Vision Sunday 2022 – Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Anyone here have a tattoo? A few hands go up. Mine should not be one of them — I do not have one. And I suspect some of you do but kept your hand down, which is fine.

Most people I meet who have just gotten a new tattoo are thrilled about it. They pull up a sleeve — check it out, look what I got — and they will happily explain the meaning behind it.

But over time that excitement fades. Often they are already thinking about the next piece of ink.

I may not have a physical tattoo, but the passage from Ezekiel 47 has been like a tattoo on my heart for more than twenty years. It is where we get our name — you heard the river and the trees in it. It is how we have structured our entire ministry. It is permanent ink God stamped on me.

And yet I have noticed over the past couple of years that my excitement about it has not been quite so white hot. I had stopped being thrilled about my tattoo. It had simply become part of me.

So preparing for Vision Sunday — the day we share our annual report and remind ourselves who we are and where we are going — forced me back to Ezekiel 47. And as I reread and restudied it, I found myself getting excited about that tattoo all over again.

So today we will look at Ezekiel 47 so you can understand it, whether this is new to you or you simply need a refresher. Then we will look back at the past year through that passage — where we succeeded and where we did not. And then we will look ahead.

My hope is that by the end, Ezekiel 47 might become a tattoo on your heart as well — and that just as this passage is entirely about a river, your life will be entirely about Jesus.

The Vision

“Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east… Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then led me through the water, and it was ankle-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was knee-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was waist-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. And he said to me, ‘Son of man, have you seen this?’”

The passage goes on to say that where this river flows, everything lives — that it makes salt water fresh, that fishermen will spread their nets along its banks, and that trees will grow on both sides bearing fresh fruit every month, with leaves for healing, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary.

How we got here

Starting in chapter 40, the prophet Ezekiel has been given a tour of a temple in a vision. This is the second-longest vision in all of Scripture — the only longer one is the book of Revelation.

There is genuine debate about what temple this is. Some think it is the temple to be rebuilt after the exile. Some think it is a later temple. Some think it is the temple in heaven. Some think it is purely metaphorical, referring to the church.

I have no idea. All I know is that reading it is tedious. If you struggle with insomnia, open to Ezekiel 40 and you will be asleep by chapter 42. He walks to different wings and measures different walls, over and over. It is nothing like a home tour show.

But then the tour is about to end, and Ezekiel notices water.

Why I Believe That River Is Jesus

I am convinced that the water flowing out of the temple, becoming a river and crashing into the Dead Sea, is a prophecy of Jesus. Because everything that river does, Jesus fulfills.

In verse 1, the water comes from the temple — the place of worship, where God’s presence rested on earth. Jesus came from heaven, the ultimate place of worship and of God’s presence.

In verse 2 the river flows past the altar — the place of sacrifice. Jesus went to the cross, the place of sacrifice for our sins.

Then it goes out the east side. In Ezekiel 43, God enters the vision through the east gate. And in chapter 44 he declares that because he used it, the east gate is holy and no one else may pass through it. And yet this river flows out the east. Jesus is God the Son. He is allowed to use the east.

Where it ends up

The river flows down and crashes into the Dead Sea.

The Jordan and its tributaries pour into that sea, but there is no outlet. So every mineral and every bit of salt they carry gets deposited there, and when the water evaporates, the minerals remain.

The Dead Sea is three to four times saltier than the Great Salt Lake — something like twenty-five to thirty percent minerals. One commentary I read claimed seven million tons of minerals are dumped in every day. I do not believe that; I suspect they meant every year. But it is an extraordinary amount.

People who cannot swim can walk in and simply lie down, because the minerals keep them afloat.

Which also means nothing can live there. Fish cannot breed in that water. It chokes out plants. Hence the name.

And yet this river crashes into it, and verse 9 says it now teems with life — that wherever the river flows, everything lives. There will be fishermen all along the shore drying their nets, because there are so many fish, and so many varieties of fish.

Jesus said he came to give life, and to give it abundantly. When he crashes into this sin-stained world, where nothing can truly live spiritually, he brings life. And Revelation tells us that at the throne of God we will see every nation, tribe, and tongue — a wide variety of people, like a wide variety of fish.

