Is your church focused on education or discipleship? How would you define discipleship?

• Do you purchase age-graded resources and concentrate on the developmental learning styles of children?
• Does your church age-grade children?
• Do leaders in your church see children as younger brothers and sisters in Christ?
• Is your ministry model to children such that children sit and listen while an adult leader ministers to them?
• Are children serving using their spiritual gifts?
• Is it your ministry's goal to make disciples who make disciples? For children to become disciple makers themselves?
• Are children trained and released as missionaries?

My pastor asked me to come to his office one afternoon.

He said, "Clint, I support you and your ministry. BUT! I need to know what you are doing so I can support you. I don't want to control what you do, but how can I support what you are doing when I do not have any idea where you are going."

I learned a big lesson that day. I have served as a children's pastor at five different churches, and I learned early that proper vision casting is critical.

If my church's leadership does not know where I am heading, I will not have their support when problems arise.

My pastor compared it to a cowboy who jumped on his horse and said, "Let's go!" He takes off in a gallop, and after riding a while, he stops and looks back. As the dust settles, to his surprise, no one is following him. That is what a leader looks like who does not correctly cast his or her vision.

The other day I read a report on the increase in gold pricing. The price of gold has increased by 72 percent in the last two years! If you purchased an ounce of gold in 2018 at $1,360 per ounce, it is now worth $1,888 an ounce today. I would say that gold is a good investment. You are probably wondering where I am going here. Have you ever thought about eternal investments? What you invest here on Earth does not last. We cannot take it with us when we leave this world.

There is an old saying, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.”

This is very true in ministry.

If you are not careful, you can go through years of ministry and never have a vision that drives you.

You see, church does not have to be boring or mundane from Sunday to Wednesday to Sunday and all over again.