I went to another Vineyard leaders meeting this last weekend. I love the people. That’s the only reason I go, to be honest. I get so tired of the ceaseless talk about vision, vision forming, vision casting, vision keeping, blah blah blah. I am against vision. Call me an idiot! I don’t care. I told everyone in my small group, after all the talk about vision, that I personally resist vision with as much passion as those who believe in it. I get the usual quote: “Without a vision, the people perish.” I don’t believe it. Today, people perish with vision. Besides, the original language of that passage (Proverbs 29: 18) doesn’t mean “vision” as in a corporate long-term goal. It means “revelation”. In other words, without hearing from God, the people perish. It is truth we need. Not another vision, PLEASE!
I’ve created and tried to sustain vision in the past, as well as press its importance on the church. And I’ve seen those visions crush people and myself, especially when the vision is destroyed and proven empty. Friends say, “Well, then get a better vision!” No! I learned my lesson right away: vision kills. I refuse to try to create vision or vision cast or get the community to shape one and pursue it. Why? Because it kills what is. It murders life.
When asked what our vision is as a church, I said we don’t have one and will not have one. We simply get together to worship, fellowship, gather around the bible, help those who need it. That’s it. “Well then that’s your vision!” Don’t try to squeeze me into your box just so you will be comfortable with me! I don’t have a vision. Our community doesn’t have a vision. We don’t have a mission statement. As a father of a family, I don’t have any vision other than that we love one another. I don’t set any long term goals as a father of my children or as a husband of my wife. Simply love. To set goals for my family is demonic.
I know this sounds brutal to some, but brutality against bondage to anything, even vision, is necessary today. Vision is used to escape the present and to destroy what is. I won’t have it. I’ve tasted and seen that it is bad. My goal is to have no goal. My vision is visionless. I be. We be. That’s it.
The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Mark Hemmings, and is taken from is Hungary photo collection.
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.
David Hayward is a pastor artistically stripping to the essential.
really beautifully expressed mr.n.p.sir… i think maybe i hear angels singing!
hmmm. I can’t agree more that ‘vision’ and vision talk can be exactly what you’ve described and the proverbs passage is just exactly what you say it is.
for me though, vision is like my gardening. sometime I get volunteer flowers and that’s pretty cool and they just grow. sometimes I have to feed and water. sometimes I have to weed but, like my friend Alan says, one man’s weed is another man’s treasure, so I keep what someone else might kill.
All in all I know what I’d like in my garden but I don’t really have the power to make my garden grow – though I certainly have the power to kill it for a time – for a time because the ground will out live me. The plants do what they will do and I contribute, sometimes totally screwing up and pruning something back that I shouldn’t have or failing to prune and keeping the plant form it’s potential (another word I think we both hate).
Anyway, I just think that vision doesn’t have to harm, it can bring life. I definitely want the surgeon to have a vision before he makes the first cut! But often we use ‘vision’ and mean MY VISION rather than our collective vision. I think that’s one of things that I appreciated about the weekend as it didn’t feel like someone else’s vision was being imposed, just shared open-handed.
but then my spiritual gift is naivete.
and I have a vision of you and Lisa finally splitting a bottle of red with me and Donna some time this summer…
thanks jon. i hear angels too. i am crazy!
brian: hm back. bottle of wine for sure. we MUST! “Vision” as in “I’m going to cut this guy open, cut out that tumor then sew him back up again so that he can live!” is one kind of vision. In many ways, without “vision” or a goal or memory, we couldn’t even get to work in the morning. Then again, if the surgeon does his job, he does it without vision. Yes?
Much applause from way up in the last row of the atheist section.
When I was going to church, vision was a prime producer of guilt in me. I never could keep up. I despised visitation night. The thought of knocking on the doors of strangers and talking to them about Jesus sent me into a panic. Of course, I had no idea that I was just very introverted. I assumed my avoidance of the task was the work of Satan and I was not strong enough (spiritual enough?) to overcome.
Vision after vision came and went. Revival service after revival service, attempting to produce a race of Super-Christians, but it always ended the same…within a week we were all back to our normal selves, feeling like we were letting God and our pastor down. We couldn’t even enjoy simple fellowship because us men would get together and talk about our spiritual “drought”, wondering what we needed to do next to help our church “keep the vision”.
Avoiding my typical atheist rant, let me just say I agree with your thoughts David. In the words of my wise father, “Just relaaaax”.
