SHOULDER TO SHOULDER #108A ---- 2/7/00
Posted by: lifeunlimited <lifeunlimited@...>
As We fight The Good Fight
SHOULDER TO SHOULDER #108A ---- 2/7/00
TITLE: "Vision ---- It's Development" (Part Five-A of series)
My Dear Friend and Co-Laborer:
Isn't this absolutely the greatest adventure you could every imagine!?!
What a privilege to serve our Captain. What a joy to already know the
outcome of the battle. And ---- I'm so glad you're here with me on the
front line. How much more difficult it would be without you. Thank you
for blessing me by partnering with me as we march locked-step, and
sometimes crawl belly deep in the mud, as part of the advancing front
line. What a joy!
LETTERS:
I can't believe all the responses I'm getting on this subject, one about
which I almost decided not to write. I shared one response last letter.
Here are a couple of others:
1. "I really am enjoying this series on "The Vision" -- can't tell you
how much it is helping me with getting perspective back and helping me
with my attitude and heart. This topic would be a great book --- you
should consider doing that! You have more than enough material to do
that -- I would encourage you in that way!"
2. "Wow! Thank you for your exciting ministry. What an answer to
prayer ...May the Giver of all good things continue to breathe His fresh
breath into your life. I heard about this ministry through the NPPN and
was especially perked by
your current series on vision. Could you send me the first three e-mails
on this topic?"
Up to now, we have looked at four elements in finding God's vision for
your life and ministry:
The Definition of Vision ---- what it is and isn't.
The Description of Vision ---- what it is like.
The Demand for Vision ---- why it is necessary.
The Discovery of Vision ---- how to "see what God sees".
Today we consider a portion of the fifth segment on vision, The
Development of Vision ----factors determining the development of your
vision.
By the time I had concluded the seventh of twelve principles and already
had a letter much longer than most, I've decided to divide this into two
or more segments. This one, Part A, shares the first six principles I've
learned about when, where, and how a vision develops from conception to
fulfillment.
In order to not prolong this series any extra weeks, I will send a second
installment on Wednesday and another on Friday if necessary, so that by
the end of this week you'll have the entire study on the Development of
Vision.
WHEN THE VISION SEEMS UNFULFILLED:
Some of my greatest personal struggles in understanding the source, the
level, and the maintenance of a vision really revolved around some
erroneous assumptions and a lack of knowledge about how God works in
giving and developing a vision. These years-long struggles were brought
back to mind in a vivid and dramatic way recently through three separate
events.
#1. Several weeks ago our part of the world was invaded by a murderer.
He began in Oklahoma where he killed a young woman and stole her car. He
traveled to Springfield, MO where he stole another young woman's car, and
kidnapped both her mother and her daughter. Driving north about 25
miles, after for some unknown reason releasing the two hostages, he then
wrecked the car and escaped on foot.
Local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies swarmed into the area,
trying to capture him. He evaded the scent-sniffing bloodhounds, scores
of officers on foot, and high tech helicopters, slowly moving east and
south after having broken into a home and stealing camouflage hunting
equipment, food, and a hunting bow.
After not hearing from a brother for several days, a man and his wife
discovered the dead body of their 27 year old brother, murdered hours
earlier by the man on the loose. This latest victim was a loving husband
and father, a believer active in his church. He was known for his
kindness and servant spirit. His aunt and uncle had been one-time
members of the church where I currently serve as interim pastor. His
mother worked in the children's day care center the church once operated.
All trace of the murderer was lost, save the knowledge that the latest
victim's truck was missing. It showed up in Dyersburg, Tennessee several
days later, along with the grim discovery of another murder victim ----
the owner of a tow truck, employed to repair the vehicle stolen in
Missouri.
Because this young father lived less than ten miles from the town where I
preach each week, many thoughts crossed my mind. The more I learned of
the victim, the more questions I had. "I wonder what his dreams and
goals were that he will never see fulfilled. Did he have a real vision
for life? What do you do when life ends before the vision is realized?"
