It’s that serious, friends.

Casting true and compelling vision is a primary duty of those who are called to leadership in the church. Jesus clearly demonstrated as much by His constant teaching and preaching about the Kingdom of God. But casting vision involves a process, a process involving certain components and objectives if that vision is to accomplish its work.

Vision that moves God’s people to great and sacrificial works, that fills them with joy in the prospect and satisfaction in the doing, such vision comes from the Lord. It is revealed in His Word. Only God is sufficiently big, wise, and powerful to project a vision that can take us beyond ourselves into fuller and more abundant life in the Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit.

God gives the Word of vision to church leaders; their duty is to receive and understand that vision, and to proclaim it and enlist others in proclaiming it, until all God’s people understand and own the vision and are pursuing it daily in everything they do.

Vision for the Church

Thus, church leaders must learn to cast vision. They could do no better than to reflect on David’s work in this important calling.

Like David, they must discover God’s vision in His Word, not in their own ideas about this, that, or the other. They must search the Scriptures together, prayerfully waiting on the Lord to make clear His vision for their church.

As visionary leaders begin to develop God’s vision for their church, they must remember and return to God’s works from the past, so that the work they propose for their congregation can be seen to be clearly in line with what God has done for His people in previous generations.

They must embrace large goals – goals that are befitting the God they serve, His greatness, majesty, power, beauty, holiness, justice, enormity, and love. They must make those goals visible to the imaginations of God’s people and desirable to their hearts. They should search the Scriptures for God’s vision for His Church and, bringing those ideas down to their own locality, spell them out in images, ideas, slogans, icons, and the like that will lead the people they serve to understand and embrace those goals.

Visionary leaders must show how all the gifts of all God’s people contribute to the vision they are casting. Realizing a great vision, one that is befitting for and will exalt and glorify God, requires the gifts and time and treasure and talents of all God’s people. It is the duty of visionary leaders to show every member of the Body of Christ where he may use his gifts, whether many or few, great or large, in realizing the Lord’s vision for His Church.

This above all

Above all, visionary church leaders must work hard at casting the Biblical vision of God – of our Lord Jesus Christ, exalted in glory, building His Church, overpowering His foes, preparing a place for us, riding forth daily conquering and to conquer, and coming again in glory to take us to Himself.

God is working to transform His people into the image of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3.12-18). When at last we see Him in glory, we will be like Him (1 Jn. 3.2, 3). His Church is His Body, and is also being shaped and built to refract His resurrection life into the world. We cannot aspire to be like Jesus, whether as individuals or a community of believers, unless visionary leaders take us into His presence in worship and teach us to see, with the eye of faith, all the beauty and wonder and glory and majesty and brilliance and power of our risen and reigning Lord and King.

Without vision there is no leadership, nowhere to go, nothing to aspire to, noting to achieve. Without visionary leadership, like David, the visions we do pursue – and people are always in pursuit of some vision – will most likely emerge from our needs and wants, or our own best ideas about the church, leaving us in pursuit of the love of ourselves rather than of God and our neighbors.

Visionary, Kingdom-focused leaders are the great need of the churches in our day. Pray, friends, that God will raise up many visionary leaders who can take us more deeply into His Word and Kingdom than ever we have gone before.

Next steps

Download the PDF of this series on visionary leaders. Give a copy to each leader in your church. Ask them to read it, and tell them you’ll get back with them to see how they respond.

Additional Resources

Download this week’s study, Visionary Leadership.

Sign up for ViewPoint Leaders Training and start your own ViewPoint discussion group.

Need vision for a revived church? Order a copy of T. M.’s book, Preparing Your Church for Revival, from our online store.

And men, download our free brief paper, “Men of the Church: A Solemn Warning,” by clicking here.

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.