Brilliant! Now I wish I had gone, forgot you might have been there. It was the vision/churchy stuff that kept us away.
Well if you’re an idiot, than I’m an idiot too because I don’t buy all that vision stuff either. A few months ago I decided to look up that passage for myself and I came away thinking it’s been twisted to match the lastest vision “trend”. Whenever the topic is mentioned, I cringe inside.
I love what you’re saying, and I sooo agree. My vision is Jesus and what he embodies and I don’t need to add anything to that. It’s enough!!!!
How very sad that others need to still stick a vision statement on us even if it’s “community”. That’s not a vision, it’s life.
Ick ick ick to the vision bandwagon.
bring it on everyone!
Well, I think I use ‘personal agenda’ the way you’re using ‘vision’.
As for the surgeon, if he’s going in for my appendix I just want him to get it and get out, not get sidetracked by my liver or the fact that I could get by without both of my kidneys and take one just for fun. That’s what I think of as vision.
But I know, and have experienced, the other kind of vision you are talking about.
“………..worship, fellowship, gather around the Bible and help those who need it”. Sounds just right, something I can be a part of without having to manufacture a facsimile.
Well David, you’ve caused me to cruise around the internet looking for how the Vineyard views vision casting and the like. What I’m finding at Vineyard Canada is disturbing:
What it will be like when they get there??? Wow, there’s a recipe for disappointment and disillusionment. God is anything but predictable. What happens when things don’t turn out the way you planned? How dare we be so presumptious.
When the frig did corporate business strategies have their place in the church????
Groan………Randy, I like your dad’s wisdom, “just relaaax”.
http://www.vineyard.ca/engine.cfm?i=47&e=10240&cid=100000469
awesome homework heidi! don’t sign me up!
amen to that, nakedpastorman. add “innovative” and “relevant” to the list of words that make me go ack!!
“Vision kills”?! o: What the heck? Are you serious? How did you ever buy a car…or a house…or have kids…?
i bought a car because someone drove it in my driveway and said, “wanna buy a car?”
i have a house because my now neighbor said, “the house next to me is for sale. wanna buy it?”
i have kids because i had sex at least 3 times
My experience is opposite. I looked for a house. I looked at many. The ones that fit my budget didn’t fit my “vision.” The ones that fit my “vision” didn’t fit my budget. Until I got this one. The process almost killed me. But the vision didn’t.
Can you properly RAISE kids without vision? Or should parents take the path of least resistance?
“To set goals for my family is demonic.” Have any of your kids finished high school? How did that happen? Through “bondage to a vision”? How cruel.
hallelujah amen and praise the Lord! preach on David
Fred – - I think perhaps you’re not thinking of vision in the same terms David is.
Well methinks a bunch of youse guys is Canadian, so since we see the “bondage” word here a couple times, I will toss in a comment from one of the founding fathers (James Madison) of my good ole country and social experiment the US of A:
“Religious bondage shackles the mind and makes it unfit for every noble enterprise.”
Amen and amen and amen and amen and amen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Vision is bondage.
Maybe I’m not thinking about “vision” the same way that David is. Maybe that’s the problem with blanket statements and assumptions. Never make assumptions. It just makes and ass out of you and sumption.
However, although it can be abused, vision is necessary for church, life, family, everything. Why bother going to seminary without the “vision” for the possible results?
Even Jesus had “vision”:
“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who FOR THE JOY SET BEFORE HIM endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2
Without that future joy, the cross is just masochism.
Vision is not bondage, it is freedom. Freedom to live according to God’s purpose and to say “no” to “everybody else’s” plan for your life.
Let me add something else:
“Besides, the original language of that passage (Proverbs 29: 18) doesn’t mean “vision†as in a corporate long-term goal. It means “revelationâ€. In other words, without hearing from God, the people perish.”
You’re right about that, but the word “perish” is a bad translation as well. The NIV says the people “cast off restraint.” The implication is clear. Without vision, people will do whatever comes to their heads–the good, the bad, and the ugly. It always makes me think of the children of Israel going wild in front of the golden calf while Moses is approaching with the law–the revelation.
It’s like I said about freedom. Without “vision,” we’ll just be tossed to and fro according to the whims, suggestions, and “good ideas” of everybody else. No restraint.
IDIOT… I will say it again … IDIOT!
