Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Thinking and pondering
Vision, Mission, purpose, goals, strategies, planning, 5 year plan and dream a bunch of words that get used somewhat interchangeably, and yet between all the words we can see some differences.
My wife and I came to T-Bay with a dream. The founding families of our church came with a dream. Everyone comes with expectations, maybe even a dream or a hope for what the church will be. I wonder how different and maybe even opposite some of those dreams are?
It is time for a new dream, a new plan, a new vision. Not that the old ones were bad, not that we have to discredit what has been, but rather what has been has brought us to what it. I think that every generation needs a dream, a vision of the future. I wonder if, in planning, every few years would need a new vision of the future.
Acts 2:17 & 18
And it will be in the last days, says God,
That I will pour out My Spirit on all humanity;
then your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
I will even pour out My Spirit
on My male and female slaves in those days and they will prophesy.
A prophesy from Joel. How does this work out in our era? How do we experience dreams and visions. I feel a little like the dream is a jigsaw puzzle, we have different pieces in our midst and if put together maybe we can make out what the box is supposed to look like. Then again, maybe that is too rational for understanding God's plans.
I have shared a little bit of two pieces to the puzzle that I think I am holding. First our group here is ecclectic. We are not trying to be mainstream anything, but rather we come from a variety of church and life experiences and together we make an interesting group. The second part flows out of that, our ministry is to the outskirts. Christians who don't fit into "normal" churches, and people who don't fit into "normal" catagory. Even when we look at our artists we see that they are not mainstream, their work is not based on what is popular, but rather it flows out of who they are, thus we have an ecclectic community ministering on the outskirts of life. I wonder what other pieces of the puzzle to our identity and vision are out there?
My wife and I came to T-Bay with a dream. The founding families of our church came with a dream. Everyone comes with expectations, maybe even a dream or a hope for what the church will be. I wonder how different and maybe even opposite some of those dreams are?
It is time for a new dream, a new plan, a new vision. Not that the old ones were bad, not that we have to discredit what has been, but rather what has been has brought us to what it. I think that every generation needs a dream, a vision of the future. I wonder if, in planning, every few years would need a new vision of the future.
Acts 2:17 & 18
And it will be in the last days, says God,
That I will pour out My Spirit on all humanity;
then your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
I will even pour out My Spirit
on My male and female slaves in those days and they will prophesy.
A prophesy from Joel. How does this work out in our era? How do we experience dreams and visions. I feel a little like the dream is a jigsaw puzzle, we have different pieces in our midst and if put together maybe we can make out what the box is supposed to look like. Then again, maybe that is too rational for understanding God's plans.
I have shared a little bit of two pieces to the puzzle that I think I am holding. First our group here is ecclectic. We are not trying to be mainstream anything, but rather we come from a variety of church and life experiences and together we make an interesting group. The second part flows out of that, our ministry is to the outskirts. Christians who don't fit into "normal" churches, and people who don't fit into "normal" catagory. Even when we look at our artists we see that they are not mainstream, their work is not based on what is popular, but rather it flows out of who they are, thus we have an ecclectic community ministering on the outskirts of life. I wonder what other pieces of the puzzle to our identity and vision are out there?
// posted by Eric @ 9:27 AM 
