Sometimes one of the most difficult things for leaders is identifying the vision for the organization or group that they are working with. Then if you have been able to identify that vision, helping others to catch that vision becomes an even greater hurdle. As a Christian leaders, there are times that vision casting seems almost impossible since we deal so much in beliefs, values, and abstract thoughts. Unlike a manufacturer or a service provider, it appears that we do not have a concrete item which we can set goals in producing or providing. I have come to realize that there are significant flaws with this mode of thinking. We do have an end product that is very concrete that we are trying to produce. Also, we do not have to identify a vision because the vision has already been cast for us long ago.
Let's begin with the concept of casting a vision. How many times have we gathered our Sessions, or boards, or whatever you may call your leadership team, taken them off location, and set before them the goal of coming up with a vision statement or a something similar? How many times as leaders of such a group, do we sit in our office or in our "thinking location" and try to articulate a vision for our ministry and the ministry of our congregations? Usually the end result of such experiences amount to something rather vague and often times much less than we had hope for. The reality is that we are taking the wrong approach in such attempts. First, as a Christian leader, it should be obvious to us that the one casting the vision for our ministry and the ministry of our congregreations is not ourselves but THE LORD. Second, the Lord has already cast the vision:
"Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20, NIV)
This is the vision for the church that was given by the founder of the church. Why is it that we think we can improve upon such a vision? What is it in this vision that needs to be changed or adapted to our current location and/or time? The honest answer to these questions is that we cannot improve upon this vision and nothing needs to be changed. What needs to be changed is ourselves. We need to adopt this vision for our personal lives and assist our leadership teams and our congregration members in adopting it for themselves and the organizations we work with.
The other area of concern that I mentioned earlier is in regards to the end product. We often complain that we do not have something tangible to produce and this complicates our visioning and goal setting. However, once again we turn to the vision that the Lord presented in Matthew's Gospel and find that we are wrong. Jesus told us that the end product that we are called to produce is disciples. We, as believers, are to be producing disciples. This is a measurable goal that can be a guiding force in our lives. How have we been teaching what the Lord has commanded? How have we been inviting others to explore a relationship with Jesus Christ? How have we been growing individuals in their journeys of faith? These are questions which we must ask our churches and we can build strategies and approaches around. Once again, we do not have to spend a lot of energy creating such strategies and approaches because if we read Scripture, the Lord has laid both of these things out for us once again. By following the strategies and approaches of Jesus, we can achieve the production of the products we have been called to produce. Yes, we need to identify how to effectively use this strategies and approaches to our current context, but the framework has already been handed to us.
On a final note in this post, I want to remind all of us what Jesus said at the very end of the passage in Matthew: "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." This is to remind us that in all of the work that I have been describing, we are not alone. The Spirit is the driving and sustaining force behind all of our activity. The Spirit is the guiding and correcting factor in all our decisions. Let us seize the power of the Spirit and follow the vision!!!!
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