#7 – I did not have a clearly defined vision before we started the church

I know this sounds insane, but it’s totally true. If you were to have asked me how Calvary Fellowship was going to reach people 2 months before we started, I would have said something spiritual sounding like, “I am going to teach the Bible” or “I am going to let the Spirit lead.” That’s not spiritual, that’s called ignorance and lack of preparation. What this lack of vision did was cause me a lot of headaches. Why? Because when you don’t have the course laid out and you as the leader are not sounding the gong and leading the way, then everyone decides on their own what the vision is and they start leading their own way. This sounds great until you figure out what God wants you to do and have to get everyone on the same page. Let me give you the refrain to this verse: pain! If you haven’t experienced this “joy”, let me save you the trouble: it’s really hard. It’s takes a lot of time and once you get God’s vision, you don’t want to waste any more time. So you run ahead of everyone and it causes major problems in the church. So the solution is to know the vision before you start walking a path. It may take a little longer to get started, but you won’t waste time on the back-end making U-turns.