Visioneering By Andy Stanley: Faith

Chapter Five: Faith, the Essential Ingredient
Quotes:

"Faith is confidence that God is who he says he is and that he will do what he has promised to do."
"Embracing and owning a vision is in itself an act of faith."
"God-inspired visions ultimately lead back to God."
"Success often leads to self-sufficiency"
"When hopes become realities it is so easy to shift our faith onto the thing we have dreamed of and off of the One who was the source of our provision."

Evaluate Your Prayers
Stanley says, "I think it is safe to assume that most Christians are not attempting anything that requires God's intervention. If you want to know how you score on this issue, listen to your prayers and prayer requests. What do you pray for? What are the things you find yourself praying for night after night? Those are your passions. Those are the things that matter most to you. Other than heaven, and possibly your health, what are you consciously depending on God to do?"

Visioneering by Andy Stanley

Chapter Three: Positions Please!
Quotes:
- Just about every God-ordained vision appears to be impossible.
- God-ordained visions are always to big for us to handle.
- God is using your circumstances to position and prepare.
- If you are "seeking first" his kingdom where you are, then where you are is where he has positioned you.
- Success is remaining faithful to the process God has laid out for you.
- You are as successful now as you will be the day you see your vision materialize.
- To focus on what's around you diminishes your ability to focus on what's before you.
- Waiting time is not wasted time for anyone in whose heart God has placed a vision.

QUESTIONS:
1. What does remaining faithful in your current situation entail?
For me, it is doing with excellence what is before me.

2.What is the main thing about your current situation that makes it difficult for you to believe God is preparing you for his vision?
- it takes a lot of time and energy
- people do not share the same passion

Would you be willing to pause and express your faith in God's ability to use your present circumstances to position you for the fulfillment of his vision for your life?

Visioneering by Andy Stanley

Chapter Two: Praying and Planning
Quotes from book
* We see often what we are looking for, we often miss what we don't expect to see.
* Prayer sensitizes us to subtle changes in the landscape of our circumstances.
* Pray for opportunities.
* Dreamers dream about things being different. Visionaries envision themselves making a difference.
* Dreamers think about how nice it would be for something to be done. Visionaries look for an opportunity to do something.
* Pray for favor.
* Focus your prayers on what you know needs to happen in order to get your vision off the launching pad.
* Plan as if you knew someone were going to come along and give you an opportunity to pursue your vision.
* Opportunity apart from preparation results in missed opportunity.
* Why should God bring an opportunity your way if you are not in a position to take advantage of it?
* If you were God, to whom would you give opportunities? Wishful thinkers, Dreamers, or Planners?
* Vision usually precedes just about everything necessary to bring it into the sphere of reality.


Questions
1. What opportunities do you need to be praying for?
- relationships w/ M.
- open doors into M.E.
- connections with persons of influence

2. Who are the people who could help you accomplish your vision?
(I have a list of people/organizations)

3. What changes would need to take place in their thinking in order for them to support your effort?
- realize the need/opportunity
- more support
- vision to reach out
- clarity of call
- become followers of Jesus

4. Write a simple plan
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4

(working on this)

5. What can you do now?
(pray and plan)

Burden turned Vision

Starting this week the staff is going through Andy Stanley's book "Visioneering." We are not doing it so much for the sake of developing a clear, articulate vision for the church but that the individuals leading the church may be able to understand their own vision or lack of vision. Stanley says visions are multifaceted. My goal is that the staff come to discover God's vision for their life as it relates to children, spouse, fiance, and ministry. I want to use this blog as a way to redefine the visions of my life. I would love to hear from you as you think through these categories as well.

Project # 1 (from Visioneering)
1. You have multiple visions for your life. Some are clearer than others. To begin clarifying what you believe your future should hold, write a one-sentence summary of how you believe life ought to be in the following areas.
* Career (Church): I believe the church structure should serve to help people discover the passionate life that Jesus came to give us.
* Finances: I want to be completely debt free and able to serve God in financial freedom.
* Spouse: I want to love my wife with a passion that grows deeper over time.
* Children: I want my children to have a joy about life that radiates in whatever they do.

2. Visions are born in the soul of a man or woman who is gripped by a tension between what is and what should be. Are you gripped by a particular tension? If so, take a minute to describe your dilemma
* What's bother you? I am bothered by the fact that a particular people group (those that know me know what I am talking about) are not being engaged with the Gospel.

* What is the solution? The solution is intentional engagement through incarnational living among this particular group.

* What should be? The unengaged group should be discovering the life found in Jesus.

3. Have any burdens begun to feel like a moral imperative?
It is imperative to share the Gospel if we are convinced that the gospel is Good News. We cannot allow fear and ignorance to limit the stretch of the Gospel.

4. Do you see a connection between your vision and what God is up to in this world?
God wants all people to come to know Him. He is raising up people now to extend the Gospel into this area of the world. We just need more creativity and the ability to think outside the traditional missional way.

Share your thoughts here or on FB.

Jamey

Today

Here is my struggle: one of my strengths is being a futurist. I think about the future. I envision the future. I cast visions for others to see their future. This also happens to be my weakness. I think so much about what is coming next that I forget to live in the moment. I am so caught up in the next big thing that I lose touch with reality. Always thinking about what is next that I forget to live in the moment.
What keeps you focused? How do you live day by day? How do you live in the tension of having a vision and yet still take it day by day?

Still Believing,

jamey