Vision Glorious

~ by Pastor Rob Krause

When you begin to ask specific why? questions, there will be a thirst that will come over your life that drives you to desire, to know,  and to obtain all of the promises the Lord has for His Church. This is a journey (a deep yearning of quality men and women) for "Complete Church."

It is here that I need to introduce a tension-point, or more accurately, a philosophical divide. The Western Church¹ is affixiated with business models, marketing, forms, and programs. Reduced to its naked equation, the magical and hollow formula is hot programs + best location + big money = "successful" results. 

The tension begins when I say that God’s heartbeat isn’t to fill those program-boxes — it’s to fill people.² The Lord wants to save His people from their sin and pour true shalom into their lives (2 Cor. 5:21; Col. 1:20). God’s desire is for Jesus to have preeminence in His Church ( Col. 1:17-19). The Father wants His children to grow to maturity and bear much fruit that will abide in Him to multiply again and again ( John 15:8). All of this and more is available to the believer because God’s heartbeat is to build Himself a dwelling place among His people ~ Ephesians 2:21-22.

Small groups have to start here. They are the small congregations of God. Small groups are Church because the same Christ indwells both large and small gatherings of His people. Again, this is because God wants to fill people that He has made acceptable to Himself. Therefore, the small group can provide the best setting for the life of Jesus Christ to be revealed through His Christ-ones. A main reason for this is because small groups are not task-oriented, but rather, Bible-believer oriented. They can accomplish many tasks, but more importantly, the small groups can help contour disciples to the heartbeat of God = total relationship (da’at Elohim — to know God and be known by Him).

In the next part, we’ll explore more of the Father’s heartbeat through biblical examples and promises. Until then - shalom among His people. 

1. and this is now spreading to many nations beyond the West (Europe and North America) as they "import" western Churchianity. [back]
2. Many men will agree with me here — in theory – but rarely in practice – because they’re so involved in holy turf-wars, orthodoxy tractor-pulls, and who’s-who dress-up conferences contests. Yes, I’m being nice here because I’d never actually want to talk about pride on a cozy blog like this. [back]

For the last few weeks on Vision Glorious, our posting schedule has been a bit slow and sporadic. One of the main reasons for that is because of the work that I’ve been doing over at a new blog called From Israel to Italy.

I2I as we call it has a different focus & setup than Vision Glorious. I2I is a co-authored blog with a close friend of mine and partner in our Church, Roberto Battistuzzi. Its focus is more of revealing Roman culture & Catholicism in the light of a Biblical worldview from the vantage point of living in Italy & seeing it close-up. So, our motto for that blog is Revealing the Jesus of Jerusalem by Exposing the jesus of Rome.  Jesus is from Jerusalem and we believe that Rome presents another Christ altogether. We have noticed that many Christians don’t know or don’t see the workings of Rome. You’ll have to check it out!

We’re still steaming ahead here at VG. Roberto and I realized that we were coming across so many insights into the Italian culture, Romanism, & the Messiah from Nazareth that we wanted to write those out and share those in a different context — so as not to confuse the mission here at Vision Glorious.

We’re still digging into True Christian Community. We know it’s a huge topic. Honestly, I thought we would have shifted our writing topic by now and returned to TCC later. But the juices keep flowing and I don’t want to miss these valuable principles before moving on. So, stick with us and we’ll keep striving to open the treasure troves of what Christ desires to do in & through His Church.

Genuine Church

For every believer in Jesus Christ there is a quest for authentic spirituality. Throughout the New Testament, the Scriptures inextricably link genuine spiritual life to be lived out in faith within the context and confines of the local Bride; the Church. The study of this spiritual-communal practice is Ecclesiology. The methods of spiritual formation that a believer follows within becoming more and more like Jesus is called discipleship. Both Ecclesiology and discipleship need each other.

The Vision

Many people commonly use the phrase, "He has a great vision." Some will say of themselves that they have a great vision. However, the Scriptures reveal the intent of the Sovereign God. It is He Who has a Great Vision and He Who created for His glory and He Who desires that none should perish. No, we believe that for men’s statements of having a vision to be true to the Bible, a Glorious Vision has ahold of them.

