And Make It Plain on Tablets

Vision is a proactive, preferred picture of the future. Simultaneously, a vision is not just a picture of what can be; it is an appeal to better ourselves and a call to become something more. Last week we celebrated our fifth birthday as a congregation. I talked about vision for the future of The Water’s Edge.

Then the LORD answered me and said:

Write the vision
And make it plain on tablets,
That he may run who reads it. –Habakkuk 2:2

A biblical vision for a church always includes people outside the church. Jesus told his disciples to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoner, and welcome the stranger. He challenged people to care for the widows and orphans. He spent a lot more time outside the Temple than he spent inside the Temple. His last words to the disciples were to go and make disciples. 

Jesus had other practices and beliefs. He believed in community. Not the polite kind where people are nice to each other. But the kind where people bear each other’s burdens, care for one another, dare each other to grow, and share life together. Jesus believed in recovery and wholeness. He believed in the power of prayer. He was a servant. He said children were as important as anything and everything else. And he wasn’t interested in fans: he never asked people to be enthusiastic admirers. He was only interested in people following him. 

Where there is no vision, the people perish. –Proverbs 29:18

As we become a new church independent from Faith-Westwood on January 1, 2012 – it is the appropriate and perfect time to discern and develop God’s vision for our future. 

I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. 

Your sons and daughters will prophesy. 

Your old men will dream dreams, 

and your young men will see visions. –Joel 2:28 

A team of people will pray, listen to God, study the teachings of Jesus, listen to our congregation, evaluate our strengths and areas for growth, listen to each other, dream, and create a vision for The Water’s Edge. I can’t imagine the vision won’t include things like small groups, recovery ministries, prayer, students and children, helping people’s dreams come true, serving hurting people all over the world, sharing our faith with people not in the church, a community-center-type building that will allow The Water’s Edge to love our community into a relationship with Jesus Christ, and a collection of eclectic people who are not fans of Jesus—but fully committed followers of Jesus. 

The best is yet to come… 

Craig