What Keeps You Awake at Night?

For the past several years God has allowed me the unique privilege and opportunity to coach pastors and lay leaders across this great nation of ours, assisting them in articulating and pursuing the dreams and visions God has for their local church. Regardless of denominational background, I am finding church leaders to be restless in wanting to become more effective in reaching their communities with the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a growing dissatisfaction with the status quo, with being a church that is plateaued or in decline. They want to make a significant difference in people’s lives. Many who may read this post will resonate with this message. Whether you are a pastor, deacon, board member, or bored member, there is a disquieted spirit in your inner being. You are troubled at the decline in the effectiveness of your church. You struggle to make ends meet financially and there is a significant decline in expectancy within your congregation that it can make a sustainable difference in our society.

You know God has something better out there for your congregation. When you spend significant quality time in prayer and reflection, there are times when you dream and wonder…what if? What if we could do that? What if we started that outreach ministry? What if our people became truly excited and were genuinely interested in reaching unchurched people with the Good News? What if we modified our services to be more culturally relevant to the culture we find ourselves in? These types of musings begin to speak to God’s vision for your church. I am more convinced than ever that God plants these thoughts in our hearts and minds for a reason. He wants more than anything to reveal his desire to you for the future of your congregation.

In his highly regarded work, Advanced Strategic Planning in the Church,” Aubrey Malphurs describes the word picture that develops in the following way.

Vision: a clear, challenging picture of the future of the ministry as you believe that it can and must be. It contains six important elements.

It is clear
People will begin to embrace and act on information they can understand. It is clear to them.

It Is Challenging
The challenge that emanates from the vision is what excites people and gives birth to ministry action.

It Is a Picture
Vision is a seeing word that probes the imagination and creates visual images.


It is the Future of the Ministry
Vision pictures the end of the ministry at the beginning. It provides the all-important link between what has taken place, what is now taking place, and what we aspire to build in the future.

It Can Be
A good vision drips with potential. It involves something that is not yet but is possible

It Must Be
This vision goes beyond what can be. At some point, it grabs hold and will not let go. You become convinced that it must be. A critical sense of urgency begins to drive you. It may even keep you awake at night.

My challenge to you as a reader of this post is this – spend some quality time reflecting on what you have read here. As you do, consider sharing your thoughts on the following questions.

How would you describe the role of vision in your personal life and in the ministry of your congregation?

When you look into the future what do you see out there? How would you describe it? What is happening in the life of your congregation that may not be taking place now?

Has it become so strong in your spirit that it keeps you awake at night?

What are your next steps? What will you do that will move you closer to the dream?

This post is intended to be the start of an ongoing blog in which we will explore all aspects of change in the church. It is the beginning of a solid discussion and I would invite input to help mold the nature of that discussion. Come on in, the water is fine.