It can be so easy in church world to forget why we do what we do. We can lose the holiness, the awe, and the wonder of serving God as we get caught up the day to day stuff of church. As a lead Pastor, I tend to get most of the mail that says how much people loved a sermon or the church. I also get to be the recipient of hearing what God is doing in the lives of those who are attending our services and getting involved in ministry and small groups.

I decided recently that I wasn’t going to keep these things to myself any longer. Because I know the effect that these emails or letters have on me, I’ve decided to be intentional about sharing them with our staff and volunteers (without revealing anything confidential, of course). The reason: It keeps us from forgetting why we do what we do. It has always been, and will always be about God changing people’s lives. Sometimes we can lose sight of that. But when we continually hear the stories, we’ll never forget. And these stories are the greatest vision tools that we have because they are the vision in action.