Waking to God’s Dream: Spiritual Leadership and Church Renewal (1999) by Dick Wills (now a UMC Bishop)
It is not what you are now that is important, but what God wants you to be and what you can be with faith.
A vision without a task is just a dream. A task without a vision is pure drudgery. When you combine a vision and a task it can become the hope of the world.
A vision is seeing not what is now, but what can be and will be in the future.
God put eyes in the front so that when we look backward, we get a stiff neck.
God selects one person to announce the vision on behalf of all the other people. God plants the vision secretly in the hearts of people. They cannot see the vision until the person God has chosen reveals it. Once the vision is announced, it must be confirmed by the people for whom the vision is given. God plants the vision secretly in the hearts of God’s people, even though they might not be aware of it. However, when it is announced, it wins acceptance from those committed to God because God has made it their vision, secretly, sometime before.
God is always ready to give a new vision when the old vision comes to maturity. Otherwise, the vision simply dies and perishes. Mainline denominations are declining because leaders have not been willing to listen to the God who is seeking to reproduce the vision for a new day.
I wanted to be a part of what God was blessing!
John Wesley was asked what could reasonably be expected of a Methodist preacher: “To reform the Nation and the Church and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.”
We had substituted meetings for ministry.
My weariness came from having left behind a daily walk with God, substituting in its place taking control and wanting to be successful in the eyes of others.
Went to South Africa- I began to wonder how these people, living under such difficult and violent conditions could have such joy?
Joy comes from walking with God and is not dependent on external circumstances.
An openness to begin the journey of choosing to be part of what God wanted to bless rather than my trying to get God to bless what I was doing.
So I began to pray each day for God to help me and my church be part of what God wanted to bless.
God blesses obedience. I understand obedience as choosing to seek and discern the will of God as a follower of Jesus. Obedience is to choose daily to give my life to God.
Belonging to my church for many people was like belonging to a club rather than to the church of Jesus Christ. Seldom did I sense people yearning for the things of God. Being a member of the church was simply synonymous with being a good citizen, a good American. What I would call “cultural Christians.” Christianity was to be learned, not experienced. Cultural Christians subscribe to a kind of hen house logic: “If you sit in a hen house, it will make you a chicken.” If you attend worship, you will be a Christian. Having a personal experience with Jesus Christ was replaced with simply attending worship.
I began to see my preaching as an invitation to become a follower of Jesus. I started preaching as though I were speaking to a group of people who knew nothing about Christianity. I was calling our people to make a choice to be fully devoted followers of Jesus and to claim the new life that I knew God wanted for each of them.
Jesus set out to change the world by choosing a small group of people to disciple.
Not my ideas, but a willingness to be part of what God is blessing.
In order to know if this vision was really a word from God or just a clever attempt by my imagination to speak on God’s behalf, I became convinced that I had to share the vision with the congregation for a year. 3-week sermon series to outline vision, then preached on it monthly. At first people were indifferent to this new vision. As the year moved along, I heard from laity in stronger and stronger ways that confirmed this new vision.
Lifted the vision repeatedly as pastor, asked each area to justify what it was doing by the vision.
As I read the NT, I could find only one place where the voting majority ruled (Acts 27). I believe the church was never meant to be a democracy. We in the church are to function under a theocracy. The only thing that matters is the will of God. We quit voting. We decided that if an activity focuses on our vision statement and is supported by Scripture, then those proposing the new ministry could begin.
In meetings, Wills asked committee to pray silently on an issue for ten minutes. What is God’s will in this issue? After ten minutes, he asked if anyone had a word from God that would be a negative, a concern, or a “not now” that the group should hear.
The greater the relationship, the fewer the rules.
Raise up and consecrate lay pastors to care for and lead the ministries of the church.
Administrative groups need to be seen as ministry and not business. Lay Pastors are the spiritual leaders for their action group in the church.
Lay Pastors are not chosen by the church or by the pastor of the church, but they are called by God.
The first requirement is that each Lay Pastor must commit to a daily time of prayer and Scripture reading.
Lay Pastors are the basic caregivers of the congregation.
As pastor, I submit myself to the authority of the Lay Pastor when I am on their turf (ministry area, small group).
Chad Walsh: “I suspect that Satan has called off his attempt to convert people to agnosticism. After all, if a man travels far enough away from Christianity, he is liable to see it in perspective and decide it is true. It is much safer from Satan’s point of view, to vaccinate a man with a mild case of Christianity so as to protect him from the real disease.”
People choose to be comfortable over choosing to be faithful.
Daily walk with God.
Individual change precedes organizational change.
Focus on leadership, not management.
Strive first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33)
For spiritual leaders, the cross is not something laid upon us by God. It is something we must pick up. As a spiritual leader, as soon as we decide to fulfill the specific purpose God has for us, we pick up our cross. It is not necessary that we should know what God’s purpose is. It is necessary only that we decide to fulfill it. To pick up my cross, I must learn to lay down my right to myself. Gradually, it dawns upon a spiritual leader that good work does not produce fruit. Dying to self and doing God’s will produces fruit.
God unfolds revelation moment by moment.
