As Christian leaders, we are in constant tension on these two points. It is our responsibility to let God reveal His future to us and to see the future as God sees it. A church that fails to listen for God's vision will not experience all that God has planned for it. We have a tendency to let the budget process, a crisis, or a pastoral change drive our plans when, in fact, God wants to reveal a future that will excite and challenge us. But this takes prayerful listening and work.
Vision helps our dreams become bigger than our memories.
Churches fail to reach their full potential because their memories are bigger than their dreams. They spend more energy recalling and celebrating the past than on contemplating the future. The church may also be holding on to old ways of doing church that are no longer effective. Or the church keeps having revivals, hoping to instill new life into the church. But after each revival, people go back to the same old patterns.