The health of a church depends on a clear vision. That is some more advice from the Center for Healthy Churches. I found our church vision from 2000. It is a highly detailed plan of what possibilities exist for the future of the church. I leave it to those reading to consider what the results have been in these last twenty odd years.
What does God want? That seems the obvious question to begin
any search for a vision for a person or a group of people in Christ. What do we
know? We know God loves us. We know Christ died for us, to open the way of
salvation for us all. We know the Holy Spirit exists among us as Jesus with us
(according to John).
So what does God want? Most definitely something to do with
love. That’s the legal mandate, loving God and neighbor. That is a pretty broad
mandate. We know also that God knows us by name, responds to our prayers as
individuals, invites us into the throne room of grace by prayer. So there is a
step to get at the specifics of what God wants.
Dreaming about the future is a way of listening to how God
responds to our prayers. All the possibilities are open. Where do we see things
moving? What do we see God seeing in us? How do we spiritually decorate our
neighborhood in the Kingdom of God?
That is the first piece of the vision. Reaching out to the
Lord, dreaming in the Lord, discerning in the Lord, tackling the question of
‘so what does God want’ by opening communication with our God. We shall go then
from there.
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