Every once in a while you find a paragraph that speaks to your soul and experience so powerfully and with such prophetic clarity that it injects a new energy and enthusiasm for life. The paragraph below from The Great Omission is one such paragraph for me because it speaks to the all too common uninspired efforts at ministry and service to God that desperately need an injection of authentic vision and God given energy.Willard before sharing the thoughts below writes, “There is a real point in saying that in religious matters, nothing fails like success.” (93) He notes the problems that come when an effort (ministry, organization, campaign) experiences blessing, dynamics are then set in motion that eventually lead to a human-sustained version of what was originally inspired.Here is Willard’s assessment on how task and goal driven orientation leads to uninspired ministry and leadership.
“What, then, is the general pattern? Intense devotion to God by the individual or group brings substantial outward success. Outward success brings a sense of accomplishment and a sense of responsibility for what has been achieved–and for further achievement. For onlookers the outward success is the whole thing. The sense of accomplishment and responsibility reorients vision away from God to what we are doing and are to do–usually to the applause and support of sympathetic people. The mission increasingly becomes the vision. It becomes what we are focused upon. The mission and ministry is what we spend our thoughts, feelings, and strength upon. Goals occupy the place of the vision of God in the inward life, and we find ourselves caught up in a visionless pursuit of various goals. Grinding it out.” –p. 95
This is a much needed critique for the Western world, but for sure the evangelical world and I would definitely include my ministry in that as well. If there’s anything that drives me crazy it’s the feeling that spiritual life and energies have to be submitted to structures and goals without sufficient room for God to renew vision and provide His wisdom and power for the demands at hand.I’m mindful of this frequently and I still fall into it at times and it annoys me to no end when I realize I’m just grinding it out for the mission and I’ve lost the vision behind it. It’s a struggle to stay connected to the true vision for what we are doing, especially when the spiritual meets the organizational.One warning – success can be used as a great justifier of God’s blessings. But the above thoughts remind us that it might be a good idea to examine whether we are experiencing a God-given success (spiritual fruit) or whether we are selling our souls (or the soul of the community) trying to maintain the same results that we’ve come to expect and that we’ve come to validate ourselves by.If you’re grinding it out…reflect on that excerpt above and feel free to share any thoughts you have on the tension between being vision driven or mission driven.
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