June 27, 2006

Hello. Welcome back to our church growth, mission, and evangelism blog. We're glad you joined us. Please take time to visit our sponsor www.thegreatcommissionchurch.org . They have served 25,000 pages since the beginning of the year. We give God the glory. We continue with our discussion of when God builds a church.

Without faith it is impossible to please God. Anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. God always blesses those who trust him enough to follow his guidance even when it appears risky.

 

You need to pray. James said it simply: You do not have, because you do not ask God! Dwight Moody said that the world is yet to see what God can do through a few people who are totally sold out to Him. Ask God to grant your leaders a vision for what can be done through a few faithful people, and the courage to accomplish it.

 

Attend conferences that lift your vision. Visit churches where people walk by faith. Seeing what other churches are doing can help you believe that it can be done. Have regular brainstorming sessions. Such sessions create energy and get the creative juices flowing in the minds of the visionaries around you.

 

Create a mission statement. Just having a vision isn’t enough though. You need a bias toward action.  For an organization to perform with excellence there must be a preference for doing something-anything-rather than sending a question through cycles and cycles of analysis and committee reports. So many people are afraid to act. When the opportunity presents itself, there comes a time for decision and action.

 

Visionaries versus administrators. The administrator is practical, organized, and thorough. The visionary is idealistic, upbeat, positive, with a strong faith in God. The visionary and the administrator get on each other’s nerves. The visionary makes the administrator nervous because he’s seldom concerned with the cost. But there are always a lot of loose ends and the administrator knows who always has to clean up the mess.

 

Likewise, the administrator exasperates the visionary. He’s always concerned about money. In the eyes of the visionary, the administrator appears to lack faith, is always negative, and is holding the church back. Without the administrator, the church wouldn’t say NO to anything. Although it may be unwise to let the visionary run the church by himself, the strong tendency in most churches is to let the administrator have the most influence.

 

He strives to maintain the status quo. The visionary can eventually become smothered and discouraged. Even the natural visionary has to work at maintaining enthusiasm because its human nature to become discouraged. Visionaries can easily become discouraged and fade into the shadows as the administrator confidently leads the church into mediocrity.

 

If your church is going to step out in faith, you must have visionaries among your leaders, and the visionaries must be encouraged to keep dreaming. Death comes when memories of the past supersede the vision for the future. Walking by faith generates enthusiasm. Let’s try something so big that if God isn’t in it, we will fail.

 

Walking by faith stimulates prayer. Mountainous goals will motivate you to pray for an outpouring of God’s grace. A bold faith produces big challenges; big challenges stimulate prayer; and prayer results in miracles. Walking by faith motivates sacrifice. Walking by faith produces harmony. A church arguing over its traditions has forgotten its vision to advance Christ’s kingdom.

Be sure to join us tomorrow when I publish our podcast: church growth, mission, and evangelism on the go for your education. I have a rehearsal tonight so it will most likely be morning before I get it uploaded. Until then, thanks for visiting our blog, and God bless.

Pastor Bob Emery