Boot Camp Chronicles; The Paradox Of Vision
Anyone who has come anywhere in the vicinity of church-planting ministry has heard this word: vision. Church planters are vision driven. We have to be. We are in the business of being used by God to create something that doesn't yet exist. And before it can exist in a way that can be felt, touched, and experienced by others it must first exist within our minds. A church planter experiences the fully mature church in the stillness of his morning thoughts over coffee. Images of the soon-to-be church drift in and out of his awareness during meals with his wife or while driving to the store, or while half-heartedly watching his favorite sitcom. The church planter is utterly alone in an unexplainable emotional connection with a church that may not become reality for months or even years. Vision is the oxygen breathed by church planters. Yet, strangely enough, that oxygen that keeps the heart and mind and soul of a church planter alive can be the very poison that kills the newborn church once it arrives in the flesh.
Before planting our first church in Illinois the vision was fully formed in my heart and mind. I had read all of the great books like Visioneering by Andy Stanley and Turning Vision Into Reality by George Barna...and countless others. I wrote a vision document. I told everyone about the vision. The articulation of my vision opened all of the necessary doors for us to move our church plant out of my mind and into the lives of many other people. I was repeatedly encouraged by church planter colleagues to have the attitude that my vision is the prevailing vision and if anyone comes along who doesn't fully embrace and support it, to run them off. I had the vision thing down, and yet, I totally missed the point.
From day one I cast the vision to everyone who joined us in our ministry. I would say to people something like, "We are planting a church in this city that will serve as a catalyst for other inter-connected church plants. We are going to have a Community Care Center where we'll offer emergency pantries, computer classes, GED classes, etc. And we're going to create Christ-centered cottage industries to help the many unemployed in our city find jobs and learn to be entreprenuers." This vision was very, very real to me and several people gave their toothy nods of approval.
After two-and-a-half years of living, breathing, and casting this vision we were struggling just to grow the initial congregation beyond 60 people. And of those 60 people, nobody really embraced the full-grown vision I was daily proclaiming. I struggled to understand why. And then, during a 3 day prayer retreat in Kansas City, MO in March, 2005 the light went on. I came away from that retreat with this understanding:
It's not all about convincing people to rally around my vision. It's about creating an environment where every individual can catch a glimpse of and passionately pursue God's vision for their own life.Wow! Here I was trying to give birth to a vision for a large, successful ministry that would touch all of Southern Illinois with the hope of Christ, yet people were walking into our sanctuary every Sunday who had no vision whatsoever for their own lives and "Where there is no vision, the people perish." People were "perishing" right under my nose while my eyes were set 5 years into the future.
The names have been changed to protect the innocent. I wanted people to embrace my vision for a church-planting movement but Lindsey lived day to day wondering if she could ever really overcome her clinical depression and the guilt of her past. I wanted people to help me create a community care center but Robert came in every Sunday wondering if there really was any purpose to his own life. I wanted all of Southern Illinois to know about our ministry for the glory of God, yet Denise wondered if she could make it a week without getting beat up by her dad. And sixty other stories just like this existed all around me while I stared longingly into the horizon.
The paradox of vision is this: God will give us a panoramic view of what he wants to do through us in advancing His Kingdom. It will be far larger than the moment. We will see it fully matured in our hearts and minds. It will energize and drive us. It will keep our hearts alive. Yet the only way we will see it become reality is by setting it aside and giving ourselves fully to the day-by-day work of helping every individual God brings across our path to catch a glimpse of their own personal vision, believe it can become reality, and pursue it with Godly wisdom and strength.
When we as church-planters give ourselves first to the nurturing of vision in the people God entrusts to us, we will then see our own God-ordained vision grow up strong and healthy all around us. Whereas if we keep our hearts and mind focused on the distant horizon while people perish at our feet we will find ourselves walking into that horizon alone.
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