Four Times Through the River

So when Ezekiel walks through that river four times, it matters. In verse 6 the angel turns and asks, Son of man, have you seen this? In other words: are you paying attention? Something is happening here.

Going deeper with Jesus is what we normally call discipleship. And here is how we have built our ministry around those four depths.

Ankle deep: finding life in Christ

We want to see people standing on the shore step in. That first level is finding life in Christ.

So if you are not a follower of Jesus, whether here or online — we started this church for you, and we are not ashamed to invite you to step in and give your life to him.

But we are also convinced that praying a prayer — okay God, I will follow you, thank you Jesus for dying for my sins — and then stopping there is not the point. The current is beckoning you deeper.

Knee deep: personal spiritual disciplines

Knee deep means developing the personal disciplines of Bible reading and prayer. It also means connecting with other believers — not just on Sunday, but through growth groups, or an accountability partner, or someone who reads Scripture with you and encourages you to follow Jesus while you do the same for them.

Waist deep: giving your fist

When you are waist deep in a river, you really feel the current. The way we say it here is that waist deep means giving your fist: your finances, your influence, your skills, and your time. The things we tend to clench, God is asking us to release to him.

Over your head: he takes you

But ultimately we want people in over their heads. Ezekiel could not cross the river. He could not touch bottom.

And when you cannot touch bottom, the river is in control. It can take you wherever it wants.

That is what we want for you — to give your life to Christ so completely that he sends you into your workplace, your neighborhood, your home, another city, another state, another nation, carrying this life-changing message. So that you might invite people standing on the shore to step into the life-giving river and begin their own journey downstream.

That is what this church is about, and what we will continue to be about. We want to invite the spiritually disconnected to find Jesus, step into the river, and follow him by going deeper.

And this mission cannot be accomplished by me. It cannot be accomplished by me and our elders. It cannot be accomplished by our Sunday team. It will take all of us.

Looking Back: Where We Went Deeper

So did we accomplish it last year? The honest answer is: sort of. We did see people going deeper.

Baptisms

We saw six people baptized — the most in a single calendar year for us. I hope and pray this is only the beginning.

Of those six, five were under the age of fifteen, and most came out of our children’s ministry. God is doing tremendous work there. I have loved hearing from our leaders, our teachers, and even parents about what is happening in your children. Your kids are asking excellent questions. They are saying remarkable things. There is a hunger for Jesus in our children.

Now, some people object when we baptize kids — arguing we should make them wait until they are older and truly understand.

I would push back. I genuinely believe they understand.

What you may not know is that every person who gets baptized must first sit down with me. And I realize I am an imposing and terrifying figure. We do a Bible study together, open to Romans 6, read through it, and then I ask them questions. I do not simply explain it to them — I make them answer.

Because I need to discern whether they understand. I do not want a child doing this to make their parents happy. I do not want them doing it because they think the church expects it. I want them doing it because they believe this is what God wants — that just as Jesus gave his life for them, they are now giving their life to follow him, identifying with his death, burial, and resurrection.

If I sense they do not understand, they are not baptized.

And once we are satisfied that they do, we tell them they have to tell their story. We do not let them answer a few yes-or-no questions. They stand up here and read their own account of why they are being baptized and why they have put their faith in Jesus.

It might take thirty seconds. But my thinking is this: if Jesus could die publicly for them on a cross, they can stand up and publicly share their story. If they are unwilling, they are not baptized.

Which is why I can say these kids are doing this because they sense God calling them to it. Our children are going deep with Christ — and some of us need to follow their lead.

Volunteers

A large number of you stepped up this past year. More people helping up front. More people helping in the back. People installing things during the week.

Some of you know that the leader of our clean team had to step down for her health. She was an outstanding leader and we miss her in that role — and several of you stepped in, and someone else has taken over organizing it. Others volunteered to help with decorating.

We have one gap left: we have not had coffee, because we lack a point person willing to own it. If that is you, let us know.

