What I've Learned About Vision, Year 2

Last year, my church's leadership worked to discern God's vision for who we should be and what we should be busy doing.  Since high school, I've learned about visioning, ready about it, helped develop some visions, studied the visions of others, and now led the discernment of that vision for a church. 

It occurred to me last week how much visioning is like receiving an organ transplant.  Let me explain.

Every church has a heart.  Maybe its a heart for the community and for reaching the lost for Christ - great.  Maybe it's a dysfunctional heart that thinks selfishly and doesn't respond to the needs of those around, much less seeks the heart of God.  In many cases, our churches need a heart transplant.  

Transplant = New Vision/Purpose

As with any living being, this transplant comes with some distinct advantages.  Primarily, you have the health of the church.  We know that if you are following the will of God and hearing the call of the Holy Spirit, you will be successful, at least in God's terms.  This is what a healthy congregation looks like. 

Also, much like a transplant, there are side effects.  When you place a foreign heart into a human being or any other animal, it's disruptive to the rest of the body's systems.  The body will automatically realize that this is something that doesn't belong and there is a period of time that you have to wait to see if the body will accept it or reject it.  If it accepts it, then you will regain health and add to your longevity.  If it rejects the new heart, the results could be catastrophic, from needing more major work or even problems as extreme as death.

When this new vision was transplanted into our church in the fall, we had a period of time that we had to monitor that transplant to see if it would be accepted.  The good news is that its February and the patient is doing well. 

Last week, as we fine-tuned our budget for this year (don't ask - we are running a little behind), I noticed that the overall budget hadn't changed much, but the individual line items have changed significantly from the way we minister to youth and children, all the way down to how we manage the office.  Many new programs and ministries are being implemented BECAUSE of the vision and God is beginning to move us forward together.  I'm so excited I can't stand it.

Last night, our vision team met again to begin looking at some sweeping changes that could revolutionize our church.  I won't tell you what they all are yet - the vision team needs to continue to pray and plan before we reveal anything.  But I can tell you that God is doing something BIG. 

I've seen too many churches reject their transplanted vision and suffer for it.  I thank God and I thank all the people who have spent time on their knees for the acceptance this new heart has received in this body. 

So what's our vision?  "To be a spiritually alive church, sharing Christ's love through service to the community."

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Highlights of some of our changes (the ones I can tell you about):

• A summer camp program for the children in our community is being developed.  We are putting the pieces together to create an all-day, six-week ministry during the summer that will give parents a safe place to put their kids during weekdays and provide the children with a place to learn and have fun during their summer.
• Hospitality Ministry - we are stepping up our hospitality efforts and finding new ways of connecting with visitors to our church.
• A Contemporary Service - this one is still in utero.  As plans come to light, we'll share that with you.
• Worship Enhancement - thanks to the sanctuary heat going out in December/January, our people were exposed to worshipping with the aid of a video system.  Now we are making plans to install a permanent system in our worship space.
• Communications - we are making plans to beef up our web presence as well as adding office capabilities to do more in-house printing and moving from a weekly bulletin to a monthly newsletter. 
• A Mission Center - we are looking at the potential of changing our old education wing into some sort of mission/service center for the community.  Not sure yet whether that will take shape as a food pantry, clothes closet, or something else, but we have the space and we know that we need to use it to benefit others.