The Unified Vision (Excerpt from the book Vision Maker)

Too many churches are fighting battles we should not be fighting, and unity is frayed at best. True unity comes from the fellowship of serving together. Serving together comes from everyone realizing how significant they are in the work of the Lord. Once again, the Holy Spirit gives the vision, the direction for connecting the saints, and the power to finish it.

The work of the Lord does not have time for figurehead servants. Those who only do what they do to be seen. Jesus has already had to deal with too many Pharisees while He walked this earth. The Pharisees were called out by Jesus because of what they had done with the Law of Moses. I believe God is calling us out for what we have done with the commands of Jesus, who completed the Law. It is time for us to join hands and learn how to move on the vision God has given us. We must commit to the task and see it through.

Prayer is a vital part of the whole vision and a commitment to making prayer the priority must spearhead every movement of God.

Prayer for guidance. Prayer for power. Prayer for honesty.

Prayer for the Holy Spirit to move and lead us where to move.

C. S. Lewis wrote The Union between the Father and Son is such a live concrete thing that this union itself is also a person. I know that among human beings, of that family or club or trade union. They talk about its "spirit" because the individual members when they are together, do really develop ways of talking and behaving which they would not have if they were apart. it is as if a sort of communal personality came into existence. Of course, it is not a real person: it is only rather like a person. But that is just one of the differences between God and us. What grows out of the joint life of the Father and Son is a real person, and is in fact the Third of the three Persons who are God. This third person is called (...) the Holy Ghost or the "spirit" of God.

All of this means that our appointed time for music worship and preaching is a time of celebration and encouragement among God’s people to keep on keeping on. That time is a time for unity in the Spirit and that unity is a spark that starts a fire that needs to be fanned into a flame. As the Holy Spirit leads He bonds us together in a unity that is unbreakable and He sets a tone for living our church lives as never before. People who once were antagonistic toward anything new suddenly realize that God is moving. They put their petty, selfish opinions on the back burner where they need to go. Then they join in on where God is sending the church and become servant leaders again, or maybe for the first time.

This is the point where the leaders in the church need to be staying in front of the vision God is casting in their midst and make plans that are more down the road as God leads. Those plans that seemed to be distant quickly come into focus as God’s spirit does some miraculous things in the church. Those pastors must stay current in their walk with God and their desire for God to continue to move, so they can lead the church. A Godly man once told a group of leaders “Stay ahead of the people you shepherd!”

The Pilgrimage Continues

David Warren