Mennonite Church USA

Some of us are tired of all the vision talk in our congregations or the larger church. Others are interested but speak about vision in hushed tones, as though it’s a special gift reserved only for leaders and assorted charismatics. The truth is most of us take vision for granted. Vision is simply how we see things. We don’t realize the value of vision until we can’t see things any more.

For the Christian, vision is “seeing things as God sees them.” I remember the moment I realized I needed glasses. I was 16 and watching a basketball game. Fooling around, I asked a friend if I could look through his glasses. To my amazement the crowd on the other side of the court suddenly became distinct and clear. I had no idea until that moment that I had deficient vision. Many of us don’t know what we are missing, what we are not seeing. In the church we may be better off doing more fooling around and try on someone else’s glasses.

Saul was struck blind on the Damascus road as a dramatic demonstration of his need to see things in a new way. He not only gained a new name out of the trauma, but his mission was also dramatically reversed. We thank God for Saul’s recognition of his blindness so he could adopt God’s vision through his own eyes. But few of us have dramatic stories of a change of vision like this story.

Years ago, we debated for many months where we should install mail boxes in the church building. Finally a member of our committee, who almost never spoke, suggested a location in the foyer that the rest of us had not been able to perceive. Once he explained it, it became obvious. He had vision the rest of us lacked. Most of us receive new vision in small doses, mostly in small things and often from watching each other—all of which add up to making a big difference in congregations and hence in our churchwide witness.

Most of the time we don’t get to see brand new things or dramatic new ministries. Transformation happens when we are able to see old things in new ways—full of new possibilities. Vision is transforming when we adopt a new view of ourselves. Things change for the better when we can see that annoying person sitting down the pew or our neighbor in a new way.

When I was a young preacher more than 30 years ago, our preschool daughter always sat in the back bench with her mother. In the middle of my pastoral prayer I noted some hilarity coming from that back bench. Someone later explained that I had said in my prayer, “Open our eyes that we may see.” My 3-year-old daughter had exclaimed in a loud voice, “Mommy, I opened my eyes and now I can see.” Didn’t Jesus often ask, “Do you have eyes to see?” Jesus was concerned about his followers’ vision of the kingdom of God.

How does God see me? Or my neighbor? Or Osama Bin Laden? Or people in that other political party? Or people in that other congregation or another part of Mennonite Church USA? Do we ask what God sees before we decide how we will see, so our vision represents healing and hope to the world around us?

This is how we choose to see things in Mennonite Church USA: God calls us to be followers of Jesus Christ and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to grow as communities of grace, joy and peace, so that God’s healing and hope flow through us to the world.

Is God giving you or your congregation new sight? Believe me, what we see and don’t see helps shape our capacity for what we can see and do together in Mennonite Church USA—shaped by what God is seeing and doing in our world.

James Schrag is executive director of Mennonite Church USA.