Why Vision Matters
Missio Dei: Exploring our Vision, Mission and Values • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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My grandfather’s compass
The point of the compass is to help you stay on course towards your destination. It’s for the times when the view in front of you is obscured and you aren’t sure which way to go. And if you veer a bit in the wrong direction, it helps you make the course corrections that will get you back on track.
Vision, mission and values are a big deal in organizational leadership. Like a compass, they are used extensively to help companies, non-profits, and churches stay true to what they want to be about.
Apple’s vision statement is To make the best products on earth and to leave the world better than we found it.
Amazon’s vision statement is "Our vision is to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavours to offer its customers the lowest possible prices."
But vision statements are just helpful for companies. They can be helpful for us, as individuals, as well. They can help guide us when we come up against challenges to our morals and principles and when we feel adrift in the world, wandering around without purpose.
Personal vision statement
To become more like Jesus in my character and cause and help others do the same.
The reasons I find this statement helpful:
It’s about growth, not perfection
It talks about “being” first, and “doing” second.
It orients my life towards Jesus and others.
Vision statements are helpful for companies and for individuals. They are also helpful for churches.
About 15 years ago or so, our previous pastor, Don, had a vision for this church. His vision, which became the vision for the church, was to be a “church without walls.” The vision was about connecting with the community outside of Sundays and blessing it. It was a beautiful vision and it served this church for many years.
But, as with all vision statements, things change. Pastor Don retired, we had a couple of years of transition, and then I tricked you all into hiring me as your new lead pastor.
The elders and I, and I believe most of you, have understood that this was a new season for our church and in this new season it was time to revisit and rework the vision for this church.
So, in early November, the Elders and I gathered for a mini-retreat weekend in order to prayerfully discern where God was leading us. We emerged from that weekend with a new vision, mission and values statement that we are very excited about.
This is what we came up with:
Our vision is to see all people fully alive in Jesus and sharing his love with others.
Our mission is empower people to grow in a relationship with Jesus through Biblical Preaching, Passionate Worship, Community Service, and Intentional Relationships
Our core values are Connecting with God through Worship and Prayer, Loving our Neighbour, Experiencing Life Transformation, and Extending God’s Grace to Others.
Now, some people resist things like vision statements for churches. They think that it’s too business-y and the church isn’t a business. Or they look to history and say, “The church didn’t have vision statements for thousands of years. Why do we need one now?”
But God has been in the business of giving visions of a future life to his people for thousands of years.
God gave a vision of Israel to Abram.
14 The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. 15 All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. 16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. 17 Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”
Abram had no children at this point in his life. His family was him, his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot, who had just left him to make it on his own. And yet, God gave Abram this vision of a land filled with his offspring. And it was a vision for a reality that Abram never saw. It would be over 400 years later before Israel would see the vision fulfilled.
God gave a vision of worship and service to Isaiah
In Isaiah 6, the prophet gets a vision from God where angels with 6 wings were hovering above God, who sat on a throne. Isaiah is undone by this vision and declares:
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
God’s response though, in this vision, is to take Isaiah’s sin away. Isaiah has a vision of salvation. But more than just salvation, it’s also a vision for ministry because God says,
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
Isaiah volunteers to be the mouthpiece of God to his people. And the messages weren’t always nice and happy messages. Some were hard messages, calling people to repentance. But he still does it because God gave him this vision.
In the New Testament…
God gives his people a vision of a future kingdom.
The book of Revelation was written to churches that were experiencing some deep persecution - the kind where you were arrested, exiled or killed for saying you followed Jesus. And at the end of the book, God gives a vision of the kingdom to come to John, the author, to comfort and encourage his people.
1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
Isn’t that a beautiful vision of the future? It’s a vision that inspires us to live by faith in Christ AND share his love with others, so that they can join us in that beautiful kingdom. It’s also a vision that defines us - as the Bride of Christ - his beloved.
Our church is part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance of Canada. It’s a denomination with over 400 churches across the nation, all striving together to know Jesus and make him known around the world. As a denomination, instead of a vision statement, we have a vision prayer. This is the prayer:
C&MA Vision Prayer: O God, with all our hearts, we long for You. Come, transform us to be Christ-centred, Spirit-empowered, Mission-focused people, multiplying disciples everywhere.
It’s a prayer that both invites God to work in us and transform us as well as reminds us of who we are: a Christ-centred, Spirit-empowered, Mission-focussed people who multiply disciples.
And in the passage that _________ read earlier,
Jesus also invites us to participate in a vision prayer.
9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
Jesus’ instruction to his disciples on how to pray is all about vision.
- It’s a prayer to see the kingdom come. We see a glimpse of the kingdom in Revelation 21 and 22, and here we are taught to ask God to bring that kingdom on earth.
- It’s a prayer to see God’s will enacted on earth. What would life here look like if humans - if even just the Christians - would actually do what God told us to do? What would your life look like if you actually did what God calls you to? It’s almost hard to imagine and yet it is what we are called to pray for.
- It’s a prayer to see ourselves trusting God every day (not just in crisis). “Give us today our daily bread.” Trusting God is perhaps one of the hardest things about our faith. We are so wired to trust only ourselves and to live by sight - what we have - as opposed to living by faith - that God has and will provide what we NEED.
Prayer to see ourselves walking in forgiveness and extending it to others. You are never more like God than when you forgive others. Some of you struggle with that forgiveness. Some of you struggle to receive it. Others to extend it. But forgiveness is the currency of God - he gives it to you abundantly with the expectation that you spend it on others.
Prayer to see ourselves being fully alive, not succumbing to temptations. When we sin, we violate the very construct of our being. We were made for holiness and when we indulge in sin, we diminish our humanity. To be fully alive in Jesus is to overcome the temptations toward self-centredness and disobedience and run into the arms of our loving God.
God has been giving people visions of a future reality where the world is released from the bondage of sin and death throughout history.
As a church, we look at that vision outlined in our scriptures, and tried to articulate it in a new, fresh way so that we can renew the missional calling that God has given us.
Like a compass, vision statements and prayers orient us back to the person and calling of Jesus when life becomes hard - they help us stay on track when a world of distraction, discouragement and chaos seems to threaten everything.
This is why vision matters. This is why you think through what your vision is for your life. And this why we created our new vision statement here at BPAC - to see all people full alive in Jesus and sharing his love with others.
Conclusion.
"All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds awake to the day to find it was all vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people, for they may act out their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible..." - T.E. Lawrence
So, for the next 6 weeks, we are going to unpack and look at our new vision, mission and values statements. My prayer for each of you is that through this series God does some something amazing in your hearts and lives. As we go through them, my hope is twofold: first, that God opens the eyes of your hearts and helps you become more fully alive in Jesus. Second, my hope is that you see how you can participate in this mission with us because when we work together for the same goal - to see all people fully alive in Jesus and sharing his love with others - the world is going to change.
Pray.