A disconnect between the pulpit and vision-casting will not work for the good of the church. The pulpit is the main voice of the vision. The vision is hammered out in the grueling labors of countless encounters with staff and elders as biblical truth meets structural, congregational, and cultural reality. These vision-forming, vision-sustaining, vision-finalizing labors require leadership—leadership to keep the vision biblical; leadership to keep the vision energized and joyful and wise and relevant and possible; leadership to keep the vision moving through obstacle after obstacle; and leadership to trumpet that vision winsomely to thousands of members.
That kind of leadership does not happen without one chief among equals leading the way. And that person, in my view, must be the Pastor for Preaching & Vision. The one who heralds the vision and captures the hearts and minds of the people for the vision can only do that if he has paid the price of crafting the vision and winning his fellow leaders for it. He cannot herald a vision with integrity and power that he has been handed on a piece of paper.