The Isaiah Vision
We’ve been work through the Isaiah Vision in our Adult Sunday School Class. If you haven’t read it, I strongly recommend it. It bills itself as an “strategy for evangelism” (which I’m generally uncomfortable with) but, in the end, provides an incredible, “do-able” vision for ministry as a whole.
Raymond Fung sets up a three pronged approach:
- The Isaiah agenda (From Is. 65.20-23),
- Invitation to worship, and
- Invitation to discipleship.
Anyone can enter into the process at any one of the three. Of course, most people will feel most comfortable entering through the Isaiah agenda, since just about everyone can approve of it (children do not die, old people are treated with dignity, people who build houses live in them and men and women who work reap the rewards of their work).This doesn’t set high goals… indeed, Fung describes these 4 things (from Is. 65) as the absolute, bare minimum that God is willing to accept for all humanity. As a matter of fact, a failure on any of these fronts is a failure of the church to meet God’s most basic expectations for the world.
The beautiful thing about Fung’s work is that anyone can do it. Anyone. Young, Old, Rich, Poor, Healthy, Ill… Anyone. It doesn’t take a new church budget or new facilities. And better yet, it doesn’t rely on gimmicks, manipulation or ignore the way that Jesus and his earliest followers did things. It is simple, straight forward and biblical.
The book is a little difficult to come by (you can get it at Amazon, but it takes a little while) but it is UNQUESTIONABLY worth it.
Grace and peace,
`tim
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