Tuesday, January 30, 2007
The Vision Thing
The Bonhoeffer quote in question is from his short but very useful book, Life Together, and it discusses problems with "visionary dreamers." David confesses to being such and lays his guilt before the blog reading public. As Bonhoeffer dicusses the problems, they are twofold
- a selfish vision
- judgemental of those that do not share and participate in the vision
I agree, with those problems, but I wonder about the wisdom of discarding the idea of vision altogether. Do you think that Christ did not have a vision (plan) for what He was doing, or the apostles for that matter? Surely they had a vision, the issues arise when we ask, "Whose vision?" and, "How do we execute it?"
God, I believe, wants to have a vision. He just wants to make sure it is His vision -- that He gives it to us. Further, He wants us to be imitators of Christ as we execute the vision, full of grace and charity. Where it gets really interesting is that given God's long history of interaction with the church, it is quite unlikely there will be much, if anything, "new" in the vision God gives us. I don't think God has developed many new ideas of late, he just wants us to get the old ones right.
I like the term "vision" because it creates a certain passion. It is, by the way, possible to be passionate, while still exhibiting the required grace and charity. When we do away with vision, we reduce the work of the church to the mundane, and we lose the energy and the passion.
Why does it seem like the "new" succeeds so much better than the old? I think it is because we get excited about the new, and that is where the rub really comes in. We should be excited about GOD! It is a fairly certain bet that if your "vision" is "new" it came not from the Lord but from your own fevered imagination, and that is where the problems arise.
I say let's build a vision, let's get excited about it, let's execute it with passion, grace, and charity. The best part is we don't need months of brainstorming sessions, consultants, and planners. We need devotion, and prayer and listening. God has the vision to give to us, we just need to grasp it. It is fresh because He is fresh.
Related Tags: vision, faithful, grace, charity, passion, Jollyblogger, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
