Power of Vision

Discover and Apply God's Plan for Your Life and Ministry

George Barna

• Publisher: Baker Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781493414925
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

According to George Barna, uncovering God's vision for your ministry is not an option. It's essential for the most productive ministry that will accomplish God's goals for building his kingdom. Ministry leaders with a clear picture from God of where they are headed are much more likely to experience a successful journey. In this book, Barna uncovers how God has shared his vision throughout history, how vision is different from mission, common practices and beliefs that inhibit true vision, practical steps toward experiencing and carrying out God's unique vision for them, and ways to share and promote congregational ownership of the vision.The Power of Vision

1
Masters of Vision

CHAPTER HIGHLIGHTS

• Vision transcends time. True visionaries have much in common regardless of when they live.
• As people of God seek to lead their churches, grasping God’s vision for their ministry requires an investment in the vision.
• Those whom God chooses to use as leaders can be effective regardless of their lack of worldly qualifications.

IS VISION A NEW CONCEPT? Take a look at one first-century visionary.

Five times the Jews gave me thirty-nine lashes with a whip. Three times the Romans beat me with a big stick, and once my enemies stoned me. I have been shipwrecked three times, and I even had to spend a night and a day in the sea. During my many travels, I have been in danger from rivers, robbers, my own people, and foreigners. My life has been in danger in cities, in deserts, at sea, and with people who only pretended to be the Lord’s followers. I have worked and struggled and spent many sleepless nights. I have gone hungry and thirsty and often had nothing to eat. I have been cold from not having enough clothes to keep me warm. (2 Cor. 11:24–27 CEV)

This is the story of the apostle Paul. This is not the tale of a man who had nothing better to do with his life or no other options. Paul was well educated, articulate, and a leader. By virtue of his background, he was a man with options. Yet after his conversion experience he was determined to serve Jesus Christ, a spiritual leader he had sought to persecute, and to endure outrageous suffering and personal sacrifice as a result of this turnabout. It was a conscious, startling, incredible decision. For what reason?

Paul was driven to fulfill a vision for ministry that God had entrusted to him.

Paul gives us glimpses of his comprehension of the vision for ministry that God had prepared for him. In 2 Timothy 1:11, he indicates the nature of his calling: his work is to be “a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher” (NKJV). In other letters, Paul outlines aspects of his vision for ministry. It is in Acts, though, where we gain the clearest insight into God’s vision for Paul’s ministry.

Throughout the latter half of the book, we see Paul preaching, teaching, admonishing, and planting churches with the kind of fervor not found in a person who is simply earning a wage. Paul, convinced of God’s design for his life, worked tirelessly to do God’s calling. Paul was compelled to commit his life to working out God’s vision in his daily life.

A Precedent for Passion

Paul’s passion was not without precedent, however. Hundreds of years earlier, another young man had a similar vision of how his life could count for the glory of his God. David, described as a man after God’s own heart, became the second king of Israel. Or, put another way, David was a man who had grasped God’s vision for his life, a man whose service and worship exemplified the spirit and commitment of a person in deep relationship with God and who was devoted to carrying out the special tasks God had ordained for him.

In time, David replaced Saul as king, albeit reluctantly. It became necessary to remove Saul from his exalted post of leadership because he lacked God’s vision for ministry. Instead, he viewed his position in human terms and attempted to serve in his own strength. His conduct so disgusted God that the prophet Samuel, who had anointed Saul to be king, eventually had to break the news to Saul that his self-reliance and consequent lack of obedience had caused him to fall out of God’s favor and be replaced as king (see 1 Sam. 13:14).

David, in contrast, reflected the humility, obedience, compassion, and dedication to God that mark a true visionary leader in the Church. We cannot read the psalms attributed to David without being struck by his passion to know and serve God. We cannot overlook the clear sense of the future that God had instilled within him. Like all visionary leaders, David was human and, as such, made mistakes. But one of his redeeming qualities was his burning desire to remain true to the vision for the future that God had placed in his heart, which God allowed him to work toward despite the frailties of his human nature.

Other biblical figures emerge as people moved by God’s vision for their lives and ministries. Nehemiah was responsible for the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, risking death at the hands of King Artaxerxes and various enemy tribes. His bold speech, courageous confrontations with opponents, and insightful instructions to the Jews who struggled with him to rebuild the holy city were a testimony to the vision for ministry he had received from God. After an intense period of mourning, weeping, fasting, and prayer, Nehemiah received from God a clear vision of how he was to direct his life in the service of God. Far from succumbing to the fear of abdicating his comfortable life in the king’s court and reconstructing the centerpiece of the Jewish community, Nehemiah stood firm on the basis of the vision—the very work that “my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem” (Neh. 2:12).

