When E and I started High Point it was a long process involving many different stages and culminating in a Grand Opening to the public. We set a date. We prepared like crazy. We made a week by week month by month plan of how we were going to be ready to open the doors with success on January 29th 2006. We accomplished that vision.
As I was preparing for the church plant I was praying about my uncertainties involved in the plant... will I be able to pastor these people, will anyone show up, Am I spiritual enough, am I practical enough, will the theatre work, will there be enough money to personally make it, will there be enough money to professionally make it, can I preach that many times in a row?… I was praying and thinking and reading the word and I came across… Isaiah 54 there is so much to this chapter for me. It felt like God was saying… “I know you have never done this before but I will make you a success.” -cool!
This is the passage that I really got excited about.
2 "Enlarge the place of your tent,
stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes.
3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
your descendants will dispossess nations
and settle in their desolate cities.
Come On! Lets think big…
I got excited because I knew that the local church is the hope of the world. That if we are growing and doing church in a way that truly helped people... FIND THEIR FAITH- DISCOVER THEIR FAITH- LIVE THEIR POTENTIAL… then we would be building strong believers in Christ. We would be going into this world and reaching those who do not know him. We would be seeing addicts set free, marriages restored, parents empowered, people given purpose. Sounds good doesn't it?
The vision I have in my head of high point is a massive one. Church plants, multiple campuses, multiple services, hundreds of connections groups throughout the twin cities and beyond, theaters filled, missionaries sent out, lives changed on a grand scale. Can I tell you something a little embarrassing? I thought that God would have already given me that vision. I know it is silly now but for a while I found myself ultimately dissatisfied by how “slow” our growth was. REALITY CHECK! We are not growing slow! We are growing steady and consistent. I had to come to a realization. That is my META God vision. It is my life long goal. Looking through the pages of scripture you see lots of people having META vision and few realizing them ultimately. Often they lay the ground work for the next person to come along and build on the foundation.
The moment I figured this out the moment I could grab the binoculars and ask God what he had for me and High Point in the not so distant future. The MICRO vision. That gets pretty exciting. This vision is attainable! It is not that far away. It is what you and I and High Point will be around the corner.
The MICRO vision for High Point is about creating pathways to God in a more systematic way. It is about Organizing to make what we do simpler, more effective, and scalable. It is as if we spent the last 2.5 years putting in the footings that now we are going to build the pretty arches on so that some day down the line this bridge to my META vision can be built. The pastoral team and the leaders of the church are beginning to regroup, unite, and push forward with renewed focus and clarity as to where we are going.
Let me be clear about this next few stages. God has entrusted us with talents that are powerful and wonderful and he expects us to multiply them. So we at High Point are going to empower people. We are going to reach into this city and pull people aboard the boat and do what it takes organizationally to help them not jump back in the water. We are like the Coast guard… In order to be more effective at rescuing people we are going to have to train harder and get better at how and what we do. We are in the life saving business and the more resource we have the better tools We can get to reach people. The bigger boat we have the more workers are available to reach over the side and pull the drowning in.
My vision is sharp and I can see us being a powerful force in this community and making a big impact in the short term. Pray for this as we go into this world to seek and save that which is lost.
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