20 Years Deep – Vision
Sycamore Creek Church
October 24, 2010
Tom Arthur
Proverbs 29:18
Peace, Friends!
Close your eyes. OK. Worship is over, but keep your eyes closed. Now drive home. Umm…Yeah, that’s right. Crazy. Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (KJV). If you tried to drive home without vision, you would most certainly perish. I don’t recommend it.
I love the movie Master and Commander. It’s the story of a British frigate, Surprise, sent to take out a French privateer, Acheron, in the early 1800s during the Napoleonic wars. When the movie opens the midshipman thinks he sees the French vessel in the fog but is uncertain. The crew is called to beat to quarters so as to be prepared. As the captain of Surprise, played by Russell Crowe, takes to the bow, he looks through his eye glass and strains to see the enemy ship. It is a matter of life or death. All of a sudden he sees flashes in the fog and knows that cannons have just been shot. He orders everyone to drop to the deck as shrapnel flies across the vessel wreaking havoc on the ship. Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Today we continue in our six-week series capital campaign called 20 Years Deep. We’re seeking to raise $500,000 over three years to put us in a good place to own our own building in several years. Why call this campaign “20 Years Deep”? Because on November 7th Sycamore Creek Church turns ten years old. We will be ten-years “deep.” So during this campaign we’ll celebrate those ten years, and we will also look forward to the next ten years. In ten more years we’ll be twenty-years “deep.” Jesus told Peter to put out into the deep water to catch the fish (Luke 5:4), and Jesus is always calling us to go deeper in faith, deeper in maturity, and deeper in love.
During 20 Years Deep we’ll be looking at what kind of a community we are. Last week we took a look at our mission statement: to ignite authentic life in Christ by igniting connection (to God and others), igniting growth (in the character of Christ), and igniting service (to our church, community, and world). That’s SCC’s mission. That’s why we exist.
Today we look at SCC’s vision for the next ten years. In one sense you could say that what SCC envisions for the next ten years is continuing to ignite authentic life in Christ in every individual who joins this journey with us. That’s a vision for life change by God’s Spirit working in us and through us. But also SCC has a very particular vision that 20 Years Deep is trying to bring to about: to own a building that will help be a means to the end of igniting authentic life in Christ.
Now “vision” is a corporate buzzword. Vision is important to the Bible too. As I said before, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 28:19, KJV), but it is important to distinguish between the different meanings of “vision” in the business world and what the Bible means when it says “vision.” So let’s take a closer look. But let’s start at the end.
When the proverb we’re looking at this morning says that without vision the people perish, what does it mean to perish? What is at stake here? If we look at various other translations we can get a better sense of what’s at stake. “Perish” also can be translated “cast of restraint” (NRSV), “run wild” (NLT), or “stumble all over themselves” (The Message). I get the image of a kind of dystopia here. It’s like an apocalyptic movie scene. To perish means that you’re not living into God’s will. You’re doing what is right in your own eyes. You’re not doing the right or loving thing. Being out of God’s will and “running wild” is what’s at stake. So what then is vision?
The Hebrew word translated “vision” is “hazone.” If you took the time to look up all these verses—Psalm 89:19, 1 Samuel 3:1, Lamentations 2:9, Isaiah 1:1, Jeremiah 23:16, Daniel 1:17, Hosea 12:10, Habakkuk 2:2, Habakkuk 2:3—you would learn a lot about hazone, or vision. Hazone is prophetic in nature. By “prophetic” I don’t necessarily mean that it has to do with predicting the future. The Old Testament prophet wasn’t so much about predicting the future as he was about reminding the people when they were and were not living into God’s way of life. Hazone was especially spoken to the power structures of the day. The prophet spoke for those who were weak, broken, and oppressed by the powerful, rich, and rulers.
I have been looking for a good vision poster to put in my office. You know those motivational posters that are often hung up in business offices. I bought this one last week, because I love what it says explicitly and implicitly about vision.
“You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor.” Umm…yeah. This “demotivational” poster is a great act of biblical vision. It reminds us of the oppressive structure of slavery it took to achieve the pyramids. This is biblical vision at its best! Next time you’re in my office check out this poster.
Vision is prophetic, but that’s not all. Biblical vision is also sometimes uncommon. It can disappear. We can get our own vision mixed up with God’s vision. Vision can be a special gift given to some people. Vision can be both clear and unclear. Sometimes vision takes time. We see this especially in Habakkuk: “But these things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed” (2:3, NLT). I especially like this verse because the vision we have for owning a building here at SCC is just like this. It will take time. We’re not rushing out to buy a building right now. We’re saving for one. So this is what vision is, but how do we get vision?
