Keith’s Blog

There's more to Vision than just seeing!

I read today that January is supposed to be the most emotionally difficult and draining month of the year. January 21st, in particular, is apparently one to try and sleep through as it is said to be the most depressing day in the whole year. (Supposedly, it is because by then people’s salaries are gone, their Christmas-loaded visa bills have arrived and any momentary detraction from the harsh realities of their lives provided by their festive season’s gifts and parties has waned.)

Despite this well documented gloom, I must say I always enjoy and look forward to the new start something as simple as changing our calendars can bring. I’ve never really been one for New Year’s resolutions (I prefer to start my new years much more positively than that!) but I’ve always loved the sense of a fresh start and new beginning that seeing January 1st appear all around me brings. Whilst thinking up resolutions doesn’t appeal to me, I do love the opportunity to revisit the vision I have for the various roles going on in my life.

As a new church, we are also beginning 2008 by looking again at the vision we have for our church community. In one sense, this will be the first time we have ever done this as up until now we have simply shared in the vision and strategy of our ‘mother’ congregation in Lucan. Now we get to throw it all up into the air again and ask God to guide us into what our vision as part of the body of Christ ought to be. Our ‘mission’ is relatively easy to sort out as we share that with every other church in the world. The mission of every Christian church is simply to continue the mission of Jesus as we give ourselves to living out the Great Commandment and to fulfilling the Great Commission. But clarifying our vision is something that is unique to every group of believers and to every church. Here we ask the questions, ‘What would living our our part of the mission God has called us to look like in our particular context?’ ‘What kind of local church does God want us to become as we reach out with our particular gifts and resources to our local community and to the wider world.’ ‘What are we going to set as our goals in terms of staffing, resources, ministries and facilities?’

As we have been discussing in our office, services and home groups, such vision, if it is to be more than a futile exercise, will need to be clear, compelling, challenging and Christ-centred. To arrive at such vision will take the very best of our praying, thinking listening and strategizing. It will require the input of every one of our members and almost certainly will lead us to passionate and heartfelt debate. I hope it does. I hope we will spend long into the night discussing and dreaming about what God could, and desires to, do among us. If we do it right, it will be a God-honouring, fun and energising experience for our whole community.

Setting out on this task of clarifying our vision as a new church should hold no fears for any of us. The scary part will only come when it is time to start living this vision out! That’s when we’‘ll get to realise that there is much, much more to vision than simply seeing!