#2. Two weeks ago, on Sunday afternoon, January 23, there was a tragic
accident just north of Kansas City, Missouri on Interstate Highway 29
involving some 40 automobiles and huge transport trailer trucks. After
the fires had been extinguished, the smoke had drifted away, and the
wreckage had been untangled, some 60 people had been injured and ten were
dead.
Of the ten who died, seven were known to be committed Christians. Four
were from the same family, active in their churches. Two were students
from the university where we recruit some of our own mission teams for
eastern Europe, deeply in love with each other.
The four consisted of a Christian counselor and his wife who was a
trained psychologist, and also their son who was a well known businessman
in a major resort city and his wife who was a much loved school teacher
in an elementary school.
The two students, Sara and Jay, were outstanding young people. He was a
line backer on the university football team. His coach described him as
" . . . a great young man [who was] a person who daily lived a consistent
Christian life [with] a great outlook . . . as a football player, he was
very tenacious, had a big heart, and always gave everything he had and
then some."
Jay's friend and teammate, Matt, said, "He knew the Bible and the
verses, and he lived it. He was a servant for God and just a model
Christian."
Sara's roommate said, "'[She] was an answered prayer and was the most
sincere person that I have ever met." Another friend said, "She
genuinely listened and focused a lot on other people." The two of them
were inseparably in love and filled with the joy of living. By all
appearances, they had an incredible future ahead of them.
I had met Jay and Matt. They came in early last August to begin football
practice. They arrived Saturday, and were in Sunday school the following
morning at the church where I am interim pastor across the street from
the university campus, both looking for a church home while away at
school.
The question that has gone through my mind since that tragic accident is
"What about their vision? What happened to their vision? Will there be
someone else who will catch the vision?"
#3. Two days ago Jo Ann and I sat in a funeral service for the eldest
son of the church secretary where I am serving as interim pastor. He had
been successful in high school in the field of music and other endeavors.
He got a teaching degree in education, and went on to receive one Masters
degree and was studying for another.
Ten years ago he had moved to the South Pacific island of Maui, at the
request of the Hawaii Board of Education, and lived there where he served
as a special education teacher for deaf and hearing impaired children.
His supervisors, fellow teachers, and students knew him to be a friendly,
happy, young man filled with compassion and care, who devoted his life to
helping children learn to overcome some of life's adversities and turn
them into stepping stones.
Sometime around Christmas he contracted pneumonia which he could not
shake. He went to the hospital, and by the time his mother arrived, he
was on a respirator and so sedated that he never gave any indication of
her presence, other than an increase in pulse rate when she would enter
the room.
By the time the pneumonia had been cured, his lungs were so scarred that
he could no longer breathe alone. They failed him, and he died last
Wednesday. He was only 35 years old.
Questions came to mind again. "I wonder if he ever felt that his dream
had come true. Did he see the complete fulfillment of his vision? It's
obvious that he knew what he was to do with his life ---- did he get it
all done?"
While I will probably never find a satisfactory answer to my questions,
those experiences do raise an interesting truth ---- Misconceptions. We
have misconceptions about life and vision.
We really do have many erroneous opinions and conclusions regarding
vision, especially when it comes to having a vision (about which I've
already written) and to developing and maintaining a healthy vision.
Some of my own misconceptions were that my vision would always be fresh
and crisp in my mind, it would be complete and profound from the very
outset, I would always see it fulfilled *if* I stuck it out long enough
or manipulated it hard enough, if I ever moved the vision would either
die or it would stay with the place I was leaving, and various other
similarly unrealistic conclusions.
PRINCIPLES TO RECOGNIZE AND ACCEPT:
So ---- for what it's worth to you, here are some conclusions ---- no
Convictions ---- that I have found necessary in order for me to maintain
a clarity of focus and a perseverance of gait as I continue following the
God of my vision.
If you're an older warrior, as I'm on the way to becoming, you'll
recognize some of these as things you've also discovered, and that will
hopefully reinforce your convictions and strengthen your confidence that
you were right.
