Perishing People

Proverbs 29.18  Where there is no vision, the people perish...

The Vision of the House

It is the Pastor's responsibility, with the help of key leaders in the body,  to establish the vision of the house. Each local church has an assignment from the Almighty and to miss that assignment, no matter how many accolades for good and fine things that are done is to miss God's Purpose. Missing God's purpose will also be missing God's blessing.

But how does a spiritual leader determine the assignment (vision) for the house. Earnest Prayer is the only thing that I know will lead a pastor to determine if his church is supposed to be a worshipping center or an evangelistic rescue mission. Is it supposed to be a hospital for restoring spiritual health to those wounded or a discipleship center teaching the ways of God?  Every church has this assignment and the leadership team, and especially the Sr. Pastor is called to catch the vision from God.

Communicating the Vision

Some how the vision has to be communicated. Likely it will need to be communicated in many ways. From the pulpit, through the leadership, on stationary, on websites, etc. It should be clear that the assignment from God was pursued and found. It is necessary, too, that even the leadership see that over and over since there are many good things that can be a distraction from the calling of God to a particular church.

Originally here at CLC we saw ourselves as a worshipping community primarily. Our tag line, meant to communicate that was "Where Worship is a Way of Life". And while we continue to be a church that is worship oriented we also recognized a redefining a few years back. It seemed that God was drawing us into a more mature season of discipleship training. our tag line changed to "Real Faith for the Real World".

Loving Rejection

Not everyone will agree with the vision of the house. Of course, there are many who simply will not understand that you cannot do everything from rescuing folks from sex trafficking to having the greatest Sunday School in the Western Hemisphere. We are very involved in missions and do mission trips around the world. We endeavor to help the poor here at home. We train and educate the newly saved, teach leaders to develop into more mature servants, believe for the miraculous, intercede for lost and broken, develop worship leaders, and a dozen other things here at CLC.

And if we have to part ways with people who need to separate to fulfill their God given call we do it lovingly. Honoring the call of God in their lives. It isn't always easy to understand but we know in whom we have believed.

The main thing for us all is to understand what God's main thing is. And then to busy ourselves pursuing the main thing for his honor and glory.