My Vision is to Have No Vision

I went to another Vineyard leaders meeting this last weekend. I love the people. That’s the only reason I go, to be honest. I get so tired of the ceaseless talk about vision, vision forming, vision casting, vision keeping, blah blah blah. I am against vision. Call me an idiot! I don’t care. I told everyone in my small group, after all the talk about vision, that I personally resist vision with as much passion as those who believe in it. I get the usual quote: “Without a vision, the people perish.” I don’t believe it. Today, people perish with vision. Besides, the original language of that passage (Proverbs 29: 18) doesn’t mean “vision” as in a corporate long-term goal. It means “revelation”. In other words, without hearing from God, the people perish. It is truth we need. Not another vision, PLEASE!

I’ve created and tried to sustain vision in the past, as well as press its importance on the church. And I’ve seen those visions crush people and myself, especially when the vision is destroyed and proven empty. Friends say, “Well, then get a better vision!” No! I learned my lesson right away: vision kills. I refuse to try to create vision or vision cast or get the community to shape one and pursue it. Why? Because it kills what is. It murders life.

When asked what our vision is as a church, I said we don’t have one and will not have one. We simply get together to worship, fellowship, gather around the bible, help those who need it. That’s it. “Well then that’s your vision!” Don’t try to squeeze me into your box just so you will be comfortable with me! I don’t have a vision. Our community doesn’t have a vision. We don’t have a mission statement. As a father of a family, I don’t have any vision other than that we love one another. I don’t set any long term goals as a father of my children or as a husband of my wife. Simply love. To set goals for my family is demonic.

I know this sounds brutal to some, but brutality against bondage to anything, even vision, is necessary today. Vision is used to escape the present and to destroy what is. I won’t have it. I’ve tasted and seen that it is bad. My goal is to have no goal. My vision is visionless. I be. We be. That’s it.

The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Mark Hemmings, and is taken from is Hungary photo collection.