Realizing The Vision Series

Realizing the Vision

Facing the Challenges of Leadership

Nehemiah Faced those who wanted to Destroy

He Faced them in Prayer

He Faced them in Practice

Nehemiah Faced those who were Discouraged

He faced them with his Action

He faced them with Encouragement

Nehemiah Faced those who Disagreed?

He faced them with the Truth

He faced them with his Sacrifice

Slide 1

What does success look like?

Does it look like a lot of money?

Perhaps in business it does.

Does it look like a lot of followers?

Maybe for a leader it does.

But what about a church? What does success look like for a church?

For a church, success looks like fulfilling the Great Commission.

But what really does that look like?

How do we know when we are doing that?

Well in this church, we have put what success looks like into terms that we will be able to see.

When businesses or people put down on paper what success looks like it is called a vision statement. It is designed to show what success will look like.

The Vision of Hickory Creek is as follows.

Therefore, we at Hickory Creek Community Church desire…

…..to be a church where people at every stage of life can come and be ministered to so that they can minister to others.

..…to be a church where we minister to those who are younger and older, in school and out of school, those with kids and without kids, those who work and those who are retired.

…..to be a church where “being” the church is more important than “doing” church.

..…to be a church that glorifies God and exalts the name of Christ in everything we do.

…..to be a church that is more interested in where people are heading than in where they have been.

…..to be a church that encourages people to take the “next step” of faith and maturity from whatever point they are at.

…..to be a church where the healthy help the hurting and the hurting are becoming healthy.

…..to be a church where the words “Love God…Love People…Live it Out!” is more than just a motto, it is a way of life.

It will look like this.

When an older person walks in, they will be greeted and welcomed in.

When a young person walks in, someone will say hi and introduce themselves.

When a family walks in, they will be informed about our ministries for their kids with a smile.

When there is a need within the body, the church will step up to meet it.

When there is suffering going on, others will look to comfort.

When there is lack of knowledge there will be a desire to teach.

When there is sin, there will be accountability.

There will be challenges to

grow deeper,

love more, and

live fully.

That is what success looks like.

In my time here, I have seen elements of all of those things. That excites me. It excites me because that is indication that God is working and there is no better place to be than where God is working.

But does where God is working mean that things are just going to be smooth sailing?

That there will be no problems to over come or challenges to face?

On the contrary.

In fact, when we look back at the Bible, we find that it is often through many challenges that great things are accomplished for the Lord.

And it is in those challenges that we are grown and matured and equipped so we can be used in even greater ways than before.

When we look at Moses leading the people out of Egypt.

It wasn’t just walk in and lead them out.

Pharaoh wasn’t quite on board with the plan at first.

Great many challenges faced Moses and the people.

When we see Joshua leading the people into the Promised Land,

The people living in Jericho were not quite in agreement.

When Nehemiah wanted to build the wall, and remove the disgrace from God’s people,

There were those who were less than thrilled.

We are returning to our Nehemiah Series this week.

We have spoken in past weeks about

Receiving a Vision from the Lord,

Responding to a Vision from the Lord,

and today we are going to be talking about how Nehemiah Realized the Vision, specifically about how Nehemiah faced the challenges of leadership.

As we look at this, I want us, as the body of Christ here at Hickory Creek, to ask and answer some questions.

Now I know there are some visitors here today.

For those of you who attend different churches, these are questions that you can ask and answer about your own church.

For those of you who don’t attend another church, I would invite and encourage you to become part of one.