Eye on the “Vision Thing”
Add comment May 3rd, 2006
I admit that as a shepherd I’ve always struggled with the “vision thingy”. The impulse from the culture is to market one’s church toward a particular identity. At times I’ve felt a measure of failure or guilt that the leaders of VBF have not had a well defined “vision statement”.
While a clear definition of vision is obviously necessary with regards to secular endeavors, I’ve come to a place of skeptical rest about this apparent blank spot at VBF. I came across a couple of thought provoking statements by Dr. John MacArthur in Light along the Journey:
Planning for church growth? I have no long-range planning, no short-range planning. No planning. When I started at the church, I wanted them to see Christ in all His glory, that’s what I started out with, the Gospel of John, in one hundred sermons.
and another..
I don’t spend a lot of time studying the culture, I think I know enough from living in it. I don’t want to be a student of the culture, I want to be a student of the Bible. Just be an expert on the Word of God, and you will know what to say to the culture. You can be the cultural expert of all experts if you just read Al Mohler’s blogs.