Vision is not a thing. It’s definitely not a program and absolutely not another guy’s dream. Vision is a Person; the Person of Jesus Christ. The Vision is the Christ. The Apostle Paul wrote "that in everything, He (Jesus) might be preeminent." Colossians 1:15-20 In other words, everything that was made and everything that has any meaning is only fulfilled when Jesus has first place! Therefore, since the Church (the prized possession of Christ) is at the center of God’s cosmic plan in our age for reconciling all things to Himself, we can see that common, programmatic, & entertainment-oriented church life leaves hundreds if not thousands of biblical principles untapped, unused, & unfulfilled. Buried under the centuries of Romanist baggage, the Church struggles for distinction and survival in a world that is pouring poison over its walls. Instead, the Church described in the New Testament is vibrant, community-oriented, community-changing, a reckoning force of peace, the violence to evil, the declarer of the mysteries of God, and Jesus-saturated. This kind of Church was promised, in fact, required to Christian believers for ages to come. Where we only taste hints of what these first believers lived, we want to write and collect principles that show us how much more is available to the Groom’s disciples. We want to raise the Church. We want to open its darkened and blurried eyes to its Glorious Vision. We want to cut across rugged individualism and fight back against the misnomer of independent, Lone-Ranger Christian living. We want to push the emphasis (if not idolatry) of bigger buildings back to where it belongs — second place & supplemental to the formation of reproducing Christians. We want to help Pastors, disciplers, & spiritual parents alike to be filled-up with healthy and joyful understanding about Church-work and not just pushing another program hoping it will *click* or be the magic key that unlocks the door to bigger crowds.

Our Goal Here

Our goal for Vision Glorious is that it become a repository of Church values that will assist the heavenly harvest-workers. Including what we wrote above, it is our objective to explore and share the treasures that we’ve found through the small group model, one-to-one discipleship, the Hebrew worldview, and the integration of all of these into the spiritual army of the community of God’s people. We believe the Lord is restoring these precious and long-lost, long-forgotten treasures back to His Bride. We believe and want to share that the Church is worth living in because that’s where we will see the fullness and meaning of life — in the Lord Who walks intimately through the midst of His covenant people.

How We Do This Blog-Forum

Among our invited contributors, we assign a crucial theme (i.e. community, discipleship, small groups etc.) that we see is lacking among many churches and ask our guys to write something specific to that theme. You will notice that the first theme we chose was True Christian Community. And, for a number of weeks, VG camped out, in, and around that theme. We assign the theme every-so-often and then introduce the different submitted articles every 5-8 days. We don’t want to submit new stuff every day because you won’t have the time to digest it. We know that flies in the face of blogging technique but we think you’ll actually be able to enjoy it more if you can come back to new content a couple times and keep up with the different readings. And, it’s our blog-forum and that’s how we want to do it. After a theme has been sufficiently explored (we know that some themes can have volumes written), we’ll begin posting content on a new theme. However, you’ll be able to go the "TAGS" page and instantly look up any articles on a theme or author. And that’s how this blog becomes a repository of Vision nectar.

Commenting: We want you to interact with the authors on the content of their postings. You can do this in the commenting section at the bottom of every article. Our guys are great and always willing to help others. However, you need to keep the spirit of the article in mind and not argue over semantics. We want to discuss substance that will help you or encourage you. If you’re looking for a fight because you just like to quarrel or you just like the feeling of being a big digital-tiger hiding behind your little clicky mouse — go find another blog. We promise you, there are a ton of blogs out there that like to beat their chests before their 15-inch monitors.

Who We Are

Let’s start with who we’re not. We’re not seminary professors. Although a seminary prof would be welcome to contribute — and we like seminary profs. We know that that might turn some of you away already because you like to just "know" a lot of things. But, quite honestly, the Vision is much more caught than taught. This is for the catchers. We are front-line people. We’re Pastors, Missionaries, Deacons, teachers, disciplers, and small group leaders. We’re Churchmen. And we believe the contributors that we have chosen to write on this forum have something worthwhile to say. These are people that have been tested. We have seen them in others’ lives. We have seen them caring for the afflicted and praying with the newborns to enter the Revealed Faith. These contributors are the little children found in Luke 10:21-23. We are simple servants that want to share the joys of what we’ve learned along the Way. The main impetus for the creation, design, and strategy of this blog is Pastor Rob Krause. Rob has been a Missions-Pastor for over 10 years and currently pastors the Serenissima Bible Church in northeast Italy. The technical credits get passed to brother Mike Rosowski. Mike built the behind-the-scene pieces to get this blog to work so nicely. Mike is a missionary-candidate to Italy and currently resides in northern CA while raising his final needed support.

Tags: Christian community, small groups, vision, Church, cell church, values, community, discipleship, Hebrew worldview