our vision

“Your life is like a coin, you can spend it any way
    you wish, but you can spend it only once.”

Dear Christian, 

I would like to tell a story. I hope to in a small way, capture some of the spirit and thinking that guided us in our very first years as a movement.
Let me get right to it.

A poet named Flora Smith has written the following;
 
  “I know not the way,” despairing I cried.
  “I am the Way,” Jesus kindly replied.
  “I’m searching for the truth,” was my heart’s plaintive cry.
  “I am the Truth,” was His gentle reply.
  “I’m longing for life. Oh where can it be?”
  “I am the Life. Thou shalt find it in Me!”

I found Life in Him - and in Him, the Way and the Truth - many, many years ago. While in college my wife and I accepted Christ as our personal Savior. This is the when and the where of how we became Christians.

If you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, then you also have a starting point in your own personal, spiritual journey. There is a when and
a where, to the beginning of your walk of faith.

And in just a little while – a short time in light of eternity - I will die and be with Him. This is also true for every one of us who name Christ as our Redeemer. If you know and believe that He died for your sins, then you know what your future is, after this mortal life.  Our future will eventually be one of unbroken fellowship with the King and Guardian of our souls.

But what is God’s plan for our lives in the here and now? What is God’s intended future for each of us, while we walk this world?

I would like to talk about this present future that we each possess. 

I do not know all the specific details, but I do know what God’s general, all-inclusive, plan is for each and every born-again, Christian.

And it starts with the simple truth that we are owned by Another.  God has redeemed us. This means that He has bought us, bought us out of this sinful world for a very clear and practical purpose. His purpose is relevant to all that we are facing in life.

I would like to spell out this purpose and talk about our shared future as believers. But to do so, I have to go back and pick up a different story - one more time.

When your pastors and church leaders and other like-minded believers were a lot younger, (twenty-five years ago); they and I shared a common, life-changing, transformation.

In the early seventies a number of us came to know Christ at about the same time. Many of us lived in the same town, went to the same college, and in very similar way we all experienced a spiritual, brand-spanking-new, awakening.

What is most clearly remembered and held on to by all of us, is that “God spoke to us!  He marked our souls!” He was very real to each of us. He not only gripped our lives with zeal for Him, but He also remade our hearts. We were caught, in a once-in-a-lifetime, kind of way, in a way that turned our lives upside down. It was a truly awesome season in our lives. 

I have no doubt that His hand was on us. And as a result of His touch, we would never be the same again.

“I have found something to believe in - Jesus Christ.  I have found something to belong to - the church.  I have found something to witness for - God’s approaching kingdom.”   - anonymous

He first sought and found us. We then found His true purpose for living.

And His purpose was clear. We would drop all of our individual, little dreams and embrace His dream. And we would make life choices that reflected this shared dream. We would stand and show our commitment to God’s purpose for our life.

And we chose to stay together in this purpose that God had given us. We decided to place His gospel message as our first goal in living. Since we knew we were going to heaven, we decided that this central mission of being involved in sharing the gospel - would be the central column around which we would order every decision we would ever face. We chose to do all this together, as a company of men and women organized within His Church.

You may be wondering where I am going with this and why?
Let me tell you.

You are either a member of your local church or interested in joining it and becoming a part of this spiritual family.  You may wonder what your church’s vision is. 

If you have been involved in serving in our churches for many years; you may have wondered if our church still holds to the vision we were given long ago.  We still hold to the vision!  And I want to try to share it again in this way, in this letter, to refresh and instruct each of us in our heart and soul.)

So we chose to follow Him as young believers, over twenty-five years ago. And we chose to follow Him together. This shared aspect to our vision was the key and the dividing line in our collective, spiritual journey. We saw that His message of forgiveness and new life was entrusted to each of us. But each of us also saw that our Lord wanted us to carry out this preaching of the gospel message through a company of men and women, united together as a church.

A man once said that,  “Your life is like a coin, you can spend it any way you wish, but you can spend it only once.”

We decided to spend it, (our lives), for the advancement of our Lord’s kingdom on this earth and the spread of His gospel. And we knew that His method to get out this gospel message, was through the local church. So we pledged our lives to preach and build His kingdom together.

“The Savior is not looking for men and women who will give their spare evenings to Him - or their years of retirement.  Rather, He seeks those who will give Him first place in their lives.”      
                         - William McDonald, (author of True Discipleship)

As we attempted to model what this together would look like, we never thought to look at other churches for guidance. We looked instead at just one pattern. The example of what God thought a church should look like - that pattern as found in the New Testament, described in the book of Acts. There the church is put forth and defined as God intended it to be. What we read was exciting.

This is what we saw.  God intends for each of us to be active, impact players in His church. God intends for every one of us to be workers and soldiers in His church. And He designed the church to be a very straightforward, easy-to-understand, living thing. 

Those first century Christians came together in the church to accomplish just a few simple, but crucial things.  They first met to build up each other’s faith. And so we met and purposed to build up each other through teaching, prayer, worship and the genuine sharing of our lives.  We discovered that this is what real fellowship is all about.

