Vision Check

Blog Post by Rev. Peter (Ping-Hsien) Wu
Taiwanese Presbyterian Church of Greater St Louis

After living in California for twenty-plus years of my life, our family moved from Northern California to St. Louis in June of this year.  Many of my parishioners have asked me about God’s calling and my vision for our church… in the last week of July, my son Eugene and my daughter Eureka attended a camp by TAF (Taiwanese American Foundation) on the campus of Manchester University Indiana.  This was the first time both of our kids were away from my wife Lucie and me.  During the middle of the week, Eugene told me his glasses were broken.  After asking how it happened, he said in the middle of the night he woke up and sat on his glasses.  So, we made an appointment for him to see an ophthalmologist.  Since we are new to this area, I also made an appointment for all other three members of my family.  All four appointments were the same.  The nurse checked each of our eyes for near sight and other possible issues.  We moved from one instrument to another, one room to another.  Finally, the doctor came and shone a flashlight on our eyes to make sure everything was fine.  All our family members had our “vision” checked.

I find two incidents in the life of Apostle Paul instructive for the vision of the church.  In Acts 9, after Saul’s encounter with the risen Christ on the way to Damascus, he was blind.  The Lord sent Ananias to Saul.  Ananias placed his hands on blind Saul and prayed for him.  No sooner were the words out of his mouth than something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes (Acts 9:18).  Since then, Saul can see, he was a different person.  I believe “scales” represent Saul’s former worldviews before he met the risen Christ.  A few years later, on his second missionary trip, Paul had a vision: a man of Macedonia pleading with him to go over there and help him.  This vision gave Paul his map.  The team immediately crossed over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called them to proclaim the good news to the Europeans (Acts 16:6-10).

A visionary is someone who helps people see what they probably would not be able to see on their own.  During the civil war, President Abraham Lincoln said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”  He believed if the U.S. wanted to be a free country, it had to act now before it was too late on the issue of slavery. This was President Lincoln’s vision of America.  For ministers, vision is the ability to see and help others to see and embrace the mission God has called us to accomplish.  There are two important keys for our regular “vision” check:  1) Vision begins not with Christ’s vision for us but our vision of him.  The most important reality is the captivating and magnificent nature of Jesus Christ.  As we get closer to Jesus, we are both dazzled and disturbed.  Whenever we think we have him figured out, he throws us off-balance; he never ceases to amaze us and challenge us.  2) The kingdom of God.  Jesus preached the kingdom of God.  With him came a new rule of God that is already and not-yet.  We pray with Jesus “your kingdom come; you will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Mt. 6:10).

As we head into the fall, I hope all members of our presbytery have a clear vision on the road and a clear vision of Christ.
Shalom.

Rev. Peter (Ping-Hsien) Wu
Taiwanese Presbyterian Church of Greater St Louis