(light music) - Vance, as planters faithfully live out the missionary task, engaging cities with the Gospel, making disciples, churches will be planted. In this part of the course, we wanna explore the biblical teaching and the practical wisdom on planting those churches. And so, starting here, in the church-planting world, we hear a lot about vision.
- Yeah. - What do we mean by vision? What is it, and why does it matter?
- Yeah, it's actually a very important word. It's a word that when I first started in ministry over three decades ago now, which seems like an eternity, but it was a word that really caught on for the first time. When I was growing up in church, I never heard a church talk about vision, mission statements.
That was just not a thing. - Yeah. - And somewhere in the '90s, this idea of mission and vision, and then there was this run in the '90s and the early 2000s where everybody came up with a vision statement, and it just became the operative thing, and it was really born out of a verse of scripture, I think in Proverbs, where the writer of Proverbs in 29:18 says, "Where there is no prophetic vision, "the people cast off restraint, "but blessed is he who keeps the law.
" And so, what the writer of Proverbs was saying is where there's no vision, everybody just kind of goes their own direction. Everybody casts off restraints. They go their own way.
But vision is about aligning people in a direction. The problem is we kind of drove that off the rails with this idea of vision. The word vision that's used in Proverbs is a word that literally means divine communication.
The primary essence of the word vision is not so much that of a dream, as much as it is a message that's been conveyed. You've heard something from the Lord. - Yeah.
- So this verse is not really about us coming up with a plan. It's not us coming up with a strategy. It's really about us discerning what God is doing and then leading people to get in on it.
So I think a lot of times as planters, when they think about vision, they think about, "I gotta get in a room somewhere. "I gotta come up with a dream. "I gotta come up with a plan.
"I've gotta map this out on a whiteboard. "I've gotta come up with some great scheme "that I can accomplish for God and for his glory. " But I like to define vision like this.
No, a vision, spiritual vision is really allowing the people of God to see the activity of God and then inviting them to get in on it. - That's good. - It's not me coming up with something.
It's allowing God's people to see what God's doing and then inviting them to join him, and what I found is there's a longing in the heart of every true follower of Jesus- - Yeah. - To be involved in that which God's doing. They long for it, they hunger for it.
So that's what the responsibility of the planter is is to discern where God's at work, to allow the people of God to see that, and then invite them to get in on it. - Mm, I love that they have to receive it from God first and show people. So how do they do that?
How does a planter strategically and effectively receive and cast vision? - Yeah, I think that's a super important question, and I think it's one that we have to answer on the front end if we're gonna be real casters of vision as the Lord's called us to be as we lead people. So I think there are really three critical components to receiving vision from the Lord.
The first of those components is prayer, and I like to say that because prayer is really a conversation with the Father. Often, we think of prayer as talking to God, but prayer is also listening to God. Prayer is a two-way communication where we're speaking to God and we're hearing from God.
So part of receiving this vision is born in prayer. That's why when you look at the church in the Book of Acts, you look at the leadership in Acts, so many key critical moments of what we'd call visionary leadership- - Mm-hmm. - Were born in prayer meetings.
The church in Acts 2 was actually born in a prayer meeting when the spirit of God fell- - Yeah. - And then as you continue on, they established prayer and the Word as the two primary ministries of the church. Miracles happened in prayer.
You see in Acts 12, Peter's in prison, and he's released from prison as the church is meeting in prayer. Then missionaries in Acts 13 are sent out for the first time. How does that happen?
Were they in a room deciding how do we reach the world? No, they were in a prayer meeting. - Wow.
- So it was in the context of prayer that they heard God begin to speak and God began to facilitate this vision. So I think prayer is a key part of receiving from the Lord, and unfortunately, in the world of church planning we live in today, often prayer is what we do to open the planning meeting, it's how we close the planning meeting, but the real planning happens with a whiteboard, a brainstorm, a think tank session. But really it starts as we sit before the Father in prayer to hear his voice about where he's at work and what he's inviting us to get in on.
