VISION MINUS PASSION = STAGNATION

Over the years of ministry I have seen many organisation and movements with compelling vision and talented leaders, some of them have gone forward and accomplished tremendous results, some others are where it was at the beginning – right at the starting blocks, some others have initially boomed but then started stagnating after few years. I have always wondered what makes few leaders, organisations and movements successful at accomplishing their vision. What makes them tick? If one takes time to analyse deeply, most of the time we will end up with one word- their vision. Is it crystal clear? How fresh it is? Are they passionate about it? Do they own it? Are they doing the right things about it? Are they envisioning others? Are others catching that vision? Answer to these questions will mostly reveal the secret to their success.

Take a look at any successful spiritual movement in the history of Christianity, it was birthed out of a compelling God-given vision from a leader who was driven by that vision and he passionately lived it out and envisioned others. Be it Moses or Nehemiah in the Old Testament or Apostle Paul in the New Testament who were all powerfully moved by a Vision from God and were passionate about that till the very end.

Many of the spiritual movements that started in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries were led by powerful men of God like D.L Moody of the Holiness movement, Hudson Taylor of the China Inland Mission, William Booth of the Salvation Army, George Muller of the orphanages etc. who feared nothing and no one but God and lived with a great passion for the vision entrusted to them. Again you see the same principles at work in the lives of these godly men in the middle of 20^th century, Billy Graham of the Billy Graham Crusade, Bill Bright of the Campus Crusade, Dawson Trotman of the Navigators, Loren Cunningham of the YWAM to name a few, these visionary leaders went on to impact the world in powerful ways and the movements they initiated are the legacy of that vision which is still making impact in different ways. A man with a God given vision in his heart, who is on fire for the Lord and if he passionately pursues that vision, nothing on this earth can stop him from accomplishing it and truly the gates of hell cannot stand against him.

So what are the Key ingredients that makes it work?

1.     A God given vision arises from a need around us:

When Nehemiah heard the news about his city Jerusalem, lying desolate, its walls broken; its gates burned down and His people living in utter shame and fear; his heart connected to that need and he was broken before God. He deeply felt he had to do something about it. (Nehemiah 1: 1-4)  Moses was raised up to meet the need of delivering God’s people from slavery and take them into the Promised Land. Apostle Paul was raised up to meet the need of reaching the Greeks and Romans in a predominantly gentile intellectual world.

God tries to catch our attention to a need around us but most of us walk right past it, as if nothing had happened because we are so caught up and busy with our daily lives and our senses have been numbed or acclimatised by the overexposure happening around us. As Jesus says, we have eyes but cannot see or it has become dim of seeing and we have ears but cannot hear or it has become dull of hearing. Bible says very clearly that when Moses saw the burning bush, he “stopped and turned aside to look”. (Exodus 3:3) Stopping and turning aside to see and hear what God is showing us is crucial for us to understand the need. We need to tune our eyes and ears to what He is showing us and we need to have hearts that are soft enough to be broken by the things that break His heart.  

This was many years back when I was in my second year of college we had gone out on a project trip to visit the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who had taken asylum in South India. This was the time the war of liberation was at its peak in Sri Lanka and refuges were pouring in. We were not ready for what we encountered in the camp that day, small shacks made of polythene or cement bags in which hardly two people can crouch in where being used as homes for 6-7 people crammed in and hundreds of those shacks in a large hall, over 500 people living in highly unhygienic conditions. We spoke to many that day and interviewed them and promised to get some relief as part of our project. That was it! We soon forgot about it, went about with our academics but one of the guys who was with us that day didn’t, he was profoundly impacted by what he saw and heard and he initiated a movement that became the voice of these refugees later. He saw the need and caught a vision.

2.     Prayer is the fuel for any spiritual Vision to move forward.

Every spiritual movement was birthed in prayer, sustained in prayer and continued in prayer. Without earnest and fervent prayer the vision quickly loses steam. Holy Spirit will take the back seat and we will start driving the vehicle and all that we will end up doing is going in circles. Prayer connects us to the author and power source of that vision.

Prophet Nehemiah when he heard the condition of his city Jerusalem, Bible says he fasted and prayed for many days. (Neh 1:4) Many of the world changing movements are results of days of waiting upon the Lord in fasting and prayer. We might do a lot of things with our own ideas and strength and through our so called strategies, we might even see some initial fruits but without totally depending on God we are merely drawing lines on the sands of a beach as the next wave will wipe away all our efforts. God has designed us for dependence on Him; independence is the result of our fall in the garden.