Moses, a most unlikely candidate for greatness, received a clear call from God to serve Him in a special way. Like all true visions imparted by God, the vision entrusted to Moses did not focus on satisfying people’s selfish desires but on a selfless quest to reconcile the world to its Creator. Even though Moses had been abandoned by his parents and was guilty of murder and living in exile, God designated him to lead Israel to the promised land to spare His people from oppression at the hands of the Egyptians. In that process, Moses lived a nomadic, uncomfortable life for four decades, leading an unruly, disrespectful, unhappy, whining band of people through times of sacrifice, doubt, pain, and discomfort. But driven by God’s vision for leading those people, Moses remained a faithful servant of God.

Modern Visionaries

Vision has flourished even beyond the lives of biblical characters. In our own century, there are numerous examples of people who, by human standards, showed little promise for greatness and little hope of being able to change the lives of people around the world. But these people, having captured God’s vision for ministry, have lived with power and energy that undeniably transcend their natural capacities and with an intensity of commitment that far exceeds anything they had previously demonstrated in their lives. The results of their efforts further expose the power of God at work within them.

An Undeniable Transformation

The diminutive Albanian woman we remember today as Mother Teresa was nothing more than average early in her life. Her colleagues in the convent remarked that she was nothing special as a student, a leader, or a woman seeking to please God. However, after years of prayer and a spirit broken by Him, she emerged as a figure to be reckoned with; she moved beyond complacency to a deep compassion for the poorest of the poor. Summoning courage unfamiliar to her, she requested that her religious order permit her to initiate a ministry in India to care for those who were so sick that no other people or organizations bothered to care for them.

Why risk her life and the few human comforts she knew to begin a life of even greater sacrifice and ignominy? Because she felt a special calling from God to reach out to love the unlovable. She could very easily have continued her ministry as a nun, teaching in schools, leading young women to consider a relationship with Christ, even directing some special students toward a vocational ministry. Nobody would have questioned her love for God, her commitment to His kingdom, or her selflessness as a nun.

Yet she knew God had reached out to her with a special vision for what she could do to impact people’s lives for His glory. And what an impact she had—one that exceeded her innate intellect, courage, and physical strength. She felt compelled to change the lives of people because God gave her a special vision for outreach.

A Dream, a Vision

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist preacher in the South. While he was regarded as a powerful orator, nothing in his background—academic prowess, family connections, political skills, church growth statistics—indicated that he was an emerging global leader, a crusader to be reckoned with. However, God worked through King to convert him into a servant with a larger calling: to address the injuries and injustice of race-based hatred and prejudice.

Much like the apostle Paul, King endured beatings, time in jail, slander, hunger, financial loss, and other inequities solely because of his quest to serve God. Driven by God’s vision for his ministry, King encountered unbelievable hardships but stayed true to his calling until he was killed by an assassin’s bullet. Sociologists and historians concur that of the many changes that redefined America during the turbulent 1960s, one of the most significant and far-reaching was the civil rights movement that King headed.

Vision for Growth

Donald McGavran was a missionary to India. In the early 1950s, he returned to the United States to further study missions, with a keen interest in discovering what types of outreach did and did not work effectively. He began to see ways in which the insights he had gained on the mission field could be applied to the American Church. He detailed his ideas in a series of writings that eventually became the basis for what became known as the church growth movement. Many church leaders today accept these principles as a matter of course.

During the 1950s, however, McGavran was ridiculed for his ideas and was occasionally asked to leave the fraternity of career ministers. Undaunted, he continued to teach and write about his ideas, convinced that God had placed him in these circumstances to enhance the spiritual life of the American Church. What was the strength that supported him during these years of travail? God’s vision for ministry was his motivation and source of strength in the face of controversy and rejection by colleagues.

Vision for Reaching Harry and Mary

One of the best-known church leaders in America of the past half century is Bill Hybels. Thousands of pastors and lay leaders have traveled to Willow Creek Community Church over the years to witness how God has used Hybels and the church he leads in South Barrington, Illinois, to reignite the interest and creativity of American churches in reaching unchurched, non-Christian people. With a church body that exceeds twenty thousand people, Willow Creek has been a diligent and inspiring example of a church that can be relevant without compromising the gospel.

In its early days, what is commonly referred to today as the Willow Creek model represented a radically different vision for the development of a church-based ministry. Despite the acclaim the church received, don’t assume fellow ministers and observers of the church scene stood by passively and applauded what Hybels and his team of young leaders were seeking to do when they launched the church. Through his innovative and bold efforts to reach Unchurched Harry and Unchurched Mary, the fictional characters described as the target audience, Hybels has been one of God’s chosen instruments to instill a passion in the hearts of thousands of believers to reach out to the unchurched and unsaved. Without grasping God’s vision for the unique ministry reflected in Willow Creek’s services and structure, however, that model for contemporary ministry might never have seen the light of day. And thousands of people may never have come to know Christ as a result of that ministry.

