Dr. Tom Cocklereece
Picture in your mind a hot air balloon that is ready to launch with its gondola firmly secured to the balloon with the lines. It is an illustration of vision. The vision is actually the hot air contained within the balloon material that is made up of the primary or intrinsic values of the people. Keep in mind that vision is made up of real core values as opposed to aspired values. The lines securing the gondola to the balloon function as the core value expectations of the people going on the journey who aspire to and take ownership of the vision. With the proper mix of values and inspiration (hot air/vision) to lift the gondola and its load of people, the journey begins.
This is how vision works. Many churches have no expressed or defined vision. It is an expression of what the church will “look like” in three to five years or more—not simply the building, but the fellowship of people and the ministry context of the future. The Lord God expressed this in Exodus when he told Moses that he would lead the people of Israel to “a land flowing with milk and honey,” a surreal yet inspiring vision of the future home of the people of Israel. But vision is fickle in that to work, it must become a grassroots movement.
Allow me to illustrate it using the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) that has a democratic congregational church polity. Messengers are elected by the local churches to go to the annual meeting, this year (2009) in Louisville, Kentucky. Pastors attend the meeting as messengers and have no more official authority than other messengers duly elected by their respective churches. This year Dr. Johnny Hunt (SBC President and moderator) and Dr. Danny Akin (President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) presented their vision for renewal of the ~ 20 million member SBC called a Great Commission Resurgence (GCR). Leaders at the top must remember that when in session, the 8,600 messengers this year, attending the annual meeting function much like a local church. The leaders had begun talking among themselves about the GCR several months before the meeting in Louisville. As it is with vision, there is often a difference between the actual vision cast by the leaders and that which is received by various levels of people.
In the SBC annual meeting example, the vision must get all the way from the meeting in Louisville and disseminated out to the local churches in metropolitan cities and rural areas. There was the stated and written vision cast by Drs. Hunt and Akin but there was great skepticism expressed in discussions that circulated in the restaurants, exhibits, and bookstore areas as messengers hashed out their understanding of the GCR. Some associational and state convention leaders expressed concern of a power grab by the Executive Committee of the SBC, while others were concerned that it was a ploy to limit the influence of the state conventions and associations as the local expressions of the denomination. Others were excited about the potential for renewal in the denomination and churches but were concerned that the problem of intense focus on evangelism with little concentration on discipleship might continue to exacerbate true revival.
Leaders must know that this is the normal way people process vision whether in the meeting of 8,600 people, a mega church, or a small rural church. By the end of the annual meeting, the leaders wisely appointed a task force that will further define and cast the GCR vision. The task force must now develop the vision and cast it in such a way that it reaches out to the >40,000 local congregations across the United States—the grassroots. Failing the possession of the real primary values (balloon), effective casting of the vision (the hot air), the people in the local churches accepting the vision (getting in the gondola), and their ownership of the vision (tying on the lines), the Great Commission Resurgence vision may be just another footnote in the annals of failed revivals and how not to cast vision. Time will tell whether the Great Commission Resurgence is the beginning of a new great spiritual awakening in the U.S. or just a lot of hot air that cools and fades into the annals of church history. For me, I hope it works! I hope there is no hidden agenda and that there will be as much focus on discipleship as there is evangelism and I stand ready to help with both through Simple Discipleship. What is the vision of your church?
SD Blessings!
Dr. Tom Cocklereece
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