But broadly, a great many of you are getting waist deep — giving your time, your skills, your influence. You are opening your fist.

Our elders

Most of you do not get to see this, but on Wednesday mornings in our elder meetings, I watch how much these men love you.

We do not gather and socialize for half an hour and then remember we should pray. The very first thing we do is take the connection cards, read through the requests, pass them out, and pray over you. Because these men love you. We are in good hands.

And it is not only the praying. It is what has been happening in our study. When we began, all of us were new to this — my first time as a lead pastor, and their first time as elders. So we read a book on eldership, which helped. Then one on the gospel, then one on doctrine.

This year we decided not to read a book. Because of what may be coming for us — including the possibility of purchasing this building — we decided to reconsider a more basic question: what is the church?

So we have been working through passages of Scripture, and with each one asking: how do we see the church here? What does God call the church to be? And in light of that, what should we be doing, and what should we stop doing?

I have been deeply impressed watching these men open their hands and say, God, teach us. They are not bringing their biases. They are asking God to lead his church and show us how to help people go deeper in the river.

Pockets of generosity

At Christmas we announced our impact gift with only three weeks’ notice, and we raised over two thousand dollars — which translated into forty emergency food packs, each enough to feed a family of five for two weeks in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

In the grand scheme of things, we are a small church in Iowa. Nobody knows who we are. And forty families were impacted because of your generosity. I am genuinely proud of you.

These things deserve celebrating. They are evidence of God at work, drawing us deeper and making us more like Jesus.

Looking Back: Where We Fell Short

But I do not want us to look only at the positives.

Years ago I was in the office of an executive pastor I served under, and we were discussing our upcoming annual report. He had looked up reports from other churches and found one from a rapidly growing congregation that was making national news.

Their report was slick. Beautiful photography. Excellent layout. Strong writing. Impressive charts. Any major corporation would have been proud of it.

And while I sat there impressed, I could tell he was genuinely bothered. And he is not the jealous type, so I could not work out why.

He pointed at a chart on baptisms — everything climbing up and to the right. I thought, why does that upset you? That should be celebrated.

And he said, look at the asterisk. In fine print at the bottom: numbers are cumulative.

In other words, if that church had a hundred baptisms one year and only thirty the next, they added the thirty on top of the hundred so the line kept climbing.

Americans love up and to the right. Company revenue, album sales, box office — we are always trying to catch that wave. And the moment something dips, we pull back and go find the next thing. So a large church feels pressure to make everything look like it is climbing, so people will believe God is still at work there — because they would hate for anyone to think only thirty baptisms this year, God must have moved on, let us find the next exciting church.

I cannot do that. I cannot make myself manipulate the numbers. It would not be a lie, but it would not be the full truth — and withholding the full truth from you is not fair, because I think God may be trying to say something to us.

An analogy from my own health

Some of you know I went through some minor medical issues last year — headaches, stomach pain, digestive problems. It turned out to be a gluten sensitivity, and I have been on a long journey since. I feel better than I have in ages after cutting gluten and corn out of my diet. I hate it, and most of you have heard me complain about it.

But if you had asked me a year ago whether I was healthy, I would have said yes. I was working out. I was not eating junk constantly. I was getting decent sleep. I was taking care of myself.

And meanwhile things were genuinely wrong, and I ignored them for months assuming they would resolve on their own. It was only when I finally got help and exposed the problem that things began to change.

I do not want us to fool ourselves. We are a healthy church. I am not worried. But if we ignore the areas where we are not healthy — the pain points — we cannot make course corrections and do what God has called us to do.

Sunday attendance is down

If you have the annual report, the first thing your eye probably went to is that our Sunday attendance decreased.

That is the first thing people want to know about a church. Whenever I am at a community event or a gathering of pastors, someone inevitably asks what we are running these days.

I know pastors who answer that question evangelistically — they run about eighty and say a hundred; they run two hundred fifty and say they are about to break three hundred, never mind that they have been declining. Because we believe bigger is better.

I want you to know that number does not bother me as much as some others.

