Vision Sunday 2026

Across the next two weeks, we get to do two things. We get to look back at God's faithfulness over the last season, and we get to look ahead to see where God is leading us next. I was reminded recently of a moment five years ago now when Pastor Greg and Margo finished up a faithful season of planting Horizon Church and building a really strong foundation for it. And I stepped into leading the congregation. And God, in His kindness, put a passage on my heart at that time from Joshua 4.

And it's this moment which I've spoken on before, so some of you will be like, yeah, I already know Joshua 4. Awesome. You get to hear it again. I like it. And I've got the microphone, so you get to hear it, which is awesome.

But it's the moment where God's people are finally ready to step into the land that he's promised to them. For 40 years, they've wandered in the wilderness. The Lord sustained them. He's provided for them miraculously. He's guided them.

He's had his presence dwelling among them. And here they are on the edge of the Jordan river. And Joshua 3 tells us it's in flood. And so it's this raging river. It's not a little stream.

And they stand here on the edge of the river, knowing that God had parted the waters before for them and that he can do it again. And so the priests, they carry the Ark of the Covenant, God's visible presence amongst the people, and they carry it in, and the river parts for them, and they stand there as the people cross over on dry land and enter this land that God had promised for them. It's this incredible moment. I mean, I just imagine myself as one of those people as you walk across the river into this land that you've been longing for for 40 long years. And I love what Joshua does, because as they take their first steps into the land, he doesn't say, all right, let's set up camp, let's have something to eat.

Let's start taking territory for the Lord. He says, give me 12 men to go back into the river, back to the place where the Ark of the Covenant was held there, and pick up the 12 stones and bring those 12 stones out, and we're going to set them up in the place where we camp tonight, our first night in the land. Now, if I was among the Israelites, I'd be probably thinking, like, what's the purpose of 12 stones? Like, what good is that? I'm hungry.

I want to set up my tent. I want to Go to sleep. And here we are waiting for these stones to be carried out. But Joshua says to them in Joshua 4, and in verse 21, the words will come up on the screen. He says, in the future, your children will ask, what do these stones mean?

Then you can tell them, this is where the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground. For the Lord your God dried up the river right before your eyes, and he kept it dry until you were all across, just as he did at the Red Sea when He dried it up until we had all crossed over. And there in verse 24, he did this so all the nations of the earth might know the Lord's hand is powerful. And so you might fear the Lord your God forever. It's an incredible moment.

Joshua says, when people in the future come and ask you, what do these stones mean? Why are they here? You'll be able to say to them, look at these stones from the depth of that river. Listen to the story, because this is what the Lord has done. And then I love what he adds there in verse 24, he says, why God did this for his people.

He did it so that all the people of the earth would know his power and so that people would fear him always. And this is what I want us to catch this morning. That these stones that were put there were not merely about looking back. They weren't merely about memorializing this great time, about being nostalgic. They were actually about building something that would last beyond the people that carried them.

They were a testimony. They were a permanent reminder of God's protection and his provision for his people. And that's one of the things I love about this story. It's what I love about Joshua's leadership, is that Joshua here is thinking generationally. He's not just thinking for that moment and that miracle.

He's actually looking ahead and saying, in the future, questions will come. So when those questions come, let's make sure that we have built something unmistakable that points them to the faithfulness of God. You see, God loves to work through us in a way that outlives us. I want you to get that this morning. God loves to work through us in a way that outlives us all through scripture, God is a God who thinks in generations.

He doesn't just think in what he is doing now. He thinks about what he is forming for the people who come next. And the invitation for us in this season is that if God is a God who thinks in generations, if God is a God of vision, then he calls his people. He calls us to think that way as well. You see, God's never intended for his church to drift from season to season.

He calls us to live with clarity of where he is leading. Proverbs 29:18, Some of you will know this, and it's in the King James version for the, you know, the purists among us, it says this. Where there is no vision, the people perish. But he that keepeth the law happy is he. Isn't that great?

Keepeth he that keepeth the law happy is he. The word vision here in Proverbs is not a clever slogan. It speaks of revelation. It speaks of God's truth and God's direction. In other words, it's saying here that when we don't live in step with clear direction from God, with a conviction of where God is leading us, people don't just stand still.

It says here they perish. And that's the kind of vision that we're talking about today. We're not talking about slogans or good ideas, although hopefully there are some good ideas there. Instead, we're talking about having a clear sense of where God is leading us as a church. During the second half of 2024, which, now that we're in 2026, that feels like a really long time ago.

