WHAT IS YOUR VISION?

Faithful and fruitful churches operate from a clear and compelling vision. More than a mission statement and its program strategy, a vision describes the outcome that you are working for as a congregation in mission. So many churches try to operate by a vague vision, but the greater clarity you can have in identifying that vision, the better chance you have of realizing its accomplishment. Trying to operate with no vision is a formula for failure and unfaithfulness.

It is not without significance that Proverbs 29:18 says, "Where this is no vision, the people perish." The translation of this in The New International Version provides even greater clarity. "Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint ..." Without vision, a people have no focus and dissipate the energy for vision accomplishment in peripheral ways and unimportant matters.

Now let's add one more dimension to the vision discussion. Churches need to embrace God-sized vision. They serve a great and awesome God. Too many times the people of God do not bring glory to God because they do not pursue the vision that God seeks to give them. Even if they bother to discover that vision, they sometimes places human boundaries on it because they are too enamored with its achievability by their own human resources. God does not depend upon our resources. He provides His resources to us and through us.

Do you have a vision and what is its source? If you vision can be achieved without God's empowerment, then the vision is probably not from God.