Pastor, God called you to lead. (If you’re not a Pastor, but you have a Pastor, God called your Pastor to lead you.) He didn’t call you to lead by consensus or by permission. He called you to lead by following His voice, and to do it boldly.
Somewhere in the history of democratically-governed churches, we got the idea that Pastors are present to fulfill two roles: chaplain and Bible teacher. So what often happens is that the Pastor is expected to do the ministry while someone else charts the course of the church. I would argue strongly that God places shepherds in the midst of His flocks to lead with vision, passion, and conviction.
In other words, Pastors are to shepherd the congregation, leading and guiding them as individuals to live missionally in the world, but also as a community of people corporately living missionally in the world. In preaching, you dissect the Scriptures, but you also cast a vision from those Scriptures about what the church should look like, how it should function, and where it should go as time unfolds.
Pastor, never shy away from being bold with your vision for God’s people. Cast the vision often, for as Andy Stanley often says, “vision leaks.” Cast it to the congregation, to groups of leaders, and to individuals. Remember, where there is no vision, people will find another parish!
