Who’s job is it to dream about the church?
Pastors, obviously, need to dream about the church. We need to be captured by God’s “I have a dream” speech found sprinkled like cayenne pepper throughout scripture. We need to breathe it, eat it, sleep it, and be consumed by it. God has his eye on reaching the world. Discipling nations, not just people. He dreams of a day when his glory will cover the earth, when his church will rise up and live out her calling. Boo-ya!
Church leaders need to dream about the church, too. It’s not just the pastor’s job. God needs a team of unified leaders salivating over the kingdom potential being handed to them daily, weekly, yearly, by the King of Kings. Leaders need to stay up nights wrestling with how to be more effective, how to reach more people, more profoundly.
But what about “the average bear?” Many churchgoers don’t seem to live with a sense of vision—at least, not to a degree noticeable by pastors and leaders. But I think God wants all of us to dream about what he can accomplish through us as we trust and love him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. To ache over the lost. To agonize in prayer for them. To strategize about how to reach those within our sphere of influence. To commit to helping pastors and leaders succeed.
God has been challenging me to see the whole world, not just my usual slice of it.
I’ll be walking down the street, and see a man. “Him, too,” God whispers. “And her, and him, and them, and him and her and them.”
All of them. All of them are on his heart, all of them need him, all of them need me to get that.
All of them.
Because we’re going to reach the world.