To build anything you must start with the end in mind. This is called endvisioning. Endvisioning starts with looking at the final result you want to achieve and then finding the critical path that gets you there from here. This assumes that you understand your target group. You ask the questions:

• "What will it take for all my people to be reached?"
• "What is needed?"
• "What will it look like when they are reached?"

For example, there is a true story of a people group in China where the strategists realized there were 4800 unreached villages among 1.4 million people. So they asked the question, "What is needed?"

They needed 4800 churches (missional communities) in 4800 villages.

Can you see any way to get there in an oppressive country where evangelists are illegal, the people are remote, illiterate and poor, and as foreigners you speak no Chinese language or local dialect and have no Chinese partners? YET, the end-vision is STILL 4800 churches (missional communities).

After looking at the end, you ask what the stages of a movement would look like just prior to reaching your end-vision. These strategists in China started with the end in mind and worked their way back:

5. 4800 village churches
4. 90+ district churches
3. 35 key area churches
2. 11 county churches (Prioritize most populous counties)
1. Nothing but a vision

The KEY to the whole movement was starting churches (missional communities) with the “seeds” of a kingdom movement within them – "movement" churches. They realized that yes, they could plead, prod, encourage and train local Christians to start 11 “seed” churches. And they helped them start horse churches not mule churches - horses reproduce... mules do not.

So, start with the end in mind.

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