We became devoted - actually we became addicted - to the church and how God could use each of us, working as a team, to impact our world.

What was happening was a sort of revival. God’s purpose for our lives and our shared response to His purpose - these things began to grip us and proved to be a continual refreshment to our spirit. We experienced then and now a sort of revival in just being involved in our Master’s business.  And it began to impact others in life-changing ways.  The Gospel spread.

I read the other day, concerning revivals, that, “In any awakening or revival, the first person to wake up is the Devil.”  So too he took note of what we were doing. Persecution became very real. But we did not really worry about it, because we knew in Whom we believed and we knew that we could entrust our lives and future and reputation to Him. God delivered us. And He is delivering us still.

When you walk through battles together, God unites hearts. He united our hearts in a special way. The Lord used our persecutions and our shared trials to fiercely unite us.  Not only within each of our churches, but between our different churches, between our fellowships scattered now across many states.

“Following the Lord and doing His will, will link you heart to heart and shoulder to shoulder with the highest quality of men and women upon the face of the earth.”
                                 - Jim McCotter, (one of our early church pastors)

As leaders were raised up from within our churches – we spread out to other towns and continued with our New Testament, Great Commission Vision, of winning the lost to Christ and then building each one up in the faith, within the local churches, which we were planting.  Our leaders remained united and loyal across regions and across our whole country.

God has led us. Through Him we have done valiantly. There are thousands of stories of faith and love and sacrifice that could be told. Many may already have been forgotten. We probably should have written more of them down.

But there is One who has promised that He never forgets.

George Whitefield, the Billy Graham of the late 1700’s, had one simple prayer. He often requested, “God give me a deep humility, a well-guided zeal, a burning love and a single eye - and then let men or devils do their worst.”

God has answered this our prayer and has given our churches some good measure of zeal, love and clear purpose. And He has helped us throughout these many years.

Our vision remains hot from God. We believe that He wants to energize, equip and use every believer to communicate the gospel to this, our generation.

We believe that His vehicle to accomplish it, is the local church. The church is a living, growing thing. We believe that the church, His church, is sufficient to accomplish the task of reaching the world. And we believe that the New Testament church will remain as God’s primary vehicle by which He will speak the gospel to this world.

So we invite every person, ask every man and woman, admonish and teach every believer - to give their heart to this purpose, this vision.

This is where we are going. This is not just our history.  This is also our future!

Often as believers, we are so caught up in our everyday life that we forget where and how He has led us. How He has safely brought us this far. We then may forget just where we are going. We can almost lose our perspective.

This is one reason why I am writing this history of our heart.  

My desire is to help us in this battle and to help us stay focused.

In the next five years, and beyond, until we run out of time on this earth, we will remain steady in our resolve to win souls to Christ and to do this through our local fellowships.

We will remain united in this shared “Cause” across this region. We will not doubt the vision, even if it takes longer than we initially expected.

In Habakkuk, chapter 2, the Lord writes,

“Record the vision. And inscribe it on tablets, That the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time;  It hastens toward the goal, and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it;

                              
               For it will certainly come...

In the New Living Translation, it goes like this,

"Then the LORD said to me, "Write my answer in large, clear letters on a tablet, so that a runner can read it and tell everyone else. But these things I plan won't happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.”

God is doing it. He is accomplishing this vision.

He started this association of churches in a simple, precious way. And the way He did it was by writing this vision on men’s hearts. I was there. I know this to be true.

He wrote this vision in your pastor’s heart and in many other heroic men and women’s hearts, right there in your church. I was there when He did it. I know this also was true and remains true today.

Your leadership has never ceased to believe in the vision. In good times and in bad. In good report or evil report. Throughout our trials.

We share this same vision today. The fire burns in Grand Forks and in the Twin Cities. It burns in Eau Claire and Dubuque. In Chicago, in Cedar Rapids, Ames and Des Moines the vision is still real. It is alive in Omaha. The vision burns bright in Lincoln, Fort Collins, Greeley and Loveland and Boulder. It burns in Northglenn and Thornton. And it burns in Aurora and Parker.  In Salt Lake City and in Seattle.

You are involved in a great thing - His church.

Our Lord Himself has led us together from glory to glory. Don’t ever forget it.

If you are a long-time laborer - press on!  Be stouthearted!  Do not faint or grow weary in well-doing, for in due time you shall reap.

If you are a seeker, if you want great purpose for your life - Join us!

Let me repeat again what one of our first leader’s once said, “Following the Lord and doing His will, will link you heart to heart and shoulder to shoulder with the highest quality of men and women upon the face of the earth.”

I would challenge you again, speaking for every small group leader, every ministry leader, every deacon and every pastor - Join us!   You won’t regret it.

Don’t miss the chance to spend your life in a noble enterprise.

Remember, your life is like a coin. But you can spend it only once. 

Keep pressing,

Rick Whitney, regional pastor

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