If you're younger in ministry, I hope they will help you avoid some of
the delays and setbacks that I've experienced.
#1. A vision is only born in a heart prepared to receive it, and it
begins as a seed.
There is definitely, as I wrote earlier, a difference between a dream and
a vision. And, there is a great difference between a man-generated
vision and a vision planted by the Spirit of God. We'll look at that
later.
It is so important to remember that your vision is never fully developed
when you first recognize it. And, it is often wrapped in such vague
and/or superfluous surroundings that it sometimes goes undetected or
unrecognized for years. Because of that, we need to focus on one major
thing ---- that of making sure our hearts are fertile and prepared to
both receive and nurture the vision until it reaches fruitful
development, however long that may take.
#2. Initial vision often comes years before any fulfillment is
realized.
One of my favorite passages of scripture, a passage in fact about which I
wrote in detail in Shoulders #63 on March 29, 1999, is Habakkuk 2:3 ----
"For the vision is yet for the appointed time. It hastens toward the
goal, and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will
certainly come, it will not delay."
Rather than take too much space rehearsing the experience I've had with
this truth, let me encourage you to go back and read that letter again.
If you don't have it, drop me a note and I'll send it to you. Ask for it
by number.
Having said that, I will tell you that, as I look back over some 44 years
of ministry, I frankly spent the first thirteen of them without a real
vision of what God wanted to accomplish in my life. I had a calling, but
no real vision.
Now, to be honest, that was much more comfortable. I was able to live
in the moment in a much more relaxed and non-driven way. I didn't have
to look to a future much beyond the next Christmas or Easter cantata or
annual meeting.
However, around 1969 God began to give me a vision that generated an
excitement and anticipation in my spirit. I found myself being more
driven ---- more confident ---- more sure of my role as a minister. I
was able to influence people and convince them to trust my leadership
much more than before. I became more people oriented and concerned for
them as individuals.
>From that year to the present, some 30 years later, I have stood in
amazement before a mighty and gracious God to watch Him patiently
clarify, correct, modify, and refine the vision. Oh, how I wish I had
seen the vision with such clarity and completeness back then as I do now.
Now I find myself with a greater confidence, a more refined clarity, and
a deeper wisdom about the vision and how to see it fulfilled ---- now I
just lack the physical and emotional endurance to be as busy and active
in it as I used to be.
So ---- just keep in mind: Be patient with the reception, development,
and fulfillment of your vision. God's not in nearly as big a hurry as
you probably are.
My encouragement to you is to not give up or become impatient if the
vision doesn't come quickly when you ask God for it. If it doesn't seem
totally clear, just relax. Someone once said that (though I'm most
certainly not an authority on wine) vision is much like a good wine ----
it takes years to clarify and mature.
#3. A vision is almost always flawed in some way by the weaknesses of
humanity, the carnality of the flesh, and the pressures of the world.
A great rule of thumb is to never initially take your vision at face
value. Chances are it is flawed and contaminated in some way.
If you choose, my friend, to take immediate action on the vision God
gives you, it is probable that you will make some major mistakes that
will generate substantial setbacks in your ministry. If you really want
to "see what God sees", you must be willing for Him to expose the
weaknesses of your humanity, apply the crucifixion principle to the
flesh, and lay bare all the influences and pressures of the world.
I will cover this in more detail when I discuss the Death of A Vision
later in our study. In the meantime, just assume that when you first
"see what God sees", you're still most likely looking at it through
lenses that are scratched and clouded with frailties of humanity, the
appetites of carnality, and worldly perceptions and assumptions.
#4. Vision is sometimes fulfilled in a location other than the
original.
This came as a real surprise to me. Consequently, I went through some
real struggles whenever facing a possible change in ministry location. I
particularly remember leaving my third pastorate.
When Jo Ann, the girls, and I had driven through those Iowa cornfields to
arrive at a church not much more than ten years old, I knew beyond any
doubt that God wanted that church to . . . .
+ Be known as a church with integrity and one that paid its bills
(because it wasn't,and it didn't).
