Team is hard. It forces you to recognize your limits and to humble yourself as you let others shine. It allows you to live in your strengths without being drained by areas of weakness. It forces all of us to sacrifice for the sake of others – but if we are drawn by the mission that God has laid out in front of us, we will not focus on what we are sacrificing but on what we are able to accomplish together.

Tim Lundy, Pastor, Fellowship Bible Church

this past sunday was vision morning at fellowship. most fellowship-ites will tell you that we have no shortage of vision-oriented mornings (“vision leaks” as some leaders say), but none is more expected than this morning of every year. typically, the message is overrun by talk of all the “stuff” our church is doing. it’s a “state of the church” of sorts—programs, staffing, objectives, financial updates, etc. very exciting (cough). however, it’s obvious that Tim Lundy (directional leader) felt no need to go there this year. the result was one of the most compelling vision messages i’ve heard in my four years at fellowship bible church.

here’s what made this year’s vision morning stand out:

-Tim confessed a course correction upfront. for over a year the church leadership was pushing a mission statement that wasn’t catching. so rather than continue on as many churches or organizations might do, they stepped back and admitted “this isn’t working.” as Tim said, “vision should pull you forward,” not the other way around. that type of humility in leadership opened people’s ears again.

-the new vision calls us forward while taking us back to the essentials. it’s made up of memorable, familiar phrases, and incorporates where we’ve been as a church with where we want to go.

-it combines the vision of the church with the vision of the individual. said TL, “the two greatest days of your life: the day you are born, and the day you find out why you were born.” church staff don’t do the ministry—our ministry is to help others find their ministry and do it.

-there was already a buzz before the day that changed people’s expectations. (Tim had been explaining/testing the new vision to staff and leaders weeks ahead of time).

-it was fearless. Tim called our church out for giving in to a spirit of consumerism and criticism, as well as staying leashed to fear and comfort.

-the vision is big — change-the-world-big.

-Tim actually got away with saying “yo dog, get off the leash!” –– i was floored. needless to say, there was an honest and energetic recklessness to Tim’s exhortation on sunday morning. he actually believes in this vision.

-i got a bookmark, and i may actually use it.

today allison and i tried something. we each tried going 24 hours without saying anything negative. the reason was this convicting statement from tim’s sermon yesterday (which is about to be here. the exact quote was something like this — i didn’t have a pen to get it down exactly, but you’ll get the gist):

if you can’t go 24 hours without a cigarette, you’re addicted to nicotine.
if you can’t go 24 hours without a drink, you’re addicted to alcohol.
if you can’t go 24 hours without talking about people, you’re addicted to gossip.

replace “gossip” with any number of things that i spend words on during my day: being cynical. being critical. being negative. cracking jokes i don’t need to crack. bragging. eager to point out the bad in things. eager to talk about other people…

24 hours is tough. 24 hours is enough time to expose a lot of things. it’s not easy to watch your mouth for that long, it’s actually tiresome. but we both made it (it helps when you close your office door for most of the day).

give it a try, and see how often you find yourself about to say something that you wonder if really need to say. tell me i’m not alone here. (and then let’s change together).