Changing America through the Court

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia used his thirty years on the nation’s highest court wisely. On the strength of his vision for how a justice should perceive the law, he changed not only the US Supreme Court but also the legal community itself. That influence was a result of his vision for his role: to return the courts to constitutional originalism and textual interpretation. That vision was directly related to his deep Christian faith and sense of serving God through his vocation.

When Scalia began his tenure on the court in 1986, most judges and legal scholars tended to ignore the original meaning of the Constitution and actual wording of the law itself. Countering that trend, Scalia became a forceful advocate for interpreting the relevant legal texts—the text of statutes, agency regulations, and especially the Constitution—according to their intended and common meaning, seen within the context of the document in question along with precedent and tradition.

Scalia not only affected decisions and procedures in the courts but also impacted law schools and conservative politics. His efforts redirected much of our legal thinking regarding separation of powers, freedom of speech, the rule of law, and how to read the Constitution while defending gun rights and capital punishment and resisting gay rights, abortion, and affirmative action. A brilliant legal mind and persuasive and colorful writer, Scalia served as the Supreme Court’s Rule of Law Conscience.

His eventual colleague on the high court, Justice Elena Kagan, had lofty praise for him while she was still dean of Harvard Law School. “His views on textualism and originalism, his views on the role of judges in our society, on the practice of judging, have really transformed the terms of legal debate in this country. He is the justice who has had the most important impact over the years on how we think and talk about law.”1

We could, of course, examine countless examples of leaders driven by God’s vision for life, ministry, and vocation. In each case, we would discover that for those with the ears to hear God supplies the vision.

The Underlying Basics

In every case I have studied, the vision entrusted to the leader was not a simple matter of God paving the way to do what came naturally or easily to the leader. Invariably, as true people of God seek to minister effectively, grasping God’s vision for their ministry requires them to both attain the vision and then faithfully implement it.

Finally, it seems apparent to me that not every person is called to be a habitual leader. However, those whom God chooses to use as leaders can be effective, regardless of their lack of worldly qualifications. If you are like most ministers of the gospel, you occasionally have doubts as to whether God made a mistake allowing you to be in a position of leadership or influence. Those doubts are valuable, for they keep you asking the types of questions that sharpen your skills, soften your heart, and remain humble. It is that kind of self-examination that prevents us from becoming megalomaniacs, convinced of our own self-sufficiency and always ready to take credit for ministry progress. As long as the doubt does not become paralyzing, it performs a useful function in the development process.

But the best response to any self-doubt is to determine the source of the vision for your ministry. Was it a vision you developed with the gifts and talents God gave you, or was it a vision that you sought, prayed, and waited for and then received from Him? Chances are that if you do not yet have His vision for your ministry, either you have not made the investment required to capture that vision or you are not gifted as a leader. Either case mandates immediate and decisive action on your part. Without vision, the last place you ought to be is in a leadership post, regardless of the underlying reason. Only you can deal with that condition.

2
What Is Vision?

CHAPTER HIGHLIGHTS

• Vision is clear.
• Vision is preferable to the current state.
• Vision concentrates on the future.
• Vision is from God.
• Vision is a gift to leaders that is tailored to their circumstances.
• Vision reflects a realistic perspective.
• Vision is dreaming the most possible dream.
• Vision is built on reality.
• A visionary pastor is a successful pastor.

DUKE ELLINGTON, the renowned jazz musician, composer, and bandleader, was once asked to provide a definition of rhythm. “If you got it,” he supposedly replied, “you don’t need no definition. And if you don’t have it, ain’t no definition gonna help.”

Vision, thankfully, is not quite as elu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Masters of Vision
• 2. What Is Vision?
• 3. Don’t Confuse Vision with Mission
• 4. Myths That Mar Vision
• 5. Whose Vision Are You Following?
• 6. Capturing God’s Vision
• 7. The Character of God’s Vision
• 8. Your Ministry Will Benefit
• 9. Vision Killers
• 10. Articulating the Vision
• 11. The Trickle-Down Effect
• 12. Count the Cost
• 13. Capturing a Personal Vision
• Appendix 1: Study Guide
• Appendix 2: Mission and Vision at Barna Group
• Appendix 3: Vision and Church Marketing
• Appendix 4: What If?
• Resources
• Notes
• About George Barna
• Back Ads
• Back Cover