Even though I said that …. I think that is what you want to hear. When I read your
blog for the last couple of months it comes across your all over the map with thoughts, philiosophy, and even theology.
I won’t deny that your thoughts are affirmed in others, which is not a benchmark of truth.
Some may say, that my interpretation of vision is not the same as yours. Well, i think you make a point in some of your blog, but are ignorant by writing that vision is demontic.
If you hold to all that you say over the last while may I suggest a few things:
1. Don’t take a salary from the church. If you do, don’t complain about your finances
2. Don’t lead. Remove Pastor from your title and see if people follow you without the title.
3. It is only fair to start a new church – plant – with your philisophy and theology. It is unfair to take a church and then switch on them, while you find yourself.
4. Don’t nail Pastors or leaders who have started something from scratch and actually have built something with vision!
Its one thing to knock it and blog it. Its another thing to start something having nothing in front of you than a vision and a dream God has given (not the devil by the way!!!!)
There are some people who do! Than there are others who blog!
In regards to family – I would hope to God I would establish a future for my family. In regards to finances, education, and housing and most important spirituality.
Dave, this is one of your most pompous blogs!
John, this is one of your most pompous comments. I think you’re blowing this wayyyy out of proportion.
Thanks Heidi for your concern
Okey dokey!
Heidi…re-read the blog~! Seriously. My guess is that you go to Daves church and are in his small group.
John, I read it probably 5 times already. I’m not sure what you are implying in your above statement. Firstly, let’s clarify that it’s not Dave’s small group, it’s led by someone else. Just had to clear that up.
You’d be surprised to know that there are times that I disagree with David and have even said so right here. I’m sure there are times he disagrees with me. To relate in any other way would be unhealthy, if not extremely boring. There are also many times that I agree with him wholeheartedly and this is one of those times. I’m also a big girl and found my detest for vision casting etc. long before he ever mentioned it (which to my knowledge, he has only mentioned it here).
This is one of my pet peeves about blogging (though I’ve grown to mostly love it!). Conversing with words alone leaves room for misinterpretation, miscommunication, and misunderstandings. Maybe with this medium (computer screen), we need to ask for clarification, just to be sure we’re “hearing” a person correctly.
Wow! This one stirred up some bitterness, eh Dave? I love coming here, because it’s like everything I’m thinking written out. It helps me tackle ideas and find solutions for myself. I understand what you’re saying about the “vision” pitches and so-on. I feel that vision in that sense is corrupt, and perhaps part of being followers of Christ is to forget about our vision, and see the world through His eyes. …. and even though I just wrote that, I have no idea what it means yet.
Bloggin sure does Heidi…so lets be big enough to have the blogger interpret what he meant.
We need clarification mostly on words on vision such as “demonic”, “kills life”, “murders”…etc
I think I understand what the blogger is saying…..I’ve been to conferences….read books on vision and have a gut feeling the blogger has taken liberties of blasting others of talking on vision. He speaks against that which he endorses. Having the freedom of mind…having the freedom to not fit into a box….yet he accuses others of that which he does himself!
Not much to clarrify there!
Where are you Fred?
Listen John, I love you, but you’re not listening. I’m not being pompous. I have just learned that for centuries the church has inflicted its members with vision. And where has it got us? Only into a place where we feel we need a better vision. Bull! When will we ever learn that it is the vision that is killing us? There are more “prodigals” out there than “attenders”. Why? I would suggest that the church organization is the problem.
Let me put it this way: There’s a family, doing fine. They live in the same house. They eat meals together. They love one another. Sure, there’s problems, but nothing out of the ordinary for an ordinary family. Everything’s fine. Then, some CEO comes along and says, “Hey! You guys need a vision!” The father and mother say, “What the HELL you talkin’ about??” That’s what I mean!
I imagine David and those in his church have plans — “let’s get our church to go feed the homeless, who wants to coordinate the sign up” … or whatever. Maybe not but that would be my guess. I don’t see that as the same thing as the vision that David is referring to. And for the record, I don’t go to David’s church, I’m not even in the same country nor am I a member of his denomination.
David is also using a bit of hyberpole as I read it, a bit of rhetoric if you will – to provoke thought and response. The responses that people give are very telling, visceral responses usually point to fear of some sort. The type of feelings that it evokes in the reader is telling. It might be good to spend some time reflecting on the feelings that the post evoked and where those feelings are coming from. And I’m not being snarky or sarcastic.
sorry david, crossed your post there.
