Vision & Multiplication

Just how broad is your vision?

I got into an interesting discussion about vision the other
day. A group of us were discussing “It,” by Craig Groeschel. That day’s focus
was the vision chapter.

One church planter in the room said two things that seemed
to sell himself and his church short of potential. First, he was assembling a
committee to build a consensus vision. Second, he said his vision for the
church is to make devoted disciples.

I don’t believe committees can take the place of Moses… The
core of a new church is its vision, delivered by God to a single man. Both Old
and New Testaments would validate the first item on my job description, “To
seek God for his vision for our congregation.” I think a pastor’s first
responsibility is to know God and his plans for a particular local church. You
can’t delegate hungry prayer.

The second mistake this young pastor made was to sell his
congregation short of its potential.

Jesus commissioned the apostles to make disciples. They did
it by planting churches. This would suggest that we should strive to make
disciples who make disciples while we make a few disciples who reproduce our
church. The true fruit of a coconut tree is neither a coconut or another
tree—it is a coconut grove.

Simply by raising the bar in something as mundane as a
written vision statement we can instill vision in our congregations to actually
go into “all the world” with the gospel by multiplying churches. Then we’ll be
sure they are not content just to try to be the biggest church on the block…