Vision

Just curious what you guys have a vision to do or achieve at your outposts. Maybe in the next year, or even a longer time period if need be.

For us, we're still in the early stages, so I'm just trying to get it a little more ironed out and running smoothly.

For me it's even more RTK folks for Christ. The more the better.

I don't spend much time developing my vision. I just ask God to help me on a daily basis and with His help things happen. The closer I draw to God and what He has for me to do on a daily basis the burdens get lighter and the fun gets funner and I don't burn out.

When I put lofty goals up in front of me... I get to pushing the pencil.
Get to short cutting the process. Get to looking at me and my big bad self in a new light... oooo look at What I did....GRIN!

I have seen so many fly in with their visions and soon no where to be found it's like a comedy show for me. Big promise. Big idea. Big smoke screen then ....GONE! Almost as fast as they came in.

God's vision is the one I like and get behind. Sometimes I don't know what that is until He delivers it right on time.

I hear you on that Mark! I agree that we need to be careful not to inject what we want instead of what Holy Spirit wants.

I guess it also depends on personality types and where we are within the body of Christ. I've always been a visionary. In fact I received a prophecy when I was very young that God would speak to me through dreams and visions. You know what? It's true!! Not saying that everything that comes out of my mouth is from the Lord (by far!!), but that's the way He moves me. I've always got a goal and direction.

What's funny is that sometimes I'll look back over the path and realize that I'm nowhere near where I thought I'd be when I started, but I realize that God didn't necessarily tell me the whole thing up front!

I think the main point is to always trust God and know it's step by step. James 4:13,14 talks about not boasting in our own plans and abilities. When I read it, I read that he's not saying don't make any plans, but to always hold them in an open hand to God's will.

Bottom line? Trust the Lord!!

I don't do visions.

Most folks that I know in the church with visions take what somebody else has built, try to change it to their own dream, then leave it in a mess.

Example: We had a church up north that was perfect to explode in size. Newer sanctuary, full gymnasium, about 3 acres of land, in an upper-middle-class neighborhood.

We got a new pastor. This was his first job as Senior Pastor. He had always been youth pastor before.

A year after he got there, he ripped the padded wooden pews out of the sanctuary, put in chairs, and turned it into a theater-in-the-round, blacked out the windows, painted the wood cross white, and turned the entrance/vestibule into a bistro, complete with tall stools & tables.

The Sunday Worship was changed from Contemporary Christian to a rock band singing, “I love Jesus, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.”

Everyone over 30 left the church and went to another place about 7 miles down the road.

Then when the church got into financial trouble, because remaining people from 16 to 30 are not the financial foundation of a church, he left. And he left the place in a mess.

He had a vision.

I have a mission. I take the resources that God has given me, try to Reach, Teach, and Keep boys for Christ, try to make it fun, try to give them Leadership Skills that they can use throughout their lives, and have them be slightly better young men when they leave the meeting.

And I try to be a good steward of what God has given me (and the church) and to not squander it.

I think we may be dealing with a matter of semantics....

To you a "vision" for a direction is automatically man made and wrong. I assume that those here are in fact pursuing the Father and His will for the ministries that they're involved in.... So when I ask "What's the vision?" I'm asking what's the direction you feel the Lord possibly moving you and/or your ministry.

NEGATIVE!

A vision is something that a person feels is a grand fulfilment of a dream.

In fact, dream = vision.

A mission is a goal, short or long-term.

I told my pastor, recently, that when I started off in the infantry, we would be placed in our defensive positions. Your mission is to hold the chunk of real-estate in front of you, and yield it to no one else. You don’t worry about what the tankers are doing, you don’t worry what the cooks are doing, and you don’t worry if the company clerk is at his desk.

I don’t have a vision to be the largest outpost in the state. I don’t have a vision to crank out 6 GMA recipients each year.

If the boys from our outpost grow up to be Godly, confident leaders & citizens and have learned that it can be fun to be a Christian man, then I have succeeded in my mission.

Well then Semper Fi soldier.

Ummmm....................

"Semper Fi" is the Marine Corps. But I'll try not to take offense.

Our motto is "De Oppresso Liber".

Well thank you sir!! I'll remember that.

Where there is no Vision the People perish. This has been put up on the offering plate so many times it brings a bad smell to my nostrols.. It's God's Vision the Bible is talking about. GRIN! We got it basackwards. Our churches have fallen for GRANDOSE Ideas and are failing at it so miserabIly. It's gotten so bad that when I hear that catch phrase, along with "World Class", Paradyne shift, Quasi, Absolutely and a host of others my first reaction is to shout..."LOOK OUT HERE IT COMES AND YOU WON'T LIKE IT"

My Vision/Mission/Future Plan or what ever one wants to call it as there are similarities in them is to Do what God wants me to do with all my heart and soul. My calling is Royal Rangers. In that I see God's blessings. I know very well that while I am good at some things there are a lot more things I am terrible at. I will do what I know with boldness and confidence because I know God is blessing it.

