“Where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29:18 CSB).
Imagine walking into a meeting with a small group of leaders carrying several individual pieces of a 500-piece puzzle. To each leader, you give one piece. Imagine that the puzzle box pictures an actual church building, a stately white building with blue skies above and green trees around it.
As you work with these leaders, you do not reveal the picture of the church on the box; you simply give each leader a single piece of the puzzle. As each one holds their own piece in hand, you ask this question, “What does this puzzle depict?” The person receiving a small piece of blue says “Water” (water is not actually in the picture). The person holding a green piece says grass (the piece is from a portion of a tree). The person holding a white piece says, “a building” (actually true, but not just any building, but a church). All have their own particular perspectives, but none get to the actual purpose of the picture, to depict a beautiful church in a beautiful setting.
The exercise reveals differences in opinion, a lack of clarity and people anticipating work in different directions based on their differing views of what the puzzle depicts and should look like. A similar thing can happen when there is no vision or an unclear vision in a church. Where there is no vision, people make up and sometimes impose, their own.
A good exercise to test this in your setting is to give an index card to folks in the church and ask them to write down what they believe to be the current vision of your church. You will more than likely have a response similar to the puzzle exercise.
As a new pastor, it is important to understand the importance of Vision and lead people to understand and live out God’s Vision for your church. Here are some reasons why.
Vision is a mental picture of God’s preferred future for your church.
Vision has to do with “seeing” or “comprehending.” It might ultimately be communicated with an introductory phrase like, “We envision our church where…” or “We envision a church that…” What follows in the completion of those sentences is what the church will be and do when the vision God has communicated is being realized.
Vision comes from God.
It is what He desires for your church and its future. Vision is not what you want for your church and its future. Nor is vision what the nationally platformed churches are doing that we plan to copy here. Because vision comes from God, we must place ourselves in a spiritual posture to understand what God wants for our church and its future.
The Lord has one consistent message to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3. That message was “Let he that has ears, hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” We can’t hear unless we place ourselves in a spiritual posture to listen to God. Therefore, vision answers the “What?” question: “What does God want for our future?”
Vision is understood through a cultivated relationship with God through prayer, the Bible, and the work of the Holy Spirit in the pastor and congregation.
Our ability to hear what God desires is directly proportional to the strength of our walk with Christ. As we abide in Christ, what is important to Him becomes important to us. Abiding results in wanting what He wants for our future.
Abiding in Christ is not only important for you as a pastor but also for your congregation. They too need to sense and understand what God wants for your church’s future. Vision will be best implemented by a group of people walking in step with God, empowered by His Holy Spirit through abiding in Christ, and unified in what they believe God wants for them.
Vision involves the future.
It flows from the realization that God loves our church right where it is, but He loves our church so much that He doesn’t want it to stay there. Therefore, He has a future in mind for us that He wants us to understand and obediently step into. Vision flows from the conviction that God still has a plan and work for us to do. It is about anticipating the future, not living in the past or the “good old days” of the church.
Vision is contextual.
Vision calls for you to be on the field, studying the community and the people, before you can understand and develop it. You may have been asked by the pastor search team of your church before coming there, “What would be your vision for our church, if you come here as pastor?” It is very fair to reply, “I can’t answer that until I get on the field and get to know, you, the community, and understand what God wants here.”
Vision is not a cookie-cutter replication of what you led the church to do in your last setting. It is understanding what God wants to do in your new context, given the people and needs that exist there.
Vision has to do with who you are as a pastor.
God did not place you in the church you are currently serving by accident; you are there by His design. God’s plan will involve using all that He has invested in you to accomplish His vision. He intends to use the spiritual gifts He invested in you as well as the abilities He has equipped you to acquire. He intends to use your life and ministry experience in this journey. All of God’s investment in your life is for the purpose of using you as a leader to understand, communicate, and lead the church to carry on for such a time as this.
Vision has to do with who is a part of your congregation.
The people who make up your current congregation are not there by accident either. God placed them there as a local expression of his body to have gospel impact. God has also invested in them in the same way and for the same purpose as you to understand and accomplish His vision and mission for your church.
Vision has to do with who lives in your community and the needs that exist among those people.
The people who live in your immediate community are not there by accident either. God’s plan is to use your congregation and all that He has invested in them to evangelize, disciple, and minister to the needs of those around you. God’s plan involves you leading the people He placed in your church. even before you came, to be salt and light, making an impactful difference in your community and to the nations.
Photo by David Travis on Unsplash