It bothers me a little, because it means people who were part of us are no longer here, and I love them and miss them and want to help them go deeper. Some are gone because of the pandemic or schedules, some only for a season, some because they moved away. And we have not seen the influx some assumed a new building would bring.

And what we are facing is not unique. Yes, some churches grew through these years. Many did not. We are not special in this.

But many churches see a dip in attendance and conclude they are failing. That number does not trouble me nearly as much, because if we added a hundred people who were not giving their lives to Jesus and not seeking to go deeper — just playing church — it would drive me out of ministry.

I care far more about your spiritual growth. Give me eighty people sold out for Jesus over three hundred going through the motions, any day.

Growth groups are struggling

This one bothers me far more.

We want you to become self-feeders and to be in relationship with one another. If all we ever do is connect on Sundays, we will not be the church God calls us to be, and we will not be prepared to disciple others.

When Jesus left this earth, he did not only want us to live like him and love like him. He wanted us to leave behind what he left behind — followers. So when your life is finished, will there be other followers of Jesus because of the way you lived and spoke?

I believe you will never know greater joy than watching someone put their faith in Jesus and being used by God to help them.

But right now many of us are pulling back. And do you know how I know? Because I feel it. There is a part of me that wants to check out and watch television all day. Anyone with me?

One of our growth groups could not gain traction this fall and faltered. Another is struggling to continue and may end. That takes us from four groups down to two.

And we have put so much into the growth group basket, because we know spiritual growth does not happen in isolation. It happens in relationship.

Now, some of you may be in groups I do not know about. If so, wonderful — this was never only about our official groups. Some of you meet weekly with someone to read Scripture and pray. Fantastic. Please tell me. Send me an email saying, I am meeting with someone every week for coffee and we are working through Acts. Thank you.

I need to see evidence that we are continuing to go deep with Jesus. Because what I feel right now — in my own heart included — is that we are pulling back and beginning to play church.

But if we get about the river, if we go deeper ourselves, I think our groups become healthy and our Sundays become what God is calling them to be. It starts with genuinely pursuing him.

We did not make budget

For the first time ever, we did not make budget.

I have praised your generosity and I have seen remarkable generosity, in the past and I am sure in the future. But we need to acknowledge that we did not give enough to cover it.

We kept spending down — we did not even spend up to budget. So the numbers show we still have money in the bank. We are not closing. But if we ignore this and assume someone else will handle it, we will have a problem.

When we signed the three-year lease, our partners voted unanimously. But a yes vote was not merely I think we should sign a lease. A yes vote meant I will increase my giving by fifteen dollars per week.

My wife and I are both partners, and we counted ourselves as one. If every one of our partner households had increased giving by fifteen dollars a week, we would have no budget problem at all.

And our finance team builds a lean budget — comfortable enough to actually do ministry, without being wasteful. We want to be good stewards, and we want to increase what we give away. But this year we fell well short.

We would have fallen short the previous year too, except a federal relief program covered the gap and we finished slightly over.

Some partners moved away for jobs or family — not angry, just gone. A few others are no longer here. Many of you increased your giving. The fact that we missed means some did not.

And that is on me

I do not want you to think I am twisting arms or heaping on shame. I genuinely have no idea whether you increased your giving. I do not know what any of you give. It is not that I lack permission to look — I simply do not think about money that way. I am focused on you and your spiritual growth. You could be among the most generous people here and I would not know it. I might think you are deeply invested and you are not giving a dime.

But before you think I am blaming you, understand that I take the blame.

Last fall I read a leadership book making the point that there are no bad teams, only bad leaders — that when a team is not accomplishing what it should, it almost always falls on the leader.

Which means our shortfall is more on me than on you. It means I have not communicated what needed communicating.

I hate talking about money. I shared during our giving series last fall that I was once part of a church that talked about it far too much, and I feel that some churches use it to manipulate people. What I want is for you to follow Jesus, and I have not wanted this to become about the church wanting your money.

But I overcorrected. I made it about giving generally — give to other ministries, give to other missionaries. And you should; my wife and I support a number of missionaries and ministries.

What I failed to do was help you see the mission God has given us here and how you can be part of it.