+ Be known in the community as a praying church on its knees before God,
+ Become a discipleship training center, equipping believers for the
work of ministry,
+ Become a church free from dead and useless encumbrances, and
+ Become a mission minded, church planting machine.
After seven years and two episodes of "internal cleansing and healing"
(some might call them "back door revivals") ---- almost none of those
things happened to any significant degree. If those five elements of my
vision were to be five college classes, I would have granted the church
with A-, D+, C-, C-, and D- ---- hardly a scholarship-worthy GPA. Yet,
it was filled with loving and caring people.
Consequently, when it came time for me to leave that church, I was
bombarded with thoughts ---- "I've failed! What will happen if I leave?
Will my successor pick up and build on what I've been able to accomplish?
What about the vision I still have? Is it still for here? Will it ever
be realized?"
It was at that point that God showed me that the vision was intact ----
He was just going to fulfill it somewhere else.
Oh, yes ---- He also reminded me that this little church belonged to Him
and not me, and He figured He could take care of it pretty well after I
left.
#5. There are two types of vision ---- personal and situational.
By that I mean that sometimes God gives you a vision that is for you, and
the location of circumstances of your ministry are inconsequential ----
that is a personal vision which can be realized no matter where you are,
because location is not an issue. It goes with you wherever you are.
Relocating doesn't negate it, though it will usually be adapted in some
way.
This is what happened at the above mentioned church. When I packed up my
library and my family and headed north and east, the vision went with us.
Then sometimes God gives you a vision that is for a certain place and
time. If you leave, you don't take the vision with you; it remains at
the site. That has happened to me as well. When God moved me on to
other ministry, such as in the next church I pastored, the vision I had
for that next church remained there when I left.
Prior to my resignation in that church, the Holy Spirit first began to
give me hints and seeds of another personal vision, still leaving the
earlier one intact but now no longer mine personally. Even after I left
the church I knew that God still wanted to do in that church what He had
given me as a vision for my ministry there.
That vision remained alive through the short pastorate of my successor,
and then into the ministry of the man who followed him two years later.
The very man who served with me as my associate in that church and then
left the area for his own first pastorate, returned, the vision refined
and more clearly defined and recognized by the people ---- and that
church is living out in vivid color the unfulfilled balance of the vision
God planted in my heart when I first went there over 15 years ago.
Today that church is a witnessing ministering machine, running at least
double what it did when I was there, and in new building facilities, and
with a pastor who has allowed God to blend his personal vision with the
situational vision that remained with the people when I left. It's a
classic example of Paul's admonition to the Corinthians when he declared,
"Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase."
I have been back in the church building just one time since my final
Sunday there back in 1993, and yet all the reports I hear show me that
the vision God gave me was either a situational one from the start, or
one that shifted from being personal to situational; and two other
successive men, sensitive to the Holy Spirit, found the vision left with
the people merging into their own, and ---- hallelujah!, God is giving
the increase.
As I look back, while I have regrets over some experiences or conditions
during my ministry there, I have no regrets over what has happened since
I left ---- either to them or to me, for God continued the vision there,
and gave me a new one that now drives me today with a purposed tenacity
stronger than ever in my ministry.
What I discovered is that not understanding the principle of two types of
vision made my ministry changes from one location to another much more
difficult and agonizing. If I decided to leave, I was afraid, on the one
hand, that I'd have to have a new vision that would again take months or
years to develop.
On the other hand, if the vision stayed on site, then I'd be leaving as a
failure because the vision hadn't been fulfilled, or I'd be leaving
fearfully, afraid the successor wouldn't get the same vision.
Or, even worse, I would leave, jealously hoping my successor wouldl not
be able to take credit for something I mistakenly tried to own and
protect because I thought it was only mine.
Our carnal logic and rationale play weird tricks on our spiritual
perceptions sometimes. It's helpful to recognize the two types of
vision.
#6. Vision is sometimes never fulfilled in you, but in someone else.
Little else strikes a harder and more direct blow to the ego than this.
