Church Vision
I have been reading some old minutes and meeting notes whilst continuing to try and rationalise the church’s past filing. Much of the content is remarkably familiar, in fact it could have been written last week. The membership at that time (the 1980s) had the same concerns that we have now. I quote:
“It has been remarked that Britain as a nation has become dispirited and possessed by a spirit of hopelessness – even a death-wish – in contrast with some of the younger nations which have a vigorous spirit of life and hope. That same spirit moreover has come into much of the Christian Church in Britain. In short, there is no vision for the future. It is essential for our growth and success as a local church that we have a clear vision for the future, in the light of which we set clear goals, which we also plan to achieve.”
A quarter of a century later, we are again looking at society and wondering how Christianity became so sidelined. At each business meeting we debate how we should be worshipping the Lord and what we should be doing to take God’s message out to the people of New Malden – or even further afield.
The folk in the 1980s (and some of them are still with us today) decided that they needed a vision. The notes cite Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” (KJV) as the inspiration for this. More modern translations put it slightly differently, “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful” (NLT) or “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law.” (NIV). In all the basic message is the same but what are we really after, a vision, guidance or revelation?
Well, I am greedy, I want all three! In fact I can have all three, as they are all available when we pray and when we read Scripture. Give Him the chance and God will reveal to us His vision for us and how to achieve it. We need, therefore, to be constantly asking God for His help and listening to His reply. Monitoring our progress by checking it out with God. Bob M’s favourite modern version, The Message, says, “If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.” We must let Him tell us what to do or we will make a mess of things.
In that old mission statement the main aims were a Spirit filled fellowship; a praying church; personal growth in devotional life; commitment and sacrifice; God-given leadership; evangelism; corporate worship and praise; preaching, teaching and exhortation; involvement in the Kingdom of God beyond the locality and unity with the wider church in the area. As they say, nothing changes and this is the essence of everything we have in our vision for today.
We are a part of the on-going work of God. When we feel we are going through a bad patch we can look back and see that others felt the same but we know, with the benefit of hindsight, that they went on and achieved much. Let us try to do the same with God’s help. Let us remember the exhortation “Your will not mine be done” and take our own personal wishes out of the equation. Let us read our Bibles and keep praying.
