be public vision casting applications. So for example, in public when

we're giving high visibility to the vision, we're going to use the same talking  points. We're going to use. The same vocabulary or nomenclature. Perhaps we  have a banner that we put on a wall somewhere that includes some of these  bullet statements when announcements are being given from the platform on a  Sunday morning, we can refer to those talking points, because you see, we're  being repetitive. We're being reinforcing with our information, helping people to  understand that this is our vision, this is how we're talking about our vision. And  we are gradually educating people to not just know what the vision is, but to  know how to talk about the vision to someone else, it's very important that we  maintain that consistency, that we maintain that stability, that we maintain that  standardization. You know, we don't want a grab bag of concepts floating around there. We want a consistent story. We want to get everyone on the same page,  and that begins by having the team of vision casters on the same page. And  what is that page? Well, that page is a standardized list of bullet points that have been derived from the narrative of the vision Okay, so vision casting extremely  important. Now I want to move to wrapping up with this with this final session.  Now, before we do that, let me talk about some of the standard things that we  can have in place in order to make this happen, the things that we might use in  a standard vision cast. We could have a fact sheet. We could have an  information sheet that might be a little bit bigger than just the talking points. We  will have those talking points, those bullet points, and by now, we should also  have not only the story of our that is our narrative vision statement, but that story has been captured in a synopsis as well as a slogan. So now we're beginning to  utilize that language as well, making sure that it's not practical to try to utilize the full story in this kind of context, but to use the synopsis, to use the slogan,  makes perfect sense, and all of these things are tied together. We've got our  facts together, we've got our information sheet, we've got our talking points or  bullet points. We've got our synopsis, we've got our slogan. All of these are  merged together with overlapping language, overlapping concepts, the vision  casters are are fully up to speed on these materials that the content of this  information, it's being shared over and over and over again in a variety of  context, first as private vision casting, but also as public vision casting. Now,  when you put all of these pieces together, what you find is that you are  effectively casting vision and you are effectively creating ownership. Now that  wraps up our discussion of that particular skill topic, but I want to do a quick  review of all six skill topics that we've looked at as part of this skill of casting  vision and Creating ownership. So here we go. The first one I'm missing. Oh, I  missed the page. Sorry about that. I forgot to turn my page over. So I'm missing  a few things. Let me back up. Here's a tip for you, every question that you are  asked at its root is a why question, regardless of the form that, regardless of the  form that the question takes at its root, it's a why question. So if someone was to say, what exactly are we planning to do in regard to such and such that's 

phrased as a what question, what are we going to do? But at its root, it's a why  question. And the why question might go something like this. Us. Why would we  do that? Why are we going to do what you say we're going to do? Or the  question might be, well, tell me again when, when is this going to start? The real question is, why would this start then? So I want to suggest to you that you  develop, that you develop the habit of always answering the why question, even  if the why question has not been articulated. So for example, if someone says,  Well, now what exactly are we going to do with such and such? Your response  would be, well, what we're going to do is this, and here's why. The question,  when are we going to do such and such? The real question, why would we do  that? And so our answer is going to be, well, here's when we're going to do that,  and here's why we're going to do that. Then you get the idea every question, at  its root is a why question. People need to understand the rationale, the reasons  behind the actions that we are going to take. So just back of your mind, every  question is a why question, and here's why, and here's why. Now you remember we talked about the ADKAR model, so I want to just emphasize the R at the end of the ADKAR model, which stands for reinforcement. Actually, what am I doing  right now? I'm reinforcing the ADKAR model. Reinforcement, reinforcement,  reinforcement. You may think that just because you've answered a question  once or twice that folks understand and know they don't trust me. What you  need to do is emphasize, emphasize, emphasize, again and again and again,  repeat, repeat, repeat. People need to hear things again and again and again. I  can't tell you how many times I've worked with people, multiple times through  training, almost to the point that I feel almost embarrassed, like I'm going to say  this thing. And I know I've said it five times, but you know, people will come to  me frequently and they'll say, you know, the first time you ran through this with  me, I didn't quite get it, and I must have heard you talk about this three or four  times now, but now I see so reinforce, reinforce, reinforce. Now, here's a final tip for you, when you cast vision. I've actually mentioned this before, but again, I'm  reinforcing remember that you you're going to have a variety of time frames in  which to share vision. So you need to be able to share it quickly. In a short  version, you need to have kind of a medium version, you know, the five to seven minute discussion. And if you have time to sit down at length with people and  deliver the 20 minute version, you need the long version. So think these things  through in advance. Actually speak them out loud. Practice saying these things  so that when the opportunity arises, you are going to be able to answer folks  questions. Be prepared. Be comfortable with what you're going to say. Don't be  trying to extemporaneously figure it out on the fly. Prepare, prepare. Prepare.  Okay, fine. I'm sorry about getting things out of order there. But at last, I'm ready to wrap up with these six videos that we've looked at in regard to casting vision  and creating ownership. I'll just walk through these quickly with you. First of all,  we've talked about private vision casting, and we've had the opportunity to talk 

about this multiple times. Private vision casting is where the vision casting battle is won, and this is where you will gain that ownership. It's in private. Public  vision casting is helpful as a support to private vision casting, but please don't  rely on public vision casting alone to make this happen. Levels of commitment.  Be mindful. Of where people are in terms of their level of commitment. It's not a  bad idea as you encounter folks, to try to place them on a chart. You know, if  you had a little chart that listed all of these different levels, from observing to  considering, to visiting, to attending, to connecting, to serving, to inviting. And  you think about a particular person in the congregation, what level are they on?  And always be striving to help people move one more level, deeper into level, a  level, a deeper level of commitment. We looked at the dynamics of change, four  of them, the willingness to change, the ability to change, the substance of  change, not just what we're changing from, but what we're changing to, and then ultimately, the pace of change, how how much change Can our congregation  handle, and how fast can they assimilate change? And then finally, our, our last  video, the one that we're wrapping up right now on Team casting, casting vision  as a team consistency, consistency, consistency. Same message, everyone's on the same page, everyone's telling the same story. That's how you move a  congregation. So bear these in mind, put them into practice, and I think you'll  find that your vision casting is going to result in ownership of the vision, and  that's what it takes to move a church forward. So that wraps up our video. And  our next session, we're going to be diving into skill number three, setting  objectives and establishing accountability. But that's that's all for now, and we're  going to wrap this up. So may God continue to bless you as you continue to  study, as you continue to envision the ministry that is going to grow out of your  involvement with these great commission skills. Amen.