When I began to re-imagine this blog, I knew that my point of view would stem from my passion for seeing church plants and multisite campuses launch with clarity, helping to ensure a vision that goes beyond just the opening of doors. Launching is just the starting line, yet many church planters and campus pastors fail to cast or articulate the vision beyond getting services up and running. To look at their words, it wouldn’t seem so, but when you examine the actions and the energy, it is all about the launch. I believe and have seen that a healthy and God-ordained vision frame for ministry makes the difference beyond opening day, from churches and campuses just starting to those who have been around for hundreds of years.

All along I have struggled with the header image for this blog, what does launch clarity really look like?
I think I have found an image of what happens when there is not launch clarity…

My alma matter, Mississippi State, opened their football season last Saturday at home against the Jackson State Tigers. The band was all lined up, cheer leaders cheering, cowbells clattering, and then someone fired up the fog machine for the team to run onto the field.

Or fall onto the field.

Evidently the fog was so thick that they ran into each other and fell down – funny, yes… inspiring confidence, no.

Watch the video here.

It got me to thinking that sometimes, clarity is sacrificed for hype. Leaders get excited about the mission, start waving the flags, playing the music and hazing the worship center, and the players, the ones who need clarity the most, lose sight of the vision. When volunteers are crashing into each other, falling down, and unable to take the field, it is most often, not the absence of vision but the obscurity of vision. 

So the header image has changed for now. A simple reminder to keep the vision clear and the players focused. What about you, have there been moments in your ministry when the vision was eclipsed by the excitement?