{"id":975,"date":"2007-08-24T23:58:04","date_gmt":"2007-08-24T23:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/august-those-vision-statements\/"},"modified":"2014-01-25T20:22:21","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T20:22:21","slug":"august-those-vision-statements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/august-those-vision-statements\/","title":{"rendered":"Those Vision Statements"},"content":{"rendered":"

Using the word \u201cvision\u201d these days is like Mother Hubbard\u2019s dress, it covered everything and touched nothing.\u00a0 But once a certain tool becomes popular, everyone has to have one.\u00a0 In fact, these days if you don\u2019t have a vision statement for what you are doing, you are surely a failure, a follower, or at best a poor leader\u2014and we will avoid those labels at all cost.\u00a0 Once the highly \u201csuccessful\u201d person attributes his \u201csuccess\u201d to his obtaining of a \u201cvision\u201d (especially a divine vision), all who desire \u201csuccess\u201d will quickly follow the pattern, hoping for similar results.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Mother Goose, Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to get her poor dog a bone, but when she got there the cupboard was bare and so the poor dog had none.\u00a0 We, too, read the vision statements that are supposed to have come from God and walk away unconvinced that it is scriptural and from God at all.\u00a0 They may range from cookie cutter style to wildly imaginative, some claiming absolute divine intervention and others being merely good advice.\u00a0 If you lack imagination, you may easily borrow from hundreds online.<\/p>\n

As with many contemporary subjects, we may read what we want to read into vision statements.\u00a0 Some writers use the word as a synonym for a good idea or even a burden to get something done.\u00a0 Others include \u201cdivine\u201d or \u201cGod-given.\u201d\u00a0 For example, A.B. Bruce, an older writer, in his commentary on Hebrews uses the word as merely insight, \u201cFor this sad state of matters there is but one radical cure: clear vision of the ideal, vivid realization of the grace wherein believers in Jesus stand, insight into the incomparable value of the Christian faith.\u201d1<\/sup> But Andy Stanley, in his contemporary and wildly popular book, Visioneering, repeatedly uses phrases such as, \u201ca divine vision,\u201d \u201ca divinely-ordained vision,\u201d \u201cGod\u2019s intervention,\u201d \u201ca God-given vision,\u201d leaving the reader wondering just what he means by \u201cvision.\u201d2<\/sup><\/p>\n

There is an obvious difference in how contemporary writers describe God\u2019s part in the individual\u2019s vision and how many other writers describe it.\u00a0 George Barna says, \u201cWhen God raises up leaders, He has a specific vision for the people those leaders have been called to mobilize. . . This entails developing a vision statement, which is a brief, punchy declaration of the unique purpose for which God has allowed that specific ministry to exist. . . . Vision, in short, becomes the centerpiece of the ministry\u2014and of the leader\u2019s life.\u201d3<\/sup> On the other hand, John MacArthur writes, \u201cThey are undermining the Bible when they do not regard it as the single authority.\u00a0 Those who believe God speaks regularly with special messages for individual Christians trivialize His Word.\u201d4<\/sup><\/p>\n

I know many will say that writers like Stanley and Barna do not mean that God actually speaks to them, and others will say that writers like MacArthur are only talking about Charismatics.\u00a0 But this is the problem.\u00a0 Those of us who read English can read what Stanley writes, and unless he intends for us all to be imprecise postmoderns, we have to take him for what he says.\u00a0 On page 56 of his book he is describing the virgin Mary\u2019s vision from Gabriel.\u00a0 On the next page he says, \u201cThink back for a minute.\u00a0 Can you remember one Old or New Testament story in which the responsibility of figuring out how a divine vision would be fulfilled fell to the men or women to whom God gave the vision?\u201d\u00a0 He then uses Moses, David and Jesus as examples.\u00a0 On the same page he writes, \u201cIf we were talking about good ideas, that would be different.\u00a0 Good ideas are limited to our potential, connections, and resources.\u00a0 If you are simply pursuing a good idea, then you need to devote a great deal of time and energy trying to figure out how to pull it off.\u00a0 A divine vision, on the other hand, is limited only by God\u2019s potential and resources. . . When God gives you a vision, there\u2019s a sense in which you stand back and watch it happen.\u201d5<\/sup> Now, how is the reader of English supposed to take Stanley\u2019s use of \u201cvision\u201d when he compares the believer\u2019s \u201cvision\u201d to Mary, Moses, David and Jesus?\u00a0 And yet in other places he calls loving one\u2019s wife, raising one\u2019s kids, and witnessing to one\u2019s neighbor as \u201cdivinely inspired visions.\u201d6<\/sup> Such comparison of apples and oranges in dealing with a single subject is amazing.<\/p>\n

