Friday, May 29, 2009

Dreamers

a Biblical thought...
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)

a Book thought...
Herbert complained that, while holding a position of immense responsibility, in matters of vital importance he was stripped of authority by the dominance of Bramwell. (p117)
a Dave thought...
Being a visionary often makes life busy as you are always trying to pull off a new idea, for some reason God often inspires visionaries and when you see a vision actually turn into reality it is a rewarding place to be. How is it that so many ideas never come to pass, and how come some people seem to make things happen and others just dream?

I believe there are three levels of dreamers:
a. Reactive Dreamers - people who dream
b. Attractive Dreamers - people who dream and attract others
c. Active Dreamers - people who dream, attract others and then make it happen

All of these three levels are important in our movement, but we seem to lack active dreamers. I've been observing lately and I often think it is because many of our leaders are officers and as we are moved on after 2-5 years sometimes we don't get to see our dreams become a reality, so we often never get to see our officers as active. I believe this is true in some cases but also believe unless we encourage, equip, and resource our active dreamers sadly we will continue our current decline.

Just a thought.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are many Officers that are Dreamers and who fit into the categories that you mention. I believe that the 'people' of our Church community should have ownership of the 'dream' or the God-given vision before it is put into action, it should not just be 'Officer-controlled' a one person team vision/dream! If we sow the seed first and allow people to 'get on board', passionate, enthusiastic and actively participate in the task then it should not always matter if the Officer moves (yes, it is frustrating and slows things down), but it should not be the Officer's Dream... but the 'Communities Dream' and they will keep the dream growing and developing with passion.

Officers need to start allowing their people to be involved, giving out responsibilities and even putting them in charge so that the dream can be realised even with their existance in that place. Maybe there are some Officers (who would never admit this) who like to be known as the 'Active Dreamers' and being in the spotlight when things happen for them... I mean their Church.

Much of what I say is common sense and does happen in many cases... but there are places unfortunately that when people move the place/dream/vision starts to crumble piece by piece. Why is this? We blame the new Officer, not the old one who didn't allow his people to have ownership of the dream in the first place.

Maybe I am wrong?

Kylie

Tim said...

Good points Dave & Kylie. I think we will continue to decline unless we invest more resources in new corps, congregations & emerging forms of church. Surely this will mean taking resources away from traditional forms of church.