Yesterday one of our elders, Jonathan, shared the final message in our vision casting series. Jonathan has been extremely active in our church in launching and running ministries. Last year he handed the reigns to the men’s ministry and the prayer ministry over to other members. He currently oversees the ministry teams of The Gathering Place. Jonathan’s message was a vision casting for the TGP Ministry Team and the Prophetic Gathering. You can get Jonathan’s message through our podcast dated Feb. 4th 2018. For more opportunities to hear Jonathan speak you can visit his personal website here. Below I’m going to discuss three reasons that Vision Casting is important to church health. Those reasons are: 1. Vision Casting Tells Us Where We’re Going. 2. Vision Casting Stretches Our Collective Strength. 3. Vision Casting Focuses Our Effort.
Tells us Where We’re Going
Casting a vision for a church is much like a persons literal vision. If someone has good eyesight, they can see far into the horizon in front of them, as well as any immediate obstacles nearby. As a community of Christ-followers, we need the same ability. As with our eyes, we see and determine where to go, so with the vision of the church. We look at the end goal and determine what it will take to get there and account for known obstacles. A healthy church will be one that has a definite vision and end goal in mind and aligns its ministries and gatherings to achieve that goal. Ultimately, the Church global’s goal is to maximize the population of heaven and deepen its intimacy with Jesus. Locally, churches have specific ways to bring that about. That is where the local leadership’s vision casting comes into play.
Churches aren’t just social gatherings of like minded believers. The purpose of churches is to partner with God to expand the kingdom of heaven. It is working with our savior to help fulfill the Lord’s prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Having a vision for the local community means hearing from the heart of the Father, listening to the heart of the church, and crafting a direction that incorporates both. The heart of the Father will always propel us toward fulfilling the Greatest Commandments and the Great Commission. The heart of the church is about knowing where they are spiritually, emotionally, and physically and getting them engaged in fulfilling the heart of the Father. Vision helps unify these two and moves the community forward.
Stretches Our Collective Strength
When we cast vision, we take stock in where God has us, where God’s brought us, and project where God wants us to go. From words of confirmation to the passions of engaged members to the fruitfulness of our ministries, leaders and get to a fairly narrow parameter of what God is doing with the church through basic analysis. And, not to be too much in the flesh, it is from here that leaders press into the heart of the Father to hear specifics the local church should be moving towards.
It is a stretch because the church will be aiming for things that haven’t happened. It will set specific goals and launch initiatives to fulfill what the Lord has guided it to. Just like Joshua and the Israelites, taking the land becomes a huge partnership between the will of God and the abilities of a community. In the midst of a community using their strength, knowledge, and abilities to obey God, God will often come in and do an impossible miracle to encourage, embolden, and empower the community. These miracles can (but not always) indicate the church is moving in the same direction as the Father. That doesn’t mean the church can then sit back and bask in the glory.
By looking at the book of Joshua, we see that the fall of Jericho, easily the biggest miracle that Israelite generation had seen, was only one of the thirty-one kingdoms to fall to Israel. The other thirty had to be taken by skill, combat, strategy, and diligence. But the Lord ensured their success. There is no reason to think our task is any different. The miracles will come. The Lord will spur us on and produce fruit from our work. And we still have to do the work–use our skill, strategy, and diligence. The main difference now, is that we have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside each believer, so it is easier to stay in tuned to the heart of the Father both individually and collectively, if we are maintaining right relationships within the church body.
Focuses Our Effort
The third reason Vision Casting is important to a healthy church is that is allows us to focus our effort. I’m the youngest of four kids. I have a brother who lives in the border of Florida. Whenever he’d come to town, he’d get together with my other brother and talk for hours about life in the 70s in the garage. Then one would get to work on some car project. Sometimes the bolts would be hard to get to or be seized up and not budge. That’s when effort was put into breaking the bolt loose to replace the necessary part. This would often be accompanied by grunts as the strain took its toll on the bodies. It is often at this time my other brother would comment, “He sure is gruntin’ and groanin’, but not gettin’ much done.”
Often that’s how things can be with churches. We have a task or goal to fulfill, yet we end up spending our best energy on an ancillary side project. The furthering of the task/goal is often inversely proportional to the effort that goes into completing that side project. That is where a clear vision can help focus our efforts to get the maximum amount accomplished. This will involve our mental, problem solving abilities, our time and financial resources, and our emotional investments–the Gospel is about right relationships and emotional well-being is just as much a part of that.
So there are three reasons it is important to cast vision for your church. If you want your church to partner with the Lord to fulfill the Great Commission well, you’re going to need a vision. Vision will tell your church where you’re going, stretch its collective strength, and focus its effort. One of the many useful things that I’ve learned from Carey Nieuwhof’s podcast is the need to always keep the vision before the church. Say it and say it and say it till you’re blue in the face, then say it some more. You can follow Carey here. So I’ll end this post with the usual-our three word vision summary: