Once a year we set aside a Sunday to report about the past year, affirm our Elders and Trustees for the upcoming year, and share Lakeside’s vision for the future.
Regarding this past year… at the end of the service, everyone will be dismissed but our members will be asked to remain for a brief “Annual Meeting.” If you are a member, you will receive a beautiful report about our ministries, our mission’s partnerships, and exciting wins from the past year. For our financial junkies—there is a detailed balance sheet, financial report, and budget for 2023. There are also attendance and membership stats. We’re happy to answer questions.
Our membership will also affirm leaders for this next year. Per Scripture, Lakeside is an Elder-led congregation. Our Elders are accountable to Christ to pastor, protect, pray, and oversee our ministry. Each Elder must satisfy qualifications as set out in Scripture. They must model and be aligned with the Elders philosophy of ministry. They must contribute positively to the Elder and overall church culture. Elders are prayerfully nominated by the Elder Team, and selected through a year-long process and with much prayerful deliberation.
Per our by-laws, Elders can serve 3 or even 4 year terms, but our entire slate of Elders must be reaffirmed by a membership majority every year. Affirmation is a check and balance whereby one or even all our Elders can be removed should that be warranted. We also affirm a slate of Trustees who carry out fiduciary matters like auditing our finances.
It's not difficult to become a member of Lakeside. First, we offer a monthly class called the Pathway, to help you take steps of faith and obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We must trust in Him for eternal life. Second, we offer a monthly class called Welcome to Lakeside. This is where you can get into the nitty gritty of stuff and nerd out, and learn all about our history, beliefs, ministry philosophy, organization, church bylaws. We so badly want you to be included in Christ and included in membership to Christs’ body!
Regardless of your membership standing—everyone gets to hear about vision this morning! There is a verse in the Bible that church leaders of every stripe love to quote. Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish. . .” Some leaders talk about vision as if everything depends upon their own personal vision, or dream, for the church! But it’s not like we pastors go up on some mountain, where Christ is transfigured in our presence, and we receive some new, exciting, cutting-edge, awe-inspiring, innovative vision etched in stone directly from God’s hand! No, we go into the cornfields, and it’s written in corn.
Proverbs 29:18 (CSB) is to be more precisely understood this way: “Without revelation people run wild, but one who follows divine instruction will be happy.” It’s the task of our Elders to take from what’s already been given, and discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God for His Church. God’s dream, and design for his church, is beautifully outlined in Scripture. It’s Scripturally discerned! The further a church gets from the Scriptural, the wilder, and more worldly, it becomes. Many of you have seen entire denominations, ministries, and churches implode for their neglect of Scripture.
When we talk about Vision, leaders must make a vital distinction between the Vineyard and the Vine. Think of it this way. There is One, and only One, thing that is indispensable in the Church. In John 15:1 Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” I don’t think he can say it any clearer than John 15:4-5, “4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.”
In John 15, Jesus spells out what it means to vitally abide (remain) in Him. First, to abide in Jesus is to abide in His Words. How quickly we wither and are consumed when we turn from Scripture.
Second, to abide in Jesus is to abide in God’s love—keeping Jesus’ commandments. Love believes God’s Word, love trusts Jesus as Savior, as the way, truth, and life, even as the resurrection and eternal life. Love repents from acts leading to death, love confesses Jesus as Lord, love pledges its allegiance to Christ, love obeys the full counsel of God. We don’t get to pick and choose what it is we obey. Jesus commands us to go and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything he’s commanded. Abiding in God’s love entails allegiance to his Lordship.
Third, to abide in Jesus is to abide in love for one another. A new command I give you, that you love one another! Fourth, to abide in Jesus is to abide in God’s mission. We aren’t just servants, God invites us to be his friends. He makes his business of making disciples our business. He shows us the works he prepared from the foundation of creation for us to do. He does even greater things in us and through us.
The vine is living, organic, spiritual, divine, it’s Christ. Likewise, we the branches, are living and organic. There is this awesome passage in Romans 11:17-18 where the apostle describes how we Gentiles have “come to share in the rich root of the cultivated olive tree.” God the vinedresser, in his grace, chose to graft us into the “True”, “Choice” Vine who is Christ. Don’t ever forget that we come to be included in Christ by grace alone, through faith. But verse 18 says this, “… you do not sustain the root, but the root sustains you.” How is that for perspective? “Pastor, God’s not dependent upon your ambitions, visions, and dreams. Pastor, your ambitions, visions, and dreams don’t sustain the church. You don’t sustain the root. You don’t sustain the branches. The root sustains you!”