Today it is sad to see in many missions and churches where their vision is birthed mostly out of the donor’s purse. It has become more of a donor driven vision than God driven. If there is money there is a vision for a particular project or people based on the donor’s priorities. It is good to remind ourselves of what that great mission leader Hudson Taylor said, “God's work done God's way will not lack His provision”. As the old proverb goes “it is foolish to put the cart before the oxen”, provision is God’s job, we are called to focus on Him and the vision. 

3.     Vision casting – envisioning and mobilizing others is crucial.

Some leaders are naturally gifted in this, I had the privilege of knowing an inspiring mission leader who was amazingly gifted at casting a compelling vision and he effortlessly rallied people around that. He made it look so simple, not just when he was formally speaking but even when he was casually conversing with someone. But sadly those kind of leaders are one in a million and we lesser mortals need to learn the art of casting a compelling vision painstakingly.

It is not just a matter of how effectively we can communicate our vision because as someone said, “Vision is not taught; it is caught”. The crux of the matter is how passionate we are about the vision. Because our passion and enthusiasm shows through, people see it and catch it. If I being the leader, I am not excited about the vision then don’t ever expect the people whom I lead to do anything about it. Because if the leader does not ‘own it’ then for all practical purposes nobody will.

Recently in a mission conference I heard a mission leader share his organisation's  vision passionately with current realities, needs, facts, diagrams and statistics. People were excited hearing him share and he cast a compelling vision on reaching and discipling millions of people. But later when he was speaking to the same audience on another subject he kind of inadvertently blurted out something that was totally contradictory to the vision he had shared earlier, he said something like, “I think I am not called to do personal evangelism and discipleship, my gifting is in something else.”  I could see people suddenly looking up and checking themselves to see if they heard him right, some had a smirk on their faces because the organisation that he was leading was all about doing exactly what he said he couldn’t do. What an irony of our times!! That moment I knew he had lost it, people didn’t take him seriously any longer, the vision he had shared had just gone down the sink hole. We cannot put on a passion display and cast the vision, we need to be genuinely convinced and burdened about it.

4.     Vision needs to result in action

As someone aptly said, “Vision that does not result in action is just a dream”. Nehemiah, once he sees the need and catches the vision to re-build the walls of Jerusalem, he immediately shifts gear and moves into high octane action. (Nehemiah chapter 2) He obtains permission from the king to go, he procures letters from him to the provincial governors and suppliers for transit, materials and supplies. Then he visits Jerusalem by night and takes stock of the extent of damage on the walls. Then he does the most important task of mobilising the people, challenging them to step out in faith and join him in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and the people respond in one voice “let us Arise and Build”.

Whether it is Nehemiah, Moses, King David or Apostle Paul we find them in the thick of action, they were so passionate about the vision that God had entrusted them with, that they led the people right from the front. Nehemiah completed the vision of rebuilding the wall in 52 days flat despite the vehement opposition, ridicule, mockery and threat from his opponents. In a period spanning close to 20 years from his first missionary journey probably in AD 48 to AD 67 when he is believed to have been martyred; Apostle Paul had impacted the then known Roman world so powerfully by the gospel that it had turned the world upside down, interestingly all this began from an obscure little town of Antioch.

This is the same principle that we see in the life of Jesus. He took up the task of fulfilling His fathers will so passionately that in all the four Gospels He is right at the fore-front of unfolding events, He initiates the action, He demonstrates and models and He culminates those events. As Robert Coleman says “People are looking for a demonstration, not an explanation.”  Great visionary leaders always lead their people from the front, they do not sit at the back in their air-conditioned rooms discussing strategies and war plans which are far removed from the field reality without ever stepping into the battle field. Again in the words of Robert Coleman, “we have not been called to hold the fort, but to storm the heights”.

If we listen to the stories from any of the mission leaders who were instrumental in launching great movements most of the time we find them right where the action was, it was that God given vision put through the furnace of faith and action that resulted in abundant fruits. The wise king Solomon said, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” and it is good to conclude by adding to that, “it will be always few people with genuine passion for their vision who will shake the world for God”.