So I need to correct that, and invite you to support this ministry so we can do what God is calling us to do. I am sorry. I failed you as a leader in this. I thought I was doing something gracious, but really I was afraid to tell you plainly what God has for you. That has to change.

Looking Ahead

The building decision

As I speak, our partners are voting on whether to take on a loan to purchase this building.

I have no idea what will come of it. Honestly, I would be surprised if it is no — the numbers make purchasing sensible and reduce costs in several areas.

But if God speaks to our partners and they say no, I am genuinely fine with that, because I would believe that is God speaking and that he has a better plan.

We have put a great deal of work into this place and I do not want to abandon it. But I trust God enough that if he says you have used this for a season, I have something better, we will go.

Even — and some of you will not like this — if it means returning to setup and teardown. I told you that you would not want to hear it. But if setting up folding chairs at an insane hour helps people meet Jesus, I will do it. This is not about our comfort. It is about Jesus. I would love to worship him comfortably. But if he calls us elsewhere, I am picking up my feet and letting him take us.

An administrative assistant

We have budgeted to hire an administrative assistant. It is a step of faith. We eliminated some costs and reduced others to add ten hours a week, but it means a slight budget increase in a year we already fell short.

I need the help. My wife used to carry an enormous amount and still does, but she has been working full time for four years and cannot do everything she would like, and it has been hard on her. So I absorbed a great deal of it — and I am terrible at it. It is not my wheelhouse. I do it well enough that you do not notice, but it drains me and takes far longer than it would someone who actually knows how.

So as you will see in the announcements, someone has agreed to take that role and starts this week. Pray for her, because she will be stuck working with me. But she is the church’s assistant, not merely mine — much of what I have been carrying is not about my schedule but about us as a church.

She will be a tremendous asset. When we talk about this work, she gets excited. I think that is strange. She looks at me and says, why wouldn’t you be excited about this? She is perfect for it.

Supporting an overseas missionary

This year we begin supporting an overseas missionary, which means increasing our giving again.

This was my goal three years ago — that by year four we would support someone overseas. I want our giving to follow the Acts 1:8 model: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.

We give into our Jerusalem simply by being here, and by supporting our community benevolence fund, where we are one of the largest contributors.

We give into our Judea — the surrounding region — through a campus and school ministry that reaches colleges, high schools, and middle schools we could never reach from here.

We give into our Samaria by supporting a church plant in a violent urban neighborhood in a major city several hours north. They reach an entirely different population, far enough away that we never could, yet close enough that we can go and support them. Their pastor will be here in March to preach and give an update. We have a wonderful relationship, and we are one of their largest contributors.

But we had not been giving overseas. And we believe this message about the river needs to reach the ends of the earth. So I finally threw a bit of a fit about it and we got it into the budget.

We formed a missions decisions team this fall. They worked out who we are and what we value, and therefore what kind of missionary we should partner with — because there are so many people doing wonderful work, but we did not want to simply throw money at someone. We wanted a genuine partnership: someone whose heart resonates with ours, so that when we pray for them there is real affinity, and when they are stateside they can come here and share their story.

We have interviewed two missionaries over the past two weeks, and the team meets next Sunday to decide whether we support one or both, and how to divide the funds. Two percent of our budget is set aside for this.

Bringing our worship director on full time

This one will genuinely stretch us and take real faith.

You see him almost every Sunday, but he has gifts you do not see that would benefit us enormously and help us go deeper. There are things about him that would help us accomplish the mission — and frankly, I could use the help.

Right now he is giving roughly forty-eight hours a week to another employer when his heart wants to be here.

I do not know whether we can make it happen. We will have conversations beginning in late summer as we enter the budget cycle, look at the year’s giving, and see whether it might work. Hopefully by January of next year. Maybe we will not get there. It will take God really moving.

And beyond: planting another church

I still dream of doing what many would call impossible. I want to see us plant another church.

It has been thrilling to watch God create this — to see people find him, follow him, go deeper, be baptized. I want that to happen elsewhere too.