So prayer is hearing from God. The second key component, well, before I even say that, let me give you a question with each of these. So with prayer, the question is what's your plan to hear from God through prayer?
- Mm. - We come up with all kind of plans for accomplishing the vision, but what's our plan to hear the vision? So we have to have a plan.
If you're a planter, what is the plan that you've put in place- - Wow. - To hear from God in prayer? So hearing God, number one, prayer.
Number two is community, hearing God- - Mm-hmm. - Together. I think one of the mistakes that we make in the New Testament church today is we try to lead New Testament church ministry with Old Testament paradigms of leadership.
- Yeah, say more about that. - So here's what I mean by that. In the Old Testament, the prophet, the priest, the king would go up on the mountain, go out in the wilderness, hear from God, come tell the people.
In the New Testament, there's always plurality. - Yeah. - The Apostles, and then after the Apostles, it spilled into the elders, plural, and the church, singular.
Every time it's mentioned in the New Testament, "And they heard from God together. " There was this principle in the New Testament called all in one accord. You see it over and over again where the church discerned the will of God together, and they heard God in community.
Too often, the planter and the pastor thinks they're an Old Testament prophet, priest, or king that has to go up on the mountain- - Yeah. - Hear from God, and then come say, "Thus sayeth the Lord. " That's not the way it works in the New Testament ethos.
We hear God together in fellowship with others. So it's prayer, hearing from God, prayer in community, hearing from God together- - Yeah. - And then finally, it's kingdom.
It's kingdom. Well, I skipped it again. Let me give you the question to go with the second one.
Who are you inviting into the process to hear God with you? So what's your plan to pray, and then who are you inviting into the process to hear God with you? So how are you implementing this receiving the vision from the Lord in community?
- Yeah. - But the third keyword would be kingdom, and that is where we're hearing from God together about where he's at work in our city and among the nations. - Mm.
- Too often, when planters talk about vision, it's just about their church. - Yeah. - "We're gonna have 20,000 people in 20 years "on 20 acres and 20 services," and it's all about the church.
- Yeah. - But real vision, that spiritual vision that's received from the Lord, is kingdom. - Mm-hmm.
- It's focused on cities and nations. - Wow. - So when you think about kingdom, the question is is our church and our vision about growing the church or is it about the expansion of the kingdom of God?
And so, those are three components if we're gonna get this vision from the Lord- - Yeah. - Prayer, hearing from God, community, hearing from God together, and then kingdom, hearing from God together about where he's at work in our city, and where he is at work in the world, and then how he's inviting us to get in on that. - Yeah, so once you've done this, once you've gathered all that together, how do you now cast that?
- Yeah. - How does that become something that continually stays on your lips, and is put in front of partners, and people that you're pursuing in evangelism, and even your growing core team? - Well, taking it back to the proverb, the Proverbs said, "Where there's no vision, prophetic vision, "the people cast off restraints.
" So it means that the vision's been communicated to the people- - Yeah. - So that they're able to hear and align themselves with God's activity. So I think communication, there are three words, again, that will kind of drive the way we communicate the vision.
Number one, it needs to be clear. - Yeah. - Language matters.
Let me say that one more time. - Yeah. - Language matters.
- Mm-hmm. - There were times at our church in Las Vegas that myself and our lead team of pastors that was kind of our plurality of elders, as we heard God together, there were times that we would take weeks and other times we would take months to simply articulate one phrase of the vision that God had given us as a faith family, because we wanted it to be clear. Where there's a lack of clarity, everybody begins to go their own way.
So clarity matters. Don't rush it. Be patient with the language as you hear from God, then let that bake into the ethos of your leadership, and be sure that you are articulate it in a way that's clear.
But second, it needs to be compelling. It needs to be compelling. If you look up the word compelling in Webster's Dictionary, it's defined as demanding action.
