Commitment to a Cause -- Vision?

The Importance of Vision

What is “vision”? “The capacity to see beyond right now to what could be.” Heb. 11:1 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (ESV).

David Garrison says, “If you can’t see it before you see it, you’re never going to see it.” (2004, 200) Roland Allen says: “What is necessary is faith. What is needed is the kind of faith which, uniting a man to Christ, sets him on fire. Such a man can believe that others finding Christ will be set on fire also.” (Allen 1956, 208) Aubrey Malphurs says a vision is “a clear, challenging picture of the future of the ministry as it can and must be.” (1992, 237-8)

Moore talks about vision: “ Do you possess an unavoidable urge to start a new congregation? If you can live without this project, you probably should. The best church planters easily qualify for Peter Drucker’s descriptive ‘monomaniac with a mission.’ They are driven by a call similar to the ones given to the apostle Paul and the Old Testament prophets. These are the people who can run their blood pressure up 10 points just by poring over a map of potential meeting sites.” (2002, 35)

Hudson Taylor said, “How often do we attempt work for God to the limit of our incomptency rather than to the limit of God’s omnipotency.”

One French pastor stated this about vision: “The desire to evangelize, a burden greater than just seeing our city reached.” The elder of one church that planted six daughter churches and two grand-daughter churches said the same thing.

Why is there a lack of vision for this?

First, business as usual stifles vision. All denominations that plant new churches grow and all those who do not, do not grow. Second, training that does not include this but emphasizes pastors of existing churches as the great need. Third, looking at the “how many” instead of the “how few.” How often in Adelaide, Australia, I heard there are “too many churches” as people just looked at the existence of congregations that were static and not growing. We need to calculate “x number of churches” rather than “x number of lost people.

Who needs vision? Church planters, association of churches, churches, missions, trainers of church planters. students. One of the things that surprised me in training students in church planting is that fact that they would state that they never heard about this before. It was a new concept to them.

How important is vision to you? Is it seen in your life? How?

Allen, Roland. 1956. The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church and the Causes which
Hinder it. London: World Dominion Press.

Garrison, David. 2004. Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World.
Midlothian, VA: WIGTake Resources.

Malphurs, Aubrey. 1992. Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century. Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Books.

Moore, Ralph. 2002. Starting a New Church: The Church Planter’s Guide to Success
Ventura, CA: Regal Books.