I don't want to hear a new "vision", "mission", "plan" every year as I know along with new there is a whole lot more failure than their is success.. I would rather do the tried and proven methods and add a little new in with it but in that theory there is success because what works will carry one through the times of developing the "new to work". Note to self. Not everything I touch turns out to be a Golden egg...GRIN! However when I stand back and look over 25 years of RR... with God's help I -we- the team has been blessed with a lot of cool and neat ideas that have been a blessing to many folk.

A great example. I have the abilities to do many things. Yet sometimes I struggle with developing them. Yet when I come to the end of myself and stop and say..Lord, God. I need your help with this.... (tears well up in my eyes as I write this because with out His help I am a lot less and know it so I am grateful He helps me). We are building a pagent boat for pow wow. It's a prop that has to roll and to be carried. I stewed on it for a week or so. Made a few trys at it..then God dropped it into my mind how to do it. HE does this on a regular basis.

I owe Him big time. GRIN!

I am not against new "vision" I am against hijacking something that has worked for 35 years and turning it into something a lot less than what we had in the first place...that is where we are at in RR right now.. That vision stuff reminds me of methane gas. Grin. I am looking around asking please don't pass that around here any more..go outside and do that! Ha!

Mark Jones

I understand that wounds can cause pain with the slightest bump. I haven't been around for years like y'all have. I have had less than a year of aggravation dealing with RR 2.0...

I went back and read my original post again just to make sure if I'd said something to bing on such a rush of emotions. I came to the conclusion that I hadn't. Intentionally anyway!! My original intent (and what I felt I made clear) simple curiosity about upcoming direction. For instance, if an outpost is planning on developing a marksmanship program (as we are), I'm interested to hear about it. If an outpost had a "vision" to go hiking more or develop their camping skills.... that too would fall in line with my original question.

I wasn't referring to some sort of "fundamental transformation" of how we reach out, teach, or serve the Lord. It was a lighthearted question about what your plans are.

Once again, I apologize foe inadvertently bumping a wound.

I understand what you are talking about. I was the founding Cmdr of our outpost 4 years ago, and to do that I actually needed to have some sort of vision to be able to energize the families and Rangers to band together to try something never done in our church before. I can respect what was said above about Scripture being a broken record around the offering plate, but this was a biblical case of needing a vision, lest the outpost perish. I guess you could say that yes, God is the potter, the boys are the clay, but sometimes the Lord is kind and lets you leave your finger prints on them.

For your reference, that vision was woodsmanship and very Prominently FCF. Boys joined because they wanted to be Bear Grylls, Survivorman, etc and I welcomed them. We started with the Discovery Grizzly merits and have worked our way up what I felt was a natural progression of skills. Just last year I felt the elder boys had developed well enough that now we offer an annual Survival Camp that we focus on the Shelter, Snares, Winter Camping etc. Once we get that well, we'll try full out Wilderness Survival. Heck, the Survival Camp even brings out the boys from Youth Group.

Now I know this may be odd, but for our little corner of the world, this old camping program does seem to work.

The boys have stayed in too. Two year ago myself and 1 Ranger joined FCF. Last year a 2nd boy. This year we are blooming with 5 new Frontiersmen Candidates, and I'm going for Buckskin.

I understand the kind of vision Strods and Philip are talking about. Its not about man's plan to create servant/leaders but the program side of it does require the Sr Cmdr's vision to work. There are outpost that think we don't need the LTC, LTA, or the RMA as its called now. They just flip open the leaders ref guide and run Royal Rangers as a Sunday School program. These were pastors sons working under a friend who passed away. He resigned and transferred to my old church to become an RK Cmdr. Without vision no one goes outside the church.

It was vision that pushed me to try camporama. I had never in my life planned a trip like that. I was doubtful it would happen. I knew I'd go but God blessed us with a great fundraiser that raised over $1500. It was 4 times the amount we had ever raised before.

When I started I had vision to have a camping program. I had no equipment that outpost owned. Now I have a full size stove, grill, 6 tents, and more than imagined. We finally have a gold medalist again. My asst sr cmdr Donnie has vision to get boys into the tomahawk achievement camps and onto JLTA. I believe our visions are inline with the Lord's Will to see boys saved, developed to their potential, and serving him. Do I think I can make 90%+ tomahawk, saber, gma grads/recipients? No, not at all. I do believe some will if given oppty.

Vision is good when it is inline with God's Will. We just have to be wise enough to tell the difference. He will give us everything we ask for in his name if its his Will.

Guys to me what your talking about here is just "Rangers" to me. It's all of those things and a lot more. Just doing the tried and true methods that work and we grow from them. God blesses these activities. It's good stuff.

