Our session (our 6 elders) is going on a retreat this weekend. And I have to say, I'm a bit excited. We'll be taking some time to look at where we've been heading as a church, and hopefully be able to evaluate it.
I think continually reexamining and evaluating your vision (or whether you are actually implementing and applying that vision) in any area of life, be it your spiritual walk, leadership, marriage, business is always a good thing. I'm not saying that I do it often, but I'm learning to.
Why? Well let me sum it up with a short story about a Tuna. I once asked a Hawaiian commercial fisherman how he could catch huge tuna on hand-lines. He told me it was simple. Once you turn the fish's head, you've won the battle. The fish will swim in whatever direction his head is facing (this is not meant to be sexist-female fish do the same thing). It's not hard to bring in a several hundred pound fish when he is swimming right toward you.
Like big tuna, we will head in whatever direction our eyes are fixed upon. Everything from pizza, to sex, to approval, to success vies for our attention. So it is wise to continually evaluate whether your head (vision) really is pointed in the correct, or desired/planned, direction.
Same principle put forth by the writer of Hebrews: "Fixing our eyes upon Jesus"(Heb 12:2 NAS). So ideally, we would like to head in that direction. The neat thing is that as different churches fix their collective eyes upon Jesus, they can still look very different from one another.
Their vision may have them reaching and shepherding different people with different methods.
I think that's pretty cool. There may be different visions as long as its the same Jesus, and the same Kingdom (not your own) going forward.
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