Vision – Seeing It Become

I haven’t posted anything in a while, but this morning as I was reading, God reminded me of something and I believe He gave me something to say. Vision matters. Hope is driven and made stronger in by a great vision, but the vision itself matters a great deal. I was reading “My Utmost for His Highest” this morning and he reminded me of how important getting vision from God is. He wrote, “We always have visions before a things is made real. When we realize that although the vision is real, it is not real in us, then is the time that Satan comes in with his temptations.” So well said.

People want their churches to grow…at least most people do, but they either have no vision, they have too little vision, or their vision is from the wrong source, and any of these problems on a wide enough scale will eventually kill a church. If people have no vision, if they have not gone before God and seen where He is taking them, then the church will stagnate and die. If the church’s vision is too small, if they have a picture, but honestly its smaller than God’s vision, then they will grow to exactly the extent of their limited vision, people will lose heart, the church will stagnate and die. If people in the church get their vision from somewhere other than from God, then the church will split, fragment, fracture, weaken, and eventually die.

In the second and third cases the church may see some growth, it may even see dramatic growth in a particular ministry or for a particular season, but this growth will not spread to the rest of the church and it will not last, eventually both the vision and church will crumble under the weight of misaligned members. If you have as many different visions for your church as you have people in your church, you have a vision problem. If you have a ministry in your church that has no regard for the rest of your church, you have a vision problem, if you have a staff member or lay leader who has no sense of the greater vision of the church…you have a vision problem.

The church must be unified by a single vision, from the correct source, from God the Father. The church must move itself towards that vision with unity and purpose. Otherwise, you end up with flat & dying churches.