When Doug Marsh came out with the Rick Warren plan of Vision Casting and lofty goal setting..it setup a whole bunch of years of failures. This is MAN WISDOM. It's carnal and worldly and of the flesh at best you can call it a "christendomized business plan" shaking my head it's surely not God's plan.

YET to plan to work to get excited to motivate people with "attainable" goals and themes and programs that have been proven that they work is a blessing and fun and God does bless these things as it is obvious by many of these things you guys have shared here. This is good stuff.

Phillip I am a positive person and a go getter and let's get er done type person. Yet please realize after many failures the older guys know where things lead. I have learned the hard way to listen to the ole timers because they have already been down the road and know where it leads. Every time I try and do something they warn me about it ends up exactly as they told me it would ...GRIN!

My vision is to see RTK folks for Christ using a Christian Boyscouting program called Royal Rangers....the rest of that fluff they can keep. GRIN! I just cut out the fluff and do the part that works and grin at them.

Mark Jones

I guess I have no particular vision.

I got into Rangers because I was asked if I would like to help out.

so I did. 15 months later, the 5 founding Commanders were all gone. our Senior Commander imploded & left the church.

That left me holding the bag. A guy who had no business being Sr. Commander & no idea what to do.

Only reason I'm still here is because of guys like Dan & Mark put me on the right track.

I'm just doing.

This Pastor Search has diverted time that would otherwise go into RR.
I don't know what our next Pastor will be like. So I don't know if we will even run RR.

I'm just showing up each week & trying to make sure thee kids hear God's Word, develop some useful skills & have fun...that's it.

Is it tough continuing without a clear direction? I know I've always got to have a goal. The direction and details may change along the way as God leads, but there's always some plan. Otherwise I lose intensity and get sidetracked with other things.

I wrote up a great report and bam it is gone. YOU GUYS MISSED IT.

1. Tried and true works best for success on a daily basis.
2. New and untried shows what works best. See item 1.

A great Vision is doing the Ranger Program the JB methods. Find out as much as you can about those
methods and watch things grow.

The Rangers 2.0 stuff. Has a lot of stuff in it that looks like a Sunday School Class. Yet a person can still do the Johnnie Barnes Methods and succeed with in the confines of Rangers 2.0. Just have to clear out the foo faa raw and get back to what works.

Mark Jones

Phillip Gross wrote:Is it tough continuing without a clear direction? I know I've always got to have a goal. The direction and details may change along the way as God leads, but there's always some plan. Otherwise I lose intensity and get sidetracked with other things.

Yes

ccm2361 wrote:I guess I have no particular vision.

I got into Rangers because I was asked if I would like to help out.

so I did. 15 months later, the 5 founding Commanders were all gone. our Senior Commander imploded & left the church.

That left me holding the bag. A guy who had no business being Sr. Commander & no idea what to do.

Only reason I'm still here is because of guys like Dan & Mark put me on the right track.

I'm just doing.

This Pastor Search has diverted time that would otherwise go into RR.
I don't know what our next Pastor will be like. So I don't know if we will even run RR.

I'm just showing up each week & trying to make sure thee kids hear God's Word, develop some useful skills & have fun...that's it.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Right there! The kind of commander that Chris is, is what carries an outpost.

He doesn’t claim to be Superman, and I’ll bet that he is not lusting after the microphone at District Events.

He balances (or juggles) the responsibilities of being a Husband, Father, Employee, Church Elder, and Senior Commander.

He continues to carry the Outpost Guidon, even after 5 other commanders have quit.

And he is the Administrator of the only (or most major) Royal Rangers Forum that I am aware of on the Web.

You can mentor kids without National Headquarters, and you can mentor kids without District Staff. But you cannot mentor kids without ground-level commanders.

The Bible says that the Harvest is Great, but the Workers are Few. It doesn’t say anything about needing more Headquarters Supervisors with a bunch of awards on their chests.

Drive-on, Chris. Welcome to being a “grunt”.

Since you brought up Grunt I've been wondering what rank did you retire at?

Master-Sergeant, E-8.

That is the second-highest rank that an enlisted man can retire at.

The highest being Sgt-Major? I've heard is a politically appointed rank.

Correct. Sergeant-Major is highest.

Political?

You have to jump through many hoops: Basic Noncommissioned Officer System Education School, Advanced Noncommissioned Officer Education School, Sergeant-Major Academy, often Bachelor's Degree.

The Sergeant-Major is also the go-between from the Colonel (or General) and the First-Sergeants and Master-Sergeants at Company Level. He has to be both Tactician and Diplomat.

I was a good Sergeant in the field. But I didn't have the gift for shoveling papers and doing staff reports.

I've always heard while you do have to put in work or schooling the top ranks like General and Sgt Major you need to be connected to the right people.