In his fine book Escape from Church, Inc., E. Glenn Wagner takes issue with the current trend toward personal vision by leaders.\u00a0 The problem, as he sees it, is that there is an unbiblical emphasis in the ministry on leadership rather than on shepherding.\u00a0 This has caused men who should be humble shepherds to strive to be successful visionaries.\u00a0 He writes, \u201cA leader\u2019s effectiveness is built on vision, not trust or character.\u00a0 Shepherding is just the opposite.\u00a0 Shepherding is built on character, with vision growing out of earned trust.\u00a0 That means the number one goal for a pastor is not to articulate a great vision but to help his sheep trust him and know him.\u201d7<\/sup><\/p>\n

Terry Conley (MCR, CCIM, and husband of our contributor, Debra Conley) has successfully navigated the business world for many years as a believer.\u00a0 He replies in an email, \u201cA lot of the current thinking about vision is being driven by a book that was published a few years ago, Good to Great, by Jim Collins.\u00a0 One of the main themes is that you need to get the right people \u2018on the bus\u2019 and in the right seats before your vision for the future can take hold.\u00a0 In the book he mentions various ways to get people either on the bus or off and if on, into the correct seats to support your vision.\u00a0 I have even heard his term BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) used in sermons when talking about the future of the church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately many pastors are using their \u201cvision\u201d as a way to get the church to adopt what they wanted to do in the first place.\u00a0 After all, if this vision is from God, who are the laymen to oppose it?\u00a0 If pressed for proof that this vision is from God he can disclaim any real divine activity, but when in need of extra clout he can press the divine element as authoritative.\u00a0 The vote of the congregation becomes simply an affirmation of the pastor\u2019s closeness to God.<\/p>\n

The problem as I see it is an elastic use of the word \u201cvision.\u201d\u00a0 Especially in Andy Stanley\u2019s Visioneering, the author jumps back and forth between prophets and apostles receiving direct communication from God and average believers seeking God\u2019s will.\u00a0 No distinction is made between the two.\u00a0 Though he is careful not to use charismatic-type lingo, there is still a definite proposition that God will give you your own vision.\u00a0 As I have already shown, no safeguards are placed on just how God does this sort of thing.\u00a0 Here are a few notes that I have written down.<\/p>\n

First, if people really receive information from God which becomes the basis for their life, then God is still in the business of giving revelation and we have nothing to say to the Charismatics or the cults.\u00a0 Second, the vision can become the basis for the Bible rather than the other way around.\u00a0 For example, one website has it, \u201cWe envision all of our people constantly growing in their knowledge of the Bible.\u201d\u00a0 Think about that.\u00a0 The vision tells them to study God\u2019s Word.\u00a0 Third, if, as Stanley says on one hand, every thing you determine to do in life is God\u2019s vision for you (loving your wife, raising your kids) then everything in life is a vision.\u00a0 But then, of course, nothing could be a vision.\u00a0 Fourth, Stanley uses Mother Teresa as a great example of having a vision from God.\u00a0 Evidently then, theology (specifically salvation) doesn\u2019t matter in God\u2019s selection of vision recipients.\u00a0 Fifth, it would be better to call most of these things God\u2019s will, or God\u2019s calling, or God\u2019s leading rather than to force these into divine communication language.<\/p>\n

