[Insert Image]
The following post is an excerpt from God Dreams: 12 Vision Templates or Finding and Focusing your Church’s Future.
In part three of the book I walk through the 12 templates starting with a simple definition and providing a personal snapshot from my point of view as a vision consultant. Then, I explore the template biblically, providing historical and contemporary church examples and metaphors for communication. For the complete guide with team assessment questions, I recommend that you buy the book. You can also see all of 12 templates in one visual overview or visit the God Dreams resource site.
Quick Definition
Your church’s vision is to do all you can to leverage and amplify the impact of a particular leader, often someone who is a stellar teacher. You might state it as, “We will promote the special gifting and anointing of a person whom God chose to make a unique contribution to our society or world.”
Personal Snapshot
Like many I was a bit skeptical when First Baptist Dallas announced what would become a $135 million building project to recreate the presence of the church in downtown. What else could you do with that money? many wondered. But when I learned more about their history, context, and culture, my perspective changed to imagine God’s smile on the massive project.
First, it’s important to consider the legacy of First Dallas. Pastors like George Truett and W. A. Criswell were nationally known and politically active over a century. In 2006 the church’s pastoral search committee carefully considered more than 150 candidates to stem the tide of attendance decline and restore First Dallas’s national platform. Robert Jeffress was selected in 2007 to be the next pastor. The church’s vision is to be a national voice for biblical truth, guided by the mission to transform our world with the power of God’s Word, one life at a time.
Behind that vision is an anointing amplification template. Truett and Criswell were anointed leaders, not just preachers but champions for biblical truth. Robert Jeffress is a relatively short person, but when he steps into the pulpit, he is a gladiator. The world-class investment into a facility and extensive search for the right leader reflect a 150-year-old strength to amplify God’s Word and the practical forcefulness of it.
How many pastors give dozens of interviews on Fox News each year for political and cultural commentary? How many pastors have been aired on HBO’s brashly liberal Real Time with Bill Maher? Robert Jeffress has and continues to baffle his would-be detractors with an endearing kindness as he boldly proclaims the power and practicality of God’s Word. He leads with humble genius and represents God’s Word with simple clarity, unwavering confidence, and honest kindness. And that’s what makes Jeffress so meaningful to the people of First Dallas.
The credibility of the congregationally owned vision was validated through a congregational survey Auxano conducted just before the opening of their facility. It revealed that over 90 percent of the congregation is motivated to have a public voice for God’s Word with the primary result of cultivating everyday boldness for representing Jesus and sharing the Bible with others.
Biblical Reflections
Throughout the Bible, God raises up people for a certain time, anointing them in the sense of choosing them, from judges to kings, from artists to prophets. Each was raised up with the sense, as Esther, “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).
In the New Testament the story of choosing seven new leaders in Acts 6, often interpreted as the first deacons being named, is in part motivated by needing to free the apostles to use their gifts to reach as many people as possible. “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables,” the apostles said, so the new role was created so the apostles could devote themselves “to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:2, 4).
Similarly, Ephesians 4 speaks of exercising whatever gifts you’ve been given, so that those gifts can be amplified. For example: “If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well” (Rom. 12:7 NLT).
As church consultant Bill Easum comments: “All people are equal in the sight of God, but not all leaders are equal, not even in God’s sight. In fact, treating all leaders as if they’re equal, even for fairness’ sake, is not only unrealistic, it’s not biblical. Jesus chose twelve from the crowd to be his apostles. Then he selected Peter, James and John to be in his inner circle. Ultimately, he charged only Peter to be the keeper of the flock.”
Metaphors for Communication
The image above shows a small wave within the big wave, indicating that the smaller wave is being amplified.
Another way to depict anointing amplification might be the way people rally behind a personally impacted figure to elevate to public awareness a particular cause that may otherwise never have been recognized apart from that figure’s circumstance.
Still other images that convey this idea are a magnifying glass, a megaphone, and a ship’s wheel or rudder.
Historical Examples
At age twenty Charles Spurgeon’s anointing as a gifted preacher was so evident that he was invited to become pastor of one of London’s largest-attendance churches.
He pastored there from 1854 to 1892. In his early years the crowds grew so large the twelve-hundred-seat facility filled quickly. The church relocated to a larger setting, and during Spurgeon’s heyday its five thousand seats were filled many times a week, with the remainder of the crowd standing in the yard outside, listening from as far away as Spurgeon’s voice could be heard.
Contemporary Examples
It’s easy to think of dozens of nationally known preachers and teachers whose churches or ministries amplify their gifts with radio, television, and/or the Internet.
But what makes this vision template useful for a church is when the congregation’s vision is wed to the platform. To validate the connection, usually look for some continuity between the gifting of the individual leader and the culture of the church. In other words, if you lose the leader, some special ability the leader possessed is resident in the body.
For example, when I worked with Max Lucado at Oak Hills, while he was the senior minister, a storytelling identity was built into the fabric of discipleship, distinct from but related to Max’s special gift of storytelling and writing. Or when Chuck Swindoll planted Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, a congregation was formed around his gift for expository preaching and his emphasis on a lifestyle marked with joy. They articulated their mission around the idea of a joy-filled relationship with
Christ, and they plan services around a preaching time that enables for two, twenty-two-minute radio messages. When I visited both churches, Oak Hills in San Antonio and Stonebriar in Frisco, tour buses of people from other churches were visiting these well-known communicators.
Another example is Bellevue Baptist Church in greater Memphis, Tennessee.
Bellevue has had only a handful of senior pastors since its founding in 1903. Most recently Adrian Rogers was pastor from 1972 to 2005, followed by Steve Gaines through the present. The church has a long heritage of world-renowned Bible teachers, whose teaching ministry has overflowed from the church across the globe. From the church’s television, radio, and Internet broadcasts to its large seating-capacity auditoriums—a three-thousand-seater built in 1952, a seven-thousand-seater built in 1989—everything you see in that culture was meant to magnify gifts and anointing of their teaching ministry.
Realizing Your Own Vision
Are you ready to move away from the nine forms of generic vision to develop a vivid description of your own? God Dreams was written to accelerate team dialogue and decision making with the 12 templates. It then provides “how to” steps to select and relate your church’s top two templates. From there I walk you through how to develop a powerful and compelling vivid description. And finally, I reveal the visionary planning tool called the Horizon Storyline, to create practical short-range action steps in order to fulfill your long-range God dream.
>>>>Buy God Dreams >>>>
>>>> Visit the God Dreams Site >>>>
