Matthew 22
37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart,
all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and
greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your
neighbor as yourself.’
A couple weeks ago I wrote a guest blog for Creative Church. You can
find it at: http://www.creativechurch.com/day-08-its-not-about-me/
I’m following up with: Not my vision but my vision. Not my church but my church.
By nature I’m creative. I multitask intuitively. My mind runs a
thousand miles a minute. I have to force myself to focus and when I do it is
laser like. Details bug me. My OCD can cause anything to stick out. I’m driven
and passionate. Alone good, combined, possibly deadly. When I get focused on
something I want to see it followed through. Passion equals intensity. Anything
to an extreme can be unhealthy though. Intense people don’t bother me, because
all it tells me is they are passionate about something. Especially in this day
and age when passion doesn’t seem as prevalent.
Creating gives a natural high and because of this it is hard not to
get trapped into continually creating the next thing instead of finishing the
current thing. A scary aspect of creating is when you put it out there. It
feels like an extension of you and, if not well received, can be extremely
hurtful in the end.
In the church world, something that I learned along the way is “Not my
vision but my vision. Not my church but my church”. It isn’t up to me.
Although I’m responsible, I’m not totally responsible. My job may be to lead,
suggest, recommend, or to follow through, but my job isn’t hinged on me. I’m
not the face and name of the church and growing up in a lead pastor’s home
taught me this at an early age. I don’t work for myself. I work for the Lord
and whom He has put in leadership over our church body.
Dr. Rutland has a great message where he talks about the power of
Christ. In it he talks about how Christ said phrases like, “Let the dead bury
the dead.” Watch it here: https://vimeo.com/20804265. I share this
so that you understand not my vision, but my vision. In the church body you are
there to facilitate the vision of the Lead Pastor. Your work is not your
vision, but his vision and if he is truly following the Lord (which I would
believe that he is) then his vision is His vision. At the proper time you are
free to debate, disagree, converse, and what have you, but once a decision has
been made it must become your vision as well. In order to do this well you must
learn to get over yourself. You are free to have your own visions, dreams, and
be a leader, but unless you are the Lead Pastor it is not your vision, but it is
your vision.
This isn’t rocket science and you may already know this, so in that
case think of this as a friendly reminder and encouragement. You are doing
well. Help carry the load of your lead pastor and your church and see where
the Lord takes you.
Feel free to add some of your top ministry advice below in the
comments.