This would be a good place to include some Biblical data about the word \u201cvision.\u201d\u00a0 There are basically four Hebrew words that are translated with our English word \u201cvision\u201d and only one Greek word.\u00a0 All of these words have meanings such as appearance, sight, dream, revelation, seeing i.e. vision.\u00a0 These occurrences\u00a0 ALWAYS speak of miraculous interventions.\u00a0 The great majority of them are in the prophetic passages of the Bible.\u00a0 22 are in Daniel alone and 13 in Ezekiel, both highly visionary books.\u00a0 Its only use in the Gospels is from the transfiguration when the disciples are instructed not to relate what they saw until after the resurrection.\u00a0 12 of the 17 New Testament usages are in the book of Acts and, again, all relate miraculous communication from God.\u00a0 In other words, if we would be completely Biblical in our vocabulary, we would only use the word \u201cvision\u201d to speak of times when God communicated His Word directly to revelatory writers and speakers.\u00a0 Such limited usage would eliminate confusing definitions and manipulation.\u00a0 However, seeing that this will not be the case, I would only encourage believers to use the word \u201cvision\u201d in the plain sense of burden or desire.<\/p>\n

A final illustration will serve as a reminder of these thoughts.\u00a0 In the late 1700s William Carey and his fellow Baptist Pastor Andrew Fuller were burdened by God to do more for world-wide missions.\u00a0 Through their efforts modern missions was born.\u00a0 Carey became the missionary and Fuller was the president of the mission board, apologist, and theologian.\u00a0 In fact, Spurgeon called Fuller the greatest theologian of his day.<\/p>\n

If ever men could have used the word \u201cvision\u201d to express what God had laid on their hearts, it would have been Carey and Fuller.\u00a0 Rather, in Fuller\u2019s voluminous writings he argues for just the opposite.\u00a0 Among his many writings are personal letters, diaries and theological correspondences with various people of his time.\u00a0 In one correspondence addressed to a prominent member of his own church he wrote<\/p>\n

After a while, I began to suspect, whether this way of taking comfort, or of casting it away, or of judging of future events, and regulating my conduct accordingly, were either of them just or solid.\u00a0 And in a little time I perceived that I had no reason given me in Scripture to expect the knowledge of my own state, or of the state of others, or of any future events, by such means.\u00a0 I knew that the prophets and apostles had extraordinary revelations made to them, being divinely inspired to write the Holy Scriptures; but, vision and prophecy being now sealed up (Daniel 9:24) and woe being denounced upon the man that should add or diminish (Revelation 22:10), I concluded that we ought not to look for any new revelation of the mind of God, but to rest satisfied with what has been revealed already in his Word.<\/p>\n

Indeed, I did not formerly suspect that I had been carried away by a supposed new revelation; but, seeing my impressions came in the words of Scripture, thought it was only the old revelation applied afresh by the Spirit of God.\u00a0 But, upon examination, I found myself mistaken; for, though the words of Scripture were the means of the impression, yet the meaning of those words, as they stood in the Bible, was lost in the application.8<\/sup><\/p>\n

In the end, Mother Hubbard became subject to the dog she was trying to help.\u00a0 The last line of the long poem reads:<\/p>\n

The dame made a curtsy,<\/p>\n

The dog made a bow;<\/p>\n

The dame said, \u201cYour servant,\u201d<\/p>\n

The dog said, \u201cBow-wow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Notes:<\/address>\n
1. A.B. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Minneapolis, Klock & Klock, 1980) 405.<\/address>\n
2. Andy Stanley, Visioneering (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 1999) 12,63,71,75 respectively.<\/address>\n
3. George Barna, The Second Coming of the Church (Nashville:\u00a0 Word Publishing, 1998) 164.<\/address>\n
4. John MacArthur, The Master\u2019s Plan for the Church (Chicago:\u00a0 Moody, 1991) 26.<\/address>\n
5. Stanley, 56-57.\u00a0 6. Stanley, 26.<\/address>\n
7. E. Glenn Wagner, Escape From Church, Inc.\u00a0 (Grand Rapids:\u00a0 Zondervan, 1999) 148.<\/address>\n
8. Michael A.G. Haykin, ed. The Armies of the Lamb (Dundas, Ontario:\u00a0 Joshua Press, 2001) 117-118.<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Using the word \u201cvision\u201d these days is like Mother Hubbard\u2019s dress, it covered everything and touched nothing.\u00a0 But once a certain tool becomes popular, everyone has to have one.\u00a0 In fact, these days if you don\u2019t have a vision statement for what you are doing, you are surely a failure, a follower, or at best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[170,136,154],"class_list":["post-975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-methodology","tag-progressivism-conservatism","tag-vision"],"yoast_head":"\nThose Vision Statements - Aletheia Baptist Ministries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/august-those-vision-statements\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Those Vision Statements - 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