Dreamers Wanted

ain't too small to dream big. by DaedaLusT

I would love to hang a sign outside my church saying “Dreamers Wanted”. In churches as a rule there are lots of ‘nuts and bolts’ people, but not a lot of dreamers. Both are vital to the life of the Church.

Picasso, speaking of the creative process, once said “I dream my painting, then I paint my dream”. Our nation will benefit hugely from those who will dream big and then follow the dreams that God gives them, so I want to ask you: What’s your dream?
 
The dreaming process is incredibly important. Without it we spend a lot of time and energy on things that neither fulfil us nor make the unique difference that God designed us to make. So take a minute to ask yourself, what is it that God has put on your heart? What would be your contribution to God’s mission?
 
Here are a couple of signposts that can help indicate whether you’re on the right track:
 
It will be fun. Whatever your contribution to God’s mission is to be, it will be great, huge, enormous fun for you! You should pinch yourself from time to time that you’re really allowed to serve God and do this. It may mean that there are days when you sleep less or get up early because you’ve found something that demands your attention, your energy, your passion and your life. Eric Liddell, the Olympic Athlete profiled in the film Chariots of Fire, expressed it like this: “God made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.”
 
It will be worth sacrificing for. When you’re following your dream, you’ll find you are willing to sacrifice things you never thought you could give up. There may be times where you’ll take a job with a lower salary, you might live somewhere you never thought you’d live, or work with people you never thought you would work with. Any time you get a bigger vision you’ll find that suddenly there are things you’ll sacrifice that you never would have done otherwise.
 
It will use your gifts. Do you know what your gifts are? Do you know yourself? There are some people who are really energised by being around people – they wake up talking in the morning, talk all day, and go to bed talking! They just love interacting with people. Whatever their contribution is, in their part of God’s mission, it is with people.
 
Others love organising things. If they go to an event that is badly organised, it frustrates them, and they struggle to concentrate on what is being said because of how it is organised. If that’s the case for you, then you need to be finding your part of God’s mission, then getting involved in the organisation and the running of it. It should fit with your gifts.
 
It is important to know who you are and where your gifts lie, and also to understand that no big dream has ever been implemented by just one person. As you start to dream, it’s easy to think ‘I’m the key player in this task’, but that is not always the case. William Wilberforce is the name we associate with the abolition of the slave trade, but without the great team he had around him – famously known as the Clapham Sect – bringing their money, their influence and their gifts to bear on the situation, he would not have achieved the great victory he did.
 
Remember too that your walk with God is as much about the person you become as the goals you achieve. Ireneaus said “The glory of God is a man fully alive”. When you’re living in your dream, having great fun, feeling God’s pleasure, that is when you will bring most glory to Him. And that of course is our ultimate aim.
 
So what steps should you take?
Firstly, try to get a clear sense of the end goal, even if that is 20 or 30 years away. It is very important that our churches have some men and women with what one writer calls ‘big, hairy, audacious goals’.
 
Don’t over-worry about getting the details precisely right, because it will develop over time. Nevertheless, without a clear goal, you will be unable to take any useful steps, or to share your vision with others and get them on board.
 
Secondly, ask yourself ‘What can I do tomorrow to make a step towards it?’ Knowing the destination you’re heading towards is important, but sometimes people get so focussed on the end goal that they never get going. The only way to get there is to start doing something.
 
I once had a meeting with Patrick Dixon, an amazingly prolific author and business consultant, often described as a ‘Futurist’. I asked him how he managed to achieve so much. He told me: “Every morning I get up and ask myself ‘What can I do that will bring the most glory to God in the next ten minutes?’ and I do it. As soon as I’ve done it, I ask the question again, and I do that, then I do the next thing, and so on.”
 
My encouragement to you would be to think about what you can do to work towards your goal in the next 24 hours. Maybe it’s dropping an email to someone whose advice you need to get, or making a phone call, or booking a place on a course you think would really help you. Decide what that thing is, then do it. And when you’ve done that, think of what the next thing is and do it. It’s vital that we learn to live with what Martin Luther King called “the fierce urgency of now”.
 
Thirdly, don’t let fear shape you. Decide not to procrastinate or give in to fear or insecurity. Or to put it the other way around: challenge fear. If there’s something you know would move you closer towards your goal but you’re tempted to let fear get in the way of doing it, face up to that fear, and do it anyway.
 
If you were to do even one thing a week that makes you scared, but would take you another step towards your part of God’s mission, you would be amazed at the progress you could make in a single year.
 
At the Everything conference on 17 March 2012 we will be hearing from and about several people who have dared to dream big, then faced their fears and followed the dream. They are people who have found their place in God’s mission and are making a remarkable difference as a result.
 
Tickets on the door will be £25, but booking in advance gives you 20% off that price. Follow this link and your ticket will cost just £20. Hurry though, there are a limited number of tickets available, and when they’re gone, they’re gone.
 
Why not make booking your ticket the one thing you do today to move you nearer to your big, hairy, audacious goal? You won’t regret it.

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