But during the second half of 2024, our team got together and we spent time intentionally praying and discussing and waiting on God for clarity in this next season of his church. Here and out of that season, the Lord gave us this vision statement, Jesus for generations. And this vision is a vision of lives transformed by Jesus not in a way that stays contained to one person, but in a way that ripples through families and workplaces and. And communities and across generations. It's a vision of faith that doesn't stop with us, but brings life long after we're gone.

And it's a commitment for us to be people who live out our faith in a way that lasts in the way that we follow Jesus, in the way that we prioritise him, in the way that we order our lives, that these things would be a testimony beyond our lifetime. But here's what I know about vision. That vision can be a great statement that we say and that we have memorized. But if it doesn't shape the way we live, if it doesn't change anything about what we are doing, then it won't bear fruit. It'll just be a catchy slogan that we know.

What I love is that Joshua there in chapter four, he didn't say gather in. I think we should try really hard and be people who remember God's faithfulness for generations. Let's just try and remember that. He didn't say that. Instead he says go and pick up stones.

Let's make the vision that people would fear God forever. Let's make that vision tangible. You see, a clear vision should show up in what we prioritize, in how we pray, in how we disciple, in what we prepare for, in how we we spend our time and how we steward our resources. And that's why along with our new vision last year we shared our 2030 mission goals. I want you to hear this morning that these mission goals are not just random ideas.

These are our stones. These are like our stones. They're the practical, tangible outworking of the vision that God has given us. They are Jesus for generations in practice. And this morning, I want to share with you two of those stones.

I want to share with you two of the stones because they're linked. The first one is about the gospel spreading and the second one is about the church being ready when it does. And so Mission Goal one up on the screen and if you don't have one of our booklets in the Horizon blue, that's the color, I call it horizon blue in that teal color. You don't have one of those booklets, they're up the back. But Mission Goal one says that we are becoming a church that regularly sees people come to faith in Jesus.

And we're believing that by 2030, each one of us will see at least one person, someone in our circle of family or friends come to know Jesus as their Savior. That's our first stone. It's no accident that it sits first. Because if the gospel is going to ripple through this community, it happens as ordinary believers like you and me, as we courageously carry our faith into everyday life. When you read the Book of Acts, we had a sermon there a couple of weeks ago.

If you look at the book of Acts, the early church grew. The gospel spread not because they perfected putting on amazing church services, although isn't it great to have a well polished church service? But that wasn't their focus. They also, the gospel didn't grow because they had amazing coffee at the end. I mean, that is great too.

And we are so blessed by Tristan and Lisa who look after that for us each week. But it didn't grow because of those things. The gospel grew because believers spoke about Jesus. It's kind of simple, isn't it? Believers spoke about Jesus, so the gospel grew.

In fact, in Acts 8:4. It tells us that even as the church was scattered, that the believers preached the good news about Jesus wherever they went. Now, I want you to see that it's not. The apostles spread the gospel. They preached at big rallies and people came to faith, although that was part of what happened in the early church, but the main focus in the Book of Acts, the early church grew.

The gospel spread because the believers carried the good news about Jesus wherever they went. Now, I want you to feel encouragement in that because it means that the spread of the gospel in our city is not relying on one person up the front. I mean, praise God for that because if it was just relying on me, we'd be in strife. But it is each one of us courageously sharing our faith wherever God has put us. And this is why when you came in today, you're given one of these cards.

You should have that in front of you because the aim for us is simple. You'll see at the top there, MG1 mission goal one. The aim for us is simple. We want each one of us in the church to commit to one person this year and commit to doing three things. Firstly, that we would pray for them.

Secondly, that we would walk alongside them. And third, that we would, when the opportunity comes, share the gospel with them.

I don't want to oversimplify those things. I realize there is commitment and sacrifice in praying. There's commitment and sacrifice in building relationship with someone and journeying with them. There's courage in sharing the gospel. But our hope is that we can commit each one of us to sharing the gospel with one person this year, because this is what we know and this is what Jesus for generations is about, is that when one person comes to faith, it never just touches one life.

It ripples through families, through workplaces. The gospel enters homes where it currently isn't sitting. And so when you share your faith with someone, when someone comes to know Christ and you experience the joy of having shared your faith with someone as they turn to Jesus, the gospel doesn't stop with them. It flows into families. Potentially, with one person coming to Christ, you are changing generations of that person's family.