Dave….bull!
I say “right on” oin for 2 reasons:
1. many many many churches feel the need to define a vision for people to follow that in the end detracts from what Jesus said was important- specifically in Matt 25:35(feed, clothe, love, visit etc). It also amazes me how many of these visions end up building-centric.
2. Vision Casting has such control and manipulation tendencies when in the mouths of humans i.e. “you are spiritual if you comply”
it was for freedom that Christ has set you free – heard that somewhere.
John, you seem to be putting a whole lot of meaning behind David’s words that I personally don’t believe are there. They are your own. Yes, it seems that we do indeed disagree on the topic, but I mean when you started off your very first comment with IDIOT, well I’m afraid that says a lot.
Couldn’t you consider that there just might be a dark side of having a vision?
Makeesha, you’re so right. There’s a difference between “let’s plan to do this next month” and “this is the direction we believe the church should go in”. I don’t know why but the latter makes me very uneasy because who are we to decide where God is going to take us!
Listen…good “spiritual ace” Mak~ By the way, let controvesy happen. If Dave has the nerve to say “demonic”, along with other things…why is it you have a problem with me being opinionated? Can I not disagee with as much passion as he presents his case??? If not, hmmm makes me wonder.
My point is simply this! we have done well as a church with vision and mission. We have seen many come to faith. Seen the poor fed and clothed. This has come through strategic planning and vision. Just because one has a bad experienceor is jaded…dont think it is the same in the body of Christ around the world!
Heidi….let me quote Dave…
I get so tired of the ceaseless talk about vision, vision forming, vision casting, vision keeping, blah blah blah. I am against vision. Call me an idiot!
He asked for me to call him it….i did! your point> not valid~!
Wow David, family dinners with you and John must be a hoot.
I am going to disagree here, sort of. A vision for the church body, the community dynamic, and the individual parishioner’s spiritual education is, I think, important. When the church gets too busy chasing that vision and failing to adapt to the changes in their lives for the sake of the “vision”, then it becomes that thing that is,[“demonicâ€, “kills lifeâ€, “murdersâ€â€¦etc]. A vision can be a good navigation aid, but not something to cling to.
There is a blind furniture maker in Vermont who makes the most stunning wood pieces you’ve ever seem. His motto,”I may have lost my sight, but I haven’t lost my vision.”
Vision is not the poison, but the pride that inhibits willingness to abandon a failed or useless vision is what corrupts and separates. Churches can get so busy working for
God they forget to stop and talk to Him once-in-a-while. That happened to the Pharisees and Jesus called them the blind leading the blind….. they will both fall into a ditch. (that’s kind of a funny statement when you think about how it might sounded when He actually said it. I bet the people laughed)
John, I think you and David need to hug.
I don’t know John, you can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy being justified in calling him an idiot.
Everything is fluid…just because vision is given…doesnt mean it is wrong!
i can see John has missed the point and has bought in the Vision that makes Christendom (not Christianity) irrelevant to western culture. It is no longer religion or belief when one uses vision and mission to blindly support the spoils of how Christendom has misused our majority-culture position. It is scary to give up those things. It is evident with the list of “suggestions” that seem to suggest one can only be a maryter to question how things are done.
Here here Naked Pastor and speak the truth.
I might have jumped into the fray a little too late, but, let me put in my two cents. My head started spinning around the 25th reply so I’m not sure if I’m simply repeating what has already been said
A leader of a church/ministry should invest significant time seeking the face of God for direction. Right now I am in the midst of allowing the Holy Spirit to birth the Father’s vision in my heart for the ministry He has called me to pioneer. It is my responsibility to cultivate a heart after His own heart. If I have His heart then I am confident in Him that I will have His vision. However, if I fail to become a man after God’s own heart, then how can I expect Him to entrust me with His vision? Unfortunately a common theme among the leadership of the Church [and all believers, I suppose] is the issue of time spent seeking God’s face. Just pure, unadulterated communion with the Lord…just writing those words cause my heart to hunger for Him!
Do you have “revelation†from the Holy Spirit regarding what God is saying to you to pursue in this hour? And, more importantly, do you burn with the things that are on God’s heart?
That’s my two cents worth!
Loving Jesus,
Brian Francis Hume
Good stuff Brian!
(…ahh the joys of having a laptop at your beside!)