November 26, 2007
Sweeping Visions
The October 2007 issue of Toastmaster magazine has an article on political communication written by Linda McGurk. One paragraph subtitled ‘Be a Visionary’ says, “While politicians often deal with many complex issues, it’s generally easier to captivate an audience and mobilize voters with big, sweeping visions of where you want to go and what you want to get accomplished than to present a laundry list of detailed changes to the tax code.” I’m thinking this same thing is taking place in the church. We, the congregational audience, are hearing more about where leaders want to go and what they want to accomplish than we’re hearing about sin, redemption and the blood of Christ. Whether political or religious, it’s interesting how easily captivated and mobilized we can be when it comes to men’s visions.
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Gail;
-----When I hear a preacher blathering about his visions for the church and all the things he thinks it needs to do, then I think to myself, “Well! You go there and do that, then! It is your vision, not mine.” What arrogance for men to think that God gives to them visions for me and you and the church! What audacity! Is it that they do not think we have the Holy Spirit? Is it that they think our being a part of the body of the Lord is an enlistment into a battalion of which they are the generals, captains, and lieutenants? We even have one genius floating around the world who envisioned a call to retrain all of the preachers in Christianity! How arrogant! How puffed up in self-significance to think that world-wide Christianity needs to do things his way! How puffed up to think that even the local church needs to do things one way!
-----The Bible does not present to the church a unity in vision or goal. It presents for the church a unity in love, a unity in the Spirit. It makes room for variety in the acceptance of one another, and a binding together in agreeing with one another. The honor for one another lives in acknowledging everyone’s various visions and goals, and taking interest in the interests of others facilitates those visions and goals. But what the Bible does not tell us to do is to partake in this unity of vision, unity of goal, “we all have to do the same thing” drivel of so many contemporary preachers. That makes for a body with one foot, and nothing else. Let the Spirit have Jesus’ bride, and let the preacher keep his visions out of my face!
-----And although you are correct in alluding to our need to hear more about sin, redemption, and the blood of Christ, let me add that we need also to hear more about the life and reality of our brothers and sisters, the significance of their physical, spiritual, and emotional needs, and the supplying of those needs we all must in part do if our love is to be claimed as genuine. That is I John stuff, the little book that always gets the big brush-aside. But fellowship is participation in each other as well as in the Lord, it is not the enlistment of others into some preacher’s personal vision, nor the training of everyone’s attention upon his personal goal.
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