Those of us in ministry seem to need all the special "strokes" and
affirmations we can get, and leaving a ministry without our vision being
fulfilled can demolish our own egos and drain our own confidence just
about as completely as anything of which I know.
But, my friend, we'd better get used to the fact that God is not obliged
to fulfill the vision in us, just because He gave it to us. Personal
ownership of a vision is not a luxury God grants us just because we did
Him a favor by saying "Yes" to His call on our lives for ministry.
The vision is still initially and forever His. After all, it is what He
sees. He just lets us see it, too. If He chooses to also let us take it
with us when we leave, that's just an extra blessing. If not, it's
something to be expected ---- but not resented.
As in the case I mentioned above, I'm thrilled to see my friend, Mike,
reaping the harvest. Besides ---- it's happening without my old bones
having to endure those long and cold Wisconsin winters. Lord, bless him!
And, to be quite honest, the vision actually began even before me. If
you really want to know the truth of the matter, the vision wasn't even
initially born in heart of any preacher ---- it was born in the hearts of
a small handful of believers in a church where their pastor did not
believe in a literal hell, a literal heaven, a literal devil, a divinely
inspired Bible, and a personal secure relationship with God. It was
their hearts that initially cried out to God for hope and purpose ----
and He gave them a vision ---- and then gave them Greg as their very
first pastor.
It was really Greg who did the dirty work, living with his family in a
camper trailer, with no property and no church building, meeting first in
a home, then a school room, and then on Sundays in a Seventh Day
Adventist Church building (after all, what else would go on there on
Sunday?). He's the guy to whom God gave the assurance for the hilltop
property on the outskirts of town overlooking the main highway.
He's the one who poured seven years of his sweat, love, passion, and
ministry into the lives of scores of unbelievers, seeing them come to
Christ and then watching them form with the founding members a cohesive
group of pioneer-spirited people to stake out a homestead and settle down
for the long haul.
Then, after conducting four revival meetings in that church in less than
two years, God let Jo Ann and me return after Greg left to shepherd them
and help mature them for nine more years before sending us on our way and
back into itinerant ministry, only to call missionary in preparation Jim
to deepen them in their prayer life and prepare them for Mike.
Bless you, Greg! Yea, Jim! Go get 'em Mike! Hooray for God!
Isn't it fantastic, my friend, that God helps us keep things in
perspective and, if we're paying attention, won't ever let us take
ownership of the vision He gives us for awhile! Awesome!
WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT?
Vision without action is wishful thinking ---- dreaming. However,
ministry without vision is worse ---- it'd drudgery.
So, I guess you'll be the one to answer just how important these studies
are to you. Do you want your ministry and its related activities and
duties to be drudgery, or would you prefer that they be a delight?
Having a God-born, God-given, God-sustained vision will be the
difference.
We'll pick up Wednesday with #7 and then continue next week with . . .
The Decisiveness of Vision ---- a line-in-the-sand "no turning back"
requirement.
The Danger of Vision ---- dangerous to have; dangerous to not have.
The Distractions from Vision ---- things that interfere with your focus
on your vision.
The Destruction of Vision ---- things that will kill a vision.
The Death of Vision ---- the necessity of letting it die.
The Demonstration of Vision ---- what happens when you're "right on" with
your vision.
The Determination for a Vision ---- pursuing it until it comes.
FINALLY:
I hope your week is filled with the joy of the Lord, the faithful leading
of the Spirit, and the fruitfulness of your faithful labor. This is the
day the Lord has made ---- Rejoice!
And ---- be glad in it, too!
In His Bond,
Bob Tolliver ---- (Rom 1:11-12)
Copyright February, 2000. All rights reserved.
We would love to hear from you ---- prayer requests, insights, etc. Feel
free to drop us a note at <[email protected]>.
If this letter has blessed you and you know of someone else who needs to
be encouraged, feel free to forward it in its entirety to all such people
you know.
If you would like a list of past issues which you could receive upon
request, just let us know. Write <[email protected]>.
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Hang in there! I'm with you!
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