Just how broad is your vision?
I got into an interesting discussion about vision the other day. A group of us were discussing “It,” by Craig Groeschel. That day’s focus was the vision chapter.
One church planter in the room said two things that seemed to sell himself and his church short of potential. First, he was assembling a committee to build a consensus vision. Second, he said his vision for the church is to make devoted disciples.
I don’t believe committees can take the place of Moses… The core of a new church is its vision, delivered by God to a single man. Both Old and New Testaments would validate the first item on my job description, “To seek God for his vision for our congregation.” I think a pastor’s first responsibility is to know God and his plans for a particular local church. You can’t delegate hungry prayer.
The second mistake this young pastor made was to sell his congregation short of its potential.
Jesus commissioned the apostles to make disciples. They did it by planting churches. This would suggest that we should strive to make disciples who make disciples while we make a few disciples who reproduce our church. The true fruit of a coconut tree is neither a coconut or another tree—it is a coconut grove.
Simply by raising the bar in something as mundane as a written vision statement we can instill vision in our congregations to actually go into “all the world” with the gospel by multiplying churches. Then we’ll be sure they are not content just to try to be the biggest church on the block…