I would have enormous joy in God bringing us someone we get to raise up, and then sending them out with a dozen of you. I do not know where. I only know I want to be part of it.

From year one we have set aside money for church planting. We give to our denominational network specifically designated for planting, so we are helping plant churches across this region. And when we started, before we were connected to a network, my wife and I had to form our own nonprofit — so we have been setting aside one to two percent since the beginning.

But I am tired of only setting money aside. I want people. I want us to do this. I am hoping that in the next three to five years we get the joy of helping plant another church — because of what it will do in us as we walk by faith, and because it will reach another community.

The Cornerstone

Let me end here. The first passage our elders studied this year was 1 Peter 2:4–10. Here are the opening lines:

“As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

The rest of the passage quotes the Old Testament about a cornerstone.

In ancient construction, the cornerstone had to be exactly the right size, the right angle, and of the right integrity — because everything else was built and angled off it. A bad cornerstone meant a bad building.

Jesus is the cornerstone of the church. Which means he is the cornerstone of this church. Just as Ezekiel 47 is entirely about that river, we are going to be entirely about Jesus, building everything off him.

And you are the living stones that passage describes. We want to see you built up, so this is a place where people can come and find Jesus and follow him — a place where they are invited into the river and invited to go deeper.

Which is why I do not matter very much in this. It is us together, because we are the house God is building.

But that means recognizing honestly: this stone is not yet what it could be. And God, being who he is, can work in every one of us — developing the disciplines we need, tying us to one another in groups and one-on-one relationships, bringing us to a place where we serve and give our fist, and finally to where we are in over our heads, feet off the bottom, letting him carry us.

I want to invite you on this journey. I hope you get a spiritual tattoo. I hope Ezekiel 47 gets stamped on you, and that you sense God saying: I love you. I want to take you deep. I have a great journey for you. Just pick up your feet and let me take you.

And my prayer is that one day we will be telling our grandchildren: do you know what happened back in the early 2020s? God did an amazing thing — and it began because his people humbled themselves, picked up their feet, and let him build them into a spiritual house so his name would be known.

That is where I want to go. And I want to go there with you.

Let Us Pray

Heavenly Father, accomplish in us what you need to, so you can accomplish through us what you have always intended.

I have been reminded this week that this mission and this vision are yours. This is not even unique to us — this is your mission for your church. But thank you that even though we are not unique in it, you have invited us to be part of it. We are one piece of a much bigger picture, and we want to be the piece that fits in exactly the right place.

There are people out there who need to know your life-giving river is flowing and that you are inviting them in. We want to be part of watching them step into it. We sense the current calling us deeper and beckoning others deeper too. So make us the church that accomplishes that.

Make this vision — which is not mine but yours — real in all our hearts, so that collectively we are after it, because you matter.

Thank you for your forgiveness. Thank you for covering the gap where I fall short. Thank you that despite my own desire at times to retreat, you have kept this going.

So we place ourselves, and we place this church, in your hands. Do this year what only you can do, so that when we gather for another Vision Sunday we can look back and say, look at what God did.

We dedicate ourselves to you, to your gospel, and to this mission of inviting the spiritually disconnected to find and follow Jesus. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Come to the Table

In a sense this is a dedication. Come and take the bread, which is the body of Jesus — the river. Drink the cup, the blood of the one who gave his life for us, who crashed into a sin-stained world to bring life and bring it abundantly.

If you do not feel like you are living the abundant life right now, that is okay — because God loves you and wants you. So eat and drink, reminded of his love and that he is still at work.

And as part of this dedication: our mission is to help those who do not know this story. So while I want you to keep going deeper, is there someone God is putting on your heart?

Maybe someone with church background who has drifted away. Maybe someone who has retreated into their screens and needs you to call them to something greater. Maybe a neighbor, a coworker, an extended family member, someone who lives on your floor, someone you sit near at lunch.

Who is that person you are meant to bless? Because they are not a project. They are a person who matters deeply to God.

So as you come to the table, remember that Jesus gave his life for you — and then pick up your feet and go to them, letting God do in them what he has done in you.

Let us do this now in remembrance of him.