When something is compelling, I don't have a choice- - Yeah. - But to respond. I have to get involved.
I have to lean into this. The vision that we need to articulate needs to be compelling. This is why the kingdom component is so critical.
People are not interested in building your empire- - Mm. - But they will give their lives for the expansion of the kingdom of God- - Yeah. - And when we cast that vision in a clear and compelling way that we've heard from the Lord, it moves people.
It's like the 1% vision God's given us as a team here at Send Network. What's so, I was just in a place this week with some pastors and they asked me to share it again, and they said one of the reasons that of all the things in the SBC they're most excited about Send Network they said is because the vision is so compelling, It moves us. It's not just a guilt, "Hey, there's lost people out there.
" No, there's an opportunity to join- - Yeah. - In the move of God, seeing his kingdom expand, and in North America, and to the nations. So it needs to be compelling.
Number three, it needs to be consistent. You gotta repeat it over and over and over. If you get in your pulpit on Sunday and say, "Man, we've heard from God "and here's where we're going," and two months later, you read a book, and you see the latest new thing, and you come back and say, "Man, we've heard from God, "now, we're going here," and then two months later, you go to a conference, and you hear the latest trend, and you come back, and go, "Hey, now we're going here," people are not gonna understand or believe that what you've heard is really the voice of the Lord.
A vision is something that you've heard from God, and that doesn't mean it can't change over time as God continues to refine and define how he's inviting you to join and what he's doing. But if every two months it's a new thing and a new thing, a new, it needs to be consistent. You need to say it over and over and over again.
So the vision needs to be communicated clearly, it needs to be communicated in a way that's compelling, and it needs to be consistent. It needs to be over and over and over again. - That's really good.
Hey, just a couple here. You know, this is amazing gold for planters when it comes to casting vision. What are some pitfalls they need to avoid, though, that maybe are common to church planters that you know of?
- Yeah, I think sometimes church planters are so visionary that they're always looking forward and never taking time to celebrate what's happened. And so, I think a key mistake often that visionaries make is they don't celebrate the vision. - Wow.
- You hear from the Lord, you cast this clear, compelling vision, and then when God begins to do things in and through you, they need to be celebrated. - Yes. - And so, celebrating the vision is a key component of this, and I like to think about celebrating the vision in a few ways.
I think you need to do it, number one, personally. Like you, as the leader, when you're having lunch with people, when you're visiting people, when you're meeting people, take moments personally to tell stories. You're gonna be as close to the stories as just about anybody in the fellowship.
So take some time to celebrate the vision personally, but also you need to celebrate it in community. In your small group and among your leadership, you need to celebrate. What gets celebrated gets done.
People lean into what's being celebrated. So you need to celebrate it in community, and then you need to celebrate it corporally in the large group setting. Take some of your prayer times and allow those prayer times to be praise moments where you're rejoicing in what God's done in the accomplishment of the vision.
So I think celebrating the vision is one of the key mistakes that planters often make. - Yeah. - I think another thing that planters do in mistakes that they make is they don't revisit the vision.
You gotta come back to it. Obviously, we're compelling and in a consistent way communicating it, but we always need to sit before the Lord and allow him, 'cause there was times when Paul said, "Man, I'm going here," but then the Lord directed him somewhere else, or he said, "Man, the Spirit didn't permit me"- - Yeah. - "To go here.
" So we have to maintain a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, hold the vision loosely, submit it to the Lord, ask the hard questions. Is the hand of the Lord evident in what's going on? Is there kingdom fruit being born in what we're doing?
Go back and revisit that. Make difficult decisions. I think that's another mistake that planters make.
They won't make the hard decisions, people decisions, resource decisions, time decisions. If God clearly communicates the direction, it may mean you gotta give up something else to lean more time into that. So those are some of those mistakes I think that we make as planters.
- Man, Vance, this is really visionary gold for our planters, praying that they will plant churches, that they've really heard vision from God, and they're executing for his glory.
