What if it's too late to ask forgiveness?

When I was a young boy, I had a babysitter in the little town of Santa Rosa, California.  I stayed there most of the day after school till my mom arrived to take me home.  There were other children there as well.  One day one of the boys took me out to the front yard to show me something.  He pointed to a boy on a bicycle across the street.  He whispered to me, "that kid's blind!"  I didn't believe him, because he was riding (or at least sitting on) a bike.  Then my friend said, "I'll prove it!"

Then he took a rock and threw it near the boy, and the boy's head jerked towards the noise.  But it was clear he could not see us from across the street.  While probably not completely blind, he was definitely legally blind.  Then my friend egged me on, "throw a rock, and see for yourself!"   I hesitated because it didn't seem right or kind, but finally I did it.  Who would know?  I threw the rock and saw the boy's head jerk around.  It looked funny.  He couldn't see me, so it seemed "safe."  Then my friend and I proceeded to throw more rocks near the boy, his head jerking back and forth, fear welling up in his eyes.

When the little boy realized what was happening, probably because we were laughing across the street, he called out plaintively, "Stop it!  You aren't being very nice to a blind boy!"  But we didn't stop.  We were young and thoughtless and being incredibly cruel.  Then, suddenly, I felt a vice grip on my shoulder and the husband of my babysitter twisted me around and said sternly, "What do you think you're doing?  That's just mean!"

And all of a sudden, I knew it.  I had never felt good about doing this cruel thing, but the desire to have fun and get away with something wrong was stronger than my young conscience.  He lectured us both sternly and made us apologize, but the worst punishment was the conviction of my conscience.  I probably did a lot of bad things as a kid, but I remember this 50 years later.

It was a cruel, heartless, mean thing to do.  I was one of those people who had scarred him for life, ruined his trust in people.  I wish  now that I could go back and really apologize for what I did, but it's too late.  I never saw the boy again, we moved away.  I never even knew his name.  But as a Christian I realize that every sin I commit is first of all a sin against God.  God told me I was to love my neighbor as myself, and I had broken His law by doing what I did.  My youth was no excuse, I knew full well what I was doing was wrong.

There are some sins it is too late to apologize and receive forgiveness for from people, but since all sins are sins against God, it is never too late to find forgiveness from the One we have truly sinned against.  And Jesus is the friend of sinners.  Even sinners like me.

Is Visionary Leadership all its cracked up to be?

It is almost like a knee reflex for pastors, we must have and be able to constantly articulate a "vision" for our church and our ministry.  If we don't, something is wrong with us (or we're just ignorant, uneducated, or backwards).  I've always identified a bit with George Bush Sr. when he was campaigning for a second term as President and was questioned about what his vision for America was.  He said he wasn't sure he really understood "this vision thing."  He came off looking bad and without any plan for the future, but I, for one, empathized.  I can't help wondering if this "vision" thing is often more of a curse than a blessing, more like handcuffs than a road map.

The idea is that the pastor (or leader) is supposed to have this divine compass that knows precisely what direction the church should go in to fulfill its calling.  How we're supposed to have come by this ability is beyond me.  I echo the feeling of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who warned in Life Together that "God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious.  The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself.  He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly...He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together.  When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure.  When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash.  So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself."

I speak from experience as the church I am now pastoring had languished for a number of years with no pastor before I showed up.  I teamed up with a guy with 20+ years of successful pastoral experience, and I had the same.  We had a vision of what the church should be.  We communicated that vision many different ways in different settings.  The church bought our vision and dove in.  Then it all tanked.  Nothing worked.  No one was being brought to Christ, disunity was ripe, confusion was rampant and despair was palpable.  I was tempted to put the blame on the stubborn people who were in the church, or the leaders I had inherited, or that God Himself was just through with this church, and finally, that I was just an unmitigated failure, thus fulfilling Bonhoeffer's words, "first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself."

I guess I'm not really against visionary leadership, only finding that vision within ourselves.  After all our failures, our little church went back to the basics: what is a church, and what are we here for?  About 5 years later we are averaging over 10% conversion rates in all ages, children, youth, and adult.  We are beginning cutting edge ministries in our little hamlet that reach out to our urban barrio.  The church has grown, unity has replaced disunity, and we are really enjoying ministry and fellowship.

We found our vision: Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.  It wasn't original with us, but we decided that piggy-backing on that vision was a pretty safe way to go.  When we did that, doors opened up that have never closed.  We dared to assume that as Jesus said, "the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few."  So we began seeking ways to reach the people we believed God was already leading to Himself.  Those cutting edge things we tried came about not from me being a "visionary" but from all of us adopting the heart and mission of Jesus.  Our mission statement is predictably simple: to help people find their way back to God.  It is also responsible for dozens of new lives in Christ, and a new passion for a once old dying church.

My advice to those struggling with finding their "vision?"  Chuck it.  Chuck the whole idea of it.  When you start doing what Jesus is doing, He will show you myriads of ways to reach people.  When you sit and try to pontificate a "vision" you will only get a bad case of balloonius headius.