Make It So, Lord! Make It So

by Commissioner David Edwards –

Less than two years ago, I invited the Salvationists and friends in this territory to join me in a journey of discovering God’s vision for The Salvation Army in the USA Western Territory.

I believe that in VISION2000 AND BEYOND…recapturing the vision and reawakening the passion, we have done just that. We have discovered God’s vision for this territory. You will find full coverage given to this document in this issue of New Frontier. I would encourage you to read it. You will find it both challenging and inspiring.

I believe once you have had an opportunity to read and digest the concepts conveyed therein, you will find that it resonates with the expressions of your own heart for The Salvation Army. And that is especially so if you were an active participant in the process of visioning.

Invested in this statement are the prayers, the hopes, and the dreams of hundreds of people from across this territory. If you are one of them, I thank you. I thank God for you, and for your commitment to this process. VISION2000 AND BEYOND…It could not have happened without you.

While the decision to involve the entire territory in the process was made first of all out of a desire to keep faith with what we understood to be the intentions of the architects of MISSION2000, I believe it was God’s leading which resulted in such a decision being made.

Ways in which the process has helped

This process has helped us all to focus attention on the fundamentals of our mission. We were called on to prayerfully examine our ministry to our communities. We were called on to determine once more our priorities. These are steps that are vital if a statement of vision is to become much more than the mere “Flavor of the month” recommended by a leader.

VISION2000 AND BEYOND…recapturing the vision and reawakening the passion, speaks of a vision whose reality is current, yet not fully realized. We are a work in progress. This points to the fact that there is nothing in the statement to suggest that it is new. It is one that has always inspired this Army beginning with our Founders and continuing on through generations of Salvationists. We may have occasionally lost sight of it. But as we move into the new millennium, let us once again recapture the vision, let us reawaken the passion in pursue the vision.

Carry the vision around in heart and mind

We are in the process of distributing copies of the statement in a tri-fold brochure format. We have deliberately used this format so that people can carry it around with them in their Bibles or songbooks.

Posters of the abbreviated version have been done for display on bulletin boards in Salvation Army halls throughout the territory. We want people to become familiar with what this statement says about us. It must become imprinted on our hearts and our minds every time we see it, every time that we read it.

Someone has said that a vision statement should inspire the people for whom it is intended, to rise up and say with passion and determination “I want to fight for that…” It is my prayer that every time you read this statement you will be so inspired

The next step ­ to get it done.

Now! where do we go from here? Writing a vision is only the first step. The next step is to GET IT DONE! We have to move from vision to reality. The next step­to get it done. This is where your corps visions statements come in.

If you have not already begun at your corps, over the remaining months of 1999, we are going to ask that you get out the vision statements you worked on earlier this year and begin planning and strategizing to move the statement from vision to action. You must work at identifying ways of transforming your dreams into reality. Just as we did with the visioning tool kit, we have provided a strategy tool kit to assist with methodology.

God is doing a new thing–

I believe that God is doing a new thing in our midst. Like the children of Israel, he is taking us on a journey to some place where we have never been before. The journey is far from over. It has only just begun. We need to make it happen. Let our fervent prayer be,

MAKE IT SO, LORD! MAKE IT SO.