Organically speaking, there is one and only one vision that matters. It’s God’s vision. It’s God’s dream. First, that you find God. Additionally, that you learn to follow Jesus (abiding in Jesus’ words, in loving obedience, in brotherly love, even in God’s missions). And that even more, you flourish in Christ, not just proving yourself to be Christ’s disciples, but bearing much fruit for his glory! For the better part of the nearly 23 years I’ve served here, we never gone any further than to declare Lakeside’s vision is to help people (you) find God, follow Jesus, and flourish—fulfilling God’s capital P-Purpose for your life. If our branch isn’t flourishing, if our branch doesn’t remain vitally connected to Jesus, if were not producing fruit, if God isn’t being glorified… were failing our mission.
The “organic” vision is vital, it's central. But “the Vine and Branches” don’t grow in a vacuum, they grow in a garden, in a field, in a certain context, in a certain time, and place and locale. When God sought to establish His choice vine in Isaiah 5, he built a Vineyard. He cultivated the soil, he built a stone wall, a stone tower, a stone winepress. He built a trellis, appointed workers. The “vineyard” isn’t the Vine, it only supports the Vine. The “vineyard” isn’t even the Branches. You might even say that in some ways the Vineyard isn’t even essential. At best it’s a tool, an instrument.
Some pastors have a bricks and mortar “Vineyard” Vision, and some pastors have a “Vine” Vision. The Vineyard always seems to eclipse the Vine. Bricks and mortar dreams are more physical, visible, and tangible. They are important—but they aren’t ultimate. The Vineyard is all the stuff we build, activities we do, technologies we utilize, and innovative things we hope will support the growth of the vine.
What is Lakeside’s “Vineyard” Vision? Well, we are about 85k dollars away from paying off the mortgage on our last expansion. Over a decade ago we deeply renovated our lobby, our youth spaces, and added a whole new children’s wing. We created the space needed, at an initial cost of 1.4 million, and our church doubled in attendance. With everyone working together, we could burn that mortgage within a month, if not weeks or days.
In the near future, we’re going to expand our Vineyard. As an Elder team we’ve resolved not to paint ourselves in a corner in the name of Vision. God used COVID to remind us that we don’t determine the future! COVID wrecked people’s attendance patterns, and consistency. For a few years space didn’t matter at all. But now everything is changing again. Our attendance is once again building. The congestion will be felt in the sanctuary, youth, and children spaces. In the lobby. In the parking lot.
-The most expensive and desirable option is to build a sanctuary—est. 4-5 million dollars. If we did that, this space could be renovated into children, youth, or whatever space we wanted.
-Another option is to build out a multipurpose space, that could support the full range of activities from classrooms, to gathering, to recreation. This would cost about the same as our last expansion, but wouldn’t solve our sanctuary needs. *Everything is on the table.
Here is the reality. Times have changed. There seems to be a strong desire that whatever we do next—we try to build it debt-free. Debt cripples everything. Interest payments rob our budget of tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Here is a “Vineyard” Vision point. In your giving, always prioritize the CORE Fund. Whenever CORE fund exceeds our need, it overflows into an Emergency Fund, and ultimately VISION. In 2022, Core giving dropped 3-4 percent while Vision giving surged. We need to build up our Vision Fund for the future but not at the expense of our CORE operational needs. Give generously. Give faithfully. A tithing church can build whatever space the VINE needs. Take advantage of Financial Peace course. Attend Estate Planning Course—Estate gifts have repeatedly catapulted Lakeside forward. Please remember God’s Kingdom in your estate.
Let me conclude with a “Vine” Vision point. ABIDE FULLY! If you need to Find God, let’s have a conversation, very soon. Take advantage of the Pathway class, talk to a Pastor, but do it soon. If you need to Follow Jesus, and want to abide more fully in Vine, get into a circle with other believers. We have classes, groups, ministries. Go online. Get our App. Get plugged in. Become a vital member of this body. If you are ready to Flourish—we want to come alongside you and equip you. Lakeside has to become an effective pathway not just for producing disciples, but disciplemakers. The seed that fell on good soil didn’t just thrive, it produced fruit 30, 60, 100x. … be a church where next Jeff Wilhoit walks out the door.