The story is told of how Helen Keller was once asked by a rather inept journalist if she could imagine anything more terrible than being blind. Her answer? “Yes. Having sight, but no vision.”
Although the passage of Scripture is frequently cited, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18 KJV), this really has nothing to do with the popular notion of “vision statements.” In fact, more accurate translations are, “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint” (ESV), or “Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint” (NIV).
If I might be permitted a paraphrase that targets the intended dynamics here, it would be, “Where there is no God-given focal point, people will just do their own thing.” Or as the Holman Christian Standard Bible puts it more vividly, “Without revelation people run wild…”
I share these thoughts because the vision of CRI is a God-given focal point that now powerfully shapes and drives all our thinking, planning, and programming. In a nutshell, CRI’s vision is “Millions of equipped Christians changing their world.”
Let me briefly unpack some of these operative words.
First, “Millions” is not mere hyperbole. Our aim, over a 10-year initiative called “Going Global,” is to equip literally millions of Christians at home and abroad to effectively represent Christ to a spiritually hungry but increasingly skeptical world.
Second, kindly notice the vital word “equipped.” In short, what this means is that we have no interest in seeing millions of clueless Christians unleashed on our world! Our aim, through multiple channels over a decade, is to see Christians equipped in the “ABCs”—Apologetics, Biblical literacy, and Countering the Cults—so they can be salt and light in hundreds of thousands of places around the globe.
Third, note that our aim isn’t to equip Christians to “sit and pray” or “sit and think” or “sit and be holy” but to proactively change their world. In short, if I were to coin a word, we want to equip “holactivists”—holy activists and kingdom change agents who are fruitfully bringing the power of the gospel to bear on every aspect of life.
This is CRI’s vision. Now let me ask, What’s your vision?
I ask this because the tragic reason why many people go to their graves “with the music still in them” is because they never discovered the power of mission (why they were on this planet) and vision (where they were headed) in life. (A CRI colleague likes to tell about the Jehovah’s Witness who became a Unitarian and continued to go door-to-door for no apparent reason!)
If you haven’t yet discovered or articulated your vision, let me encourage you to do so. Let me also cordially extend an invitation to become a vital part of CRI’s vision. Through your prayers, your financial partnership, and your conscientious use of CRI’s materials, you too can be a powerful agent of change for the kingdom!
