Struggling With Vision? Here's Help.
Jul 06, 2026
One of the most daunting aspects of leadership is the continual challenge to keep the vision clear and hot.
If you’re a pastor, you know exactly what I mean. Every week you’re caring for people, preparing messages, solving problems, developing staff, overseeing budgets, and making hundreds of decisions—and somewhere in the middle of all of that, you’re also expected to keep the vision alive. Every new volunteer needs to hear it. Every staff member needs to be reminded of it. Every ministry decision has to align with it. Vision isn’t something you communicate once and move on from; it’s one of the ongoing responsibilities of leadership.
The good news is that it’s not nearly as complicated as we often make it.
A Football Lesson I Didn’t See Coming
This week I was reading Ezekiel 37, the story of the valley of dry bones, when something clicked: vision is a lot like football.
When a receiver runs a route, he isn’t running to where the football has been. He’s running to where it’s going to be. His entire job is to anticipate the future, get into position, and trust that if he reads the play correctly, everything else will come together.
Leadership works much the same way. One of the biggest misconceptions about vision is that leaders create it—as though we lock ourselves in a conference room with a whiteboard until we invent something inspiring. But biblical vision doesn’t begin with our creativity. It begins with God’s activity.
Vision is discovered before it’s communicated. It’s discerned before it’s declared.
God already has a preferred future for your church, your ministry, your family, and your life. Our responsibility isn’t to invent that future—it’s to seek Him until we begin to understand where He’s already leading. Once we see it, our job becomes helping everyone else see it too.
My One Great Football Moment
I’ll be honest: As a kid, I wasn’t exactly known for my athletic ability. In fact, I have one football memory that’s probably worth telling simply because it’s my only good one.
I was running a route with some friends when I glanced over my shoulder just long enough to estimate where I thought the football would land. Then I kept running without looking back, stretched out my arms… and somehow the ball dropped perfectly into my hands. I crossed the goal line for a touchdown. To this day, I’m convinced it was more miracle than athleticism.
But looking back, I realize that’s exactly how vision works. The play didn’t succeed because I stared at the football. It worked because I ran to where it was going.
Ezekiel Didn’t Create Life
That realization changed the way I read Ezekiel 37.
God brings the prophet into a valley filled with dry bones and asks him an impossible question: “Can these bones live?” Then He gives Ezekiel an equally impossible assignment: “Speak to them.”
Notice what God didn’t ask Ezekiel to do. He didn’t tell him to manufacture life, force change, or convince the bones to come together. Only God could do that. Ezekiel’s responsibility was simply to become a faithful messenger—to speak what God had already revealed.
Leadership hasn’t changed much. We don’t create revival, manufacture transformation, or invent God’s plans. We faithfully discern His direction, and then we courageously communicate what we believe He’s already doing.
Help People Experience the Future
One of the most practical exercises I’ve found for clarifying vision is surprisingly simple. Take ten minutes, close your eyes, and fast-forward five years. Imagine that God has done far more than you could have asked or imagined. Then begin asking questions:
- What do I see?
- Who’s there?
- What stories are people telling?
- What has changed?
- How have people grown?
- How has our church grown?
- What does it actually feel like to stand in that future?
Don’t rush through those questions. Live there for a few minutes. The clearer that future becomes in your own heart, the easier it becomes to communicate it to everyone else.
After all, people don’t simply follow strategic plans. They follow a future they can see.
Run to Where the Ball Is Going
It’s easy to spend most of our leadership looking backward. We analyze last year’s attendance, replay yesterday’s problems, celebrate old victories, and carry old disappointments. Healthy vision lifts our eyes and reminds us to ask a different question: Where is God already moving?
That’s the future worth running toward. And when we can see it clearly—when we can describe it vividly—we give the people around us something far greater than another ministry initiative. We give them an invitation to join God in what He’s already doing.
That’s the privilege of leadership. Not creating a future, but seeing where God is throwing the ball… and helping everyone else get there.
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