I think we get vision in three ways. First, we get vision from the past. SCC has had a very specific vision over the past ten years that the founding pastor, Barb Flory, instilled in the culture and DNA of this community. I would summarize that vision in this way: to bring culturally relevant messages and music to build a different kind of church that focuses on reaching those who aren’t in church. It’s a great vision for starting a church, and it is one that will grow and change with us in time. I love the part about focusing on those who aren’t in church. Sometimes I’m not sure about the “different kind of church” idea. It’s not so much that I want to be the same as every other church, but rather I’d prefer to find our identity so much in distinction from other Christians but in distinction from the world. I’d love to hear a bit of a shift in the way we talk about SCC. Instead of talking about how it’s different than other churches we’ve attended, I’d love someone to come to SCC and say, “You know what, this church is different than the people I work with, or go to school with, or live near.” Someone said that to me the other day. It was the first time I’ve heard it here at our church. She said, “You know the people in our church are so different than the people I work with.” I want to be the kind of church that is different from the world. That we are known because of our love for people rather than our ambitions for getting ahead. I think our past vision can easily be tweaked in this direction.
A second place that we get vision from is from individuals. Like I mentioned above, vision is often a gift given to some. Some of us are more finely tuned to hear God’s voice. It is something that all of us can learn, but for some of us it is very natural to listen and hear God speaking. Paul talks about this in his letter to the Corinthians. He says, “Here is a list of some of the members that God has placed in the body of Christ: first are apostles, second are prophets…” (1 Corinthians 12:27-28, NLT). I think that in many ways this is a role the pastor plays as an individual, but it need not necessarily be the pastor. It is something I have been learning myself over this first year and a half as your pastor. Thankfully I’m not learning alone, and that’s the third way we get vision.
Third, we get vision together. We hear God’s voice through the voices of one another. We hear God’s voice through our common shared wisdom. In the book of Acts, we read about the beginning years of the early church. When the early church hit a rough spot they called a counsel to seek God’s will together on how to move forward. After spending time together in discernment through prayer, scripture reading, and conversation, the early church writes a letter summarizing what they think about the situation. They say, “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…” (Acts 15:28, NLT). I like the sense of agreement between God and us that is present in this moment. They do it together. We get vision when we seek God together.
Actually I think that biblical vision comes not in just one of these ways but in all these ways put together. We seek vision from our past while at the same time we have individuals who have special gifts of listening to our past and our present conversation and hearing God’s leading amidst all three. I think biblical vision comes best from a synthesis of all three, and I think that’s the kind of process of discernment we’ve gone through over the last year seeking God’s vision for the next ten years of SCC.
Together we gathered in many ways. Many of you joined me for 40 Days of Prayer. We spent time one-on-one talking and praying. I had over 150 people to my house for desserts in the first six months of being your pastor. We hired an excellent consultant, John Savage, to spend a day with us helping us articulate the issues that were before us. Then there are the countless meetings and individual times of conversation I had with so many of you and continue to have. These are the “together” part of seeking God’s vision.
I myself have sought God’s vision as your pastor over the past year and a half. I’ve done this primarily through silent listening prayer. I have been in a different kind of season for prayer lately. I used to have a big long list of things I prayed through every morning. I don’t think this is bad, but I began to feel like it was too much. Then I read an interview with Mother Teresa. The reporter asked her what she says to God when she prays. She said, “I don’t say anything. I just listen.” The reporter asked, “What does God say.” Mother Teresa responded, “He doesn’t say anything. He just listens back. And if you don’t understand that, then I can’t explain it.” So lately I’ve been following Mother Teresa’s lead and just sitting and listening to God. God mostly listens back, but one morning a thought ran through my head that was strong and clear. It said, “Double the navigating membership.” Then it was gone. I hadn’t been thinking about membership at our church at all. I was just sitting listening. But was this just some random thought running through my head? Was it my own vision rather than God’s? I decided to test it out by running it by several other people and leaders. Each time I shared that vision with someone, I got a big smile and a nod of agreement. My own personal discernment was being confirmed by others, and so I am led to believe that it was God speaking to me while I was listening. Not every part of our ten-year vision has come in this way. In fact, this part about membership is the only one that has come in this way.
I have also sought God’s vision by listening to the broader Christian community. What are other churches experiencing in Lansing, Michigan, our country, and world? While sitting at a conference one day, all these individual and group conversations we have been having as a church came rushing into my head into a pretty clear five-point vision. I stopped paying attention to the conference speaker and began writing the five points down. When I got home I began sharing this experience with others. Again, I was testing whether this was my own vision or was this God’s vision. Pretty soon it was clear that the leadership felt this is where God was leading us. They saw within this vision a reflection of many months of conversation in our church community.
The five points that rushed into my head that day are:
Values
Mission
Growth
Ownership
Plant.
