VisionCircleSurvey

Welcome

A vision statement names where we believe we are called to go. It's not a mission statement (that's who we are and what we do). It's not a strategic plan (that's how we get there). A vision statement is a declaration of the future we are building toward, the world our faith compels us to create.

Over the past several months, Vision Circle members have listened deeply to this congregation and community. Through conversations, small group sessions, and careful discernment, they drafted three vision statements that attempt to name how Foothills is called to unleash courageous love over the next seven years.

These are drafts. Your feedback will shape what comes next. The Vision Circle will use your responses to revise, combine, or reimagine these statements before bringing a final recommendation to the congregation.

What Vision Statements Are and Are Not

Vision statements describe where we are going. They name the future we are building toward. They are specific enough that we can look around and know whether we're getting there.

Vision statements do not describe how we get there. The "how" belongs to the people doing the work. Vision tells us the destination. Strategy, programming, and ministry decisions are how we travel.

For example:

✓ "We are a community of enduring, cross-generational relationships grounded in care and accountability." This is a vision statement. You can look around the congregation and assess whether that's true.

✗ "We will launch intergenerational small groups that meet monthly." This is a strategy for getting there. It's one possible "how," not the destination itself.

✗ "We value community." This is too vague to guide anything. You can't tell whether you've arrived because it doesn't describe what arrival looks like.

The Draft Vision Statements

Relationships

Foothills holds that belonging is not a feeling — it is a practice. We are building a community of enduring, cross-generational relationships grounded in care, accountability, and interdependence, reclaiming the ancient truth that human beings do not thrive alone.

Religious Identity

Foothills claims Unitarian Universalism not as an affiliation but as a living religion — one that demands inner transformation, moral courage, and a willingness to be changed by what we believe. We will be known not by what we affirm, but by how we live.

Community Impact

Foothills shifts Northern Colorado from isolation toward interdependence. We hold that collective responsibility, not private virtue, is the measure of a faithful community. We pursue this with focus, through covenantal partnerships and right relationship: saying no to many good things so we can do the right things with our whole strength.

Forget the exact words for a moment. When you read these three statements together, do they describe a future we're called to build together? A future that expresses the core of how we might best live into our mission of unleashing courageous love here in Northern Colorado and beyond?

For each statement below, rate how well it reflects the mission and calling of Foothills.

Write the vision statement you wish was here. If you could add a fourth statement, or replace one of these with something that better names where Foothills is called to go, what would it say?

Remember: a vision statement names the future we are building toward. It should be specific enough that you could look around and know whether we're getting there. It is not a strategy or a value. It is a destination.