I was talking with a pastor friend the other day. He is one of those who seems to be able to do just about anything. He started an orphange in Uganda and now is in my area (his home town) starting a church). He still goes to Uganda a couple of times a year.

To help support his church planting he operates a couple of businesses (I don’t think he has turned 40 yet).

Since I pastor a traditional UM church, my world and his are vastly different. However, he shared with me that he lost his Children’s director and Youth director because he asked them if they had vision for the area or were just doing it out of obligation. Of course, he said, they told him they wanted the meeting so they could resign from their positions.

At that point he said, “I have a lot of people willing to be helpers, as long as I’m the one giving them the vision.” Now I understand as pastors we do have responsibility for vision setting, but I tend to fall on the side that God can (and will) share his dreams with His people.

Churches need the helpers, but they also need those who are willing to step up and help make God’s dream a reality. If it is only the pastor with the dream or the vision, it is easy for the ‘helpers’ to one day decide they don’t want to help any more.

How do helpers become visionaries? Good question. My answer, so far, has been helping people be “open” to God’s will in their lives. Plans can be imitated, passion can not. Passion comes when people encounter a living God. People encounter that God when they make space in their lives for God. My quesiton is, how does one convince people to make space in their lives for God?