First, we want to strengthen the execution of our current core values. We’re going to spend two weeks in this series looking at those core values. Second, we want to strengthen our mission and outreach to the community by connecting our small groups and missions work. This is going to be a series and small groups initiative that will take place in January and February of 2011. Third, we want to grow by doubling our navigating members. In order to do that we’ll need to grow our participating members, regular attendees, and visitors too, but we’re focused especially on growing spiritual maturity which is the mark of the commitments made in navigating membership. Because tithing is an obstacle for many to navigating membership, we’re going to help you get there by emphasizing Financial Peace University principles of debt eradication, and we’re going to hold an annual Commitment Sunday so that you can make a commitment to give generously to the ministry of the church. Fourth, we’re seeking to own our own building by running this capital campaign. More on this in a moment. Lastly, we want to plant a church or another campus sometime in the next many years.
Let’s get back to ownership. Ownership of a building is a means to several ends and not an end in and of itself. It is a means to deepen our mission of igniting authentic life in Christ in four ways. First, by owning a building we can redirect all the inward energy we spend setting up and tearing down each week to outward energy of serving our community. Take for example our current needs in Kids Creek. We still looking for people who are willing to help set up and tear down each week. Can you help with this? When we have a building this will likely be less of an issue. Then we can turn all that energy toward teaching and mentoring our children, which we are still in need of several teachers and assistants too. Are you someone who can help with meeting one of these needs in Kids Creek? Second, by owning a building we can remove obstacles for guests coming to worship with us. Many in our community seem to be hesitant to visit a church that doesn’t have a building. Third, owning our own building is better stewardship than the continual “debt” of paying the rent. And fourth, owning our own building will put us in a good place for long-term growth so that we can plant a new church or campus.
So how do we do this? How is it that we’re going to raise $500,000 over three years? We’ve put together a gift-range chart that gives us the nitty gritty of how much each of us has to give to get us to that goal. The good news is that we’ve already got over 50% pledged toward our goal. The $500,000 will be used in five different ways and the first four of those are already covered. The last one is owning a building. Take a look at the gift range chart.
If you look on the right-hand column you’ll see that we’re about half way down in cumulative gifts. That means that we still need several $10,000 gifts. We also need even more $5,000, $2,500, and $1,250 gifts to reach our goal. While we’ve come a long way, we’ve still got a good journey ahead of us.
I’d like to share with you where Sarah and I are at in this chart. We’ve pledged to give $15,000 over the next three years to this campaign above the tithe that we already give to the church. I don’t share that to put us on a pedestal. I share it because I think it’s important to lead by leading, and I also share it because I think personal finance is the last taboo topic in our culture, and that’s not a biblical value. So what does this pledge mean to us in practical terms?
Practically speaking, Sarah and I will be aiming at giving $5000 every year over the next three years. Many who have turned in their pledge ahead of time are giving a set amount each month, but because Sarah’s income from writing is sporadic, we will be giving when the money comes in. At this point we don’t know the specifics of how that will happen, but we trust that God will provide. It also means for us that we’re going to be sticking with one car for the foreseeable future. Our car currently has 193,000 miles on, and short of the engine exploding, we’re sticking with our beat-up junker so that we can give more.
We’re also putting off buying a second car which is probably the harder thing to do given that a child is on the way. Thankfully we’re not doing this alone. We only have one car right now and we’ve had to borrow cars from many of you to make things work already. I’d like you to know that we even have been given by Bob and Martha Trout a set of keys to their garage and their cars. They have an extra car, especially when their kids are away in college. They’ve told us to come over any time even when they’re not there and use their extra car. While Sarah and I are not sure how this whole one-car thing is going to work when our child is born, we have more courage to make this sacrifice because we know that we are part of a community that will help us make it work. We have courage because of you! So maybe some day you’ll get a call from me asking to borrow your car.
I’d like to make two challenges today. First, I’d like to challenge some of you to match Sarah and my pledge by giving in the $10,000 to $15,000 range. There are some of you who can do that. Not everyone. But some. Is your family someone who can meet this challenge? Second, I’d like to challenge all of you to give in the same spirit. It will take sacrifice by each of us to reach our goal of $500,000 to put us in a good place to own our own building. For you a sacrifice might simply be $100, and that would be a sacrifice. Some of you might give $1000 every year for a total of $3000, and that’s a sacrifice to you. Or some of you might give $5000 over the three years and that’s a sacrifice. I challenge those of you can match our amount to do so, and I challenge all of you to match our spirit of giving sacrificially. And then let’s be the kind of community together that will help one another live into those sacrifices in the way that all of you who have lent Sarah and me a car help us live into sacrificial giving. We can do it together with God’s help.
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