What an incredible opportunity that is. And so today, if you've got a pen with you, well done. If you don't, that's okay. Today, later this week, I want you to take this card. I want you to spend some time in prayer and I want you to write someone's name here, their initials, their name, and say, lord, I am believing for this person.

We're not going to collect These. All right. I'm not going to examine them after and give you a mark on how you went. These are for you. Cause there is something, I think, faith filled with not just thinking about someone, but actually writing their name down and saying, God, I'm declaring that this year I'm gonna pray for this person.

I'm going to walk alongside them. And so I'd encourage you. Don't, please don't leave these on your seats. I know how easy that can be. Please take it with you.

We're gonna bring them back next week, and we're gonna spend some time in our service next week praying into this.

Because we know that when we pray, God moves, doesn't he? That nothing is accomplished without prayer. And God has been moving in our church. If you've been around for a little while, you'll notice that each Sunday there's more and more people. There's more and more chairs, more and more rows of chairs going out.

We have never been a church that's talked about numbers. Part of the reason for that is, if you know my maths ability, you know that really I've got no business talking about numbers. But in all seriousness, we always want to speak carefully here because we have never been a church that says we want to be a church of a certain size. We've never been a church that has numbers written down on our plans and says we want to be a church of this size. We've always said we want to be a church that builds big people, not a big church.

That's our focus, is building big people. Disciples of Christ who are being transformed by His Word, who are living out their faith. But we do see in the early church and in the Book of Acts, numbers appear and numbers come. Not because God is impressed by statistics, but because numbers represent people and people matter to God. Okay?

I want you to see that numbers represent people and people matter to God. We saw it a few weeks ago in Acts 2 that Luke records the number of people who came to faith. And that number was 3,000. People committed their lives to Christ. Three thousand were added to the church.

And each One of those 3,000 represents someone saved to life in Christ.

So if you have come along to Horizon in this last year, we are so glad that you're here. God has been bringing new people in, and we're glad that you're here. If you came along to Horizon before that, we're still glad you're here.

But for those who are into numbers, here's something for you. So when we compare the Nine months leading into Vision Sunday last year, which was in May, a bit later in the year, the nine months before that to the nine months since that, our Sunday attendance, our average has grown by 35.7%. That's amazing. The stuff that we did with Reach the group that we worked with a couple of years ago, they said if your church is growing by 5%, that's good, that's healthy. And we grew last year by 35.7%.

Now I'm not sharing that to say, you know, well done us, although well done you, because it is a work of God. That is what God does. He brings people in. He draws people to himself and into community. And we've seen that.

We've seen new people coming who are searching for a church home, people who are searching for Christ, who are wanting to find a community that they can grow in their faith. We're seeing people who have arrived in Canberra for the first time finding a family to belong to. And I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful for each one of you that calls Horizon home. I'm grateful for our team.

I'm grateful for all those who have served so faithfully. And I think back to those who served faithfully when there was only a couple of rows put out and there was only a handful of people in a small church plant. And yet people turned up every week and put out chairs and set up and worshiped. And I'm so faithful for that strong foundation. And we should celebrate this growth.

But at the same time as a church, we need to talk about what this growth means for us. You see, growth means we need more seats in the hall. But we need far more than more seats. We need discipleship for these people. We need pastoral care.

New people are gonna come in that need connect groups to be plugged into that are gonna need places to and to mature. They need leaders who are not stretched too thin. We're going to talk about some of this next week because we've got some really exciting things planned. But mission goal one naturally leads to mission goal three. Because if we're going to be, if we're going to pray for people to come, if we're going to personally commit to sharing the gospel with our friends and our family as God continues to answer those prayers.

We should prepare now for what's going to come. We should prepare now for what's going to come.

This week I was thinking about Cindy and my five year wedding anniversary and I surprised her with a holiday to Fiji. Quite the romantic. I know I have been living off that for years.

We have been married in July of this year for 19 years. And so it's been a little while that I've been reminding Cindy about that, you know, that special trip that we took. But to make sure it was a surprise, I did all the planning, I booked everything. I just told her we're going on a holiday. She thought, we're just going somewhere, you know, local.

And then two days beforehand, I said, hey, we're going to Fiji. And we'd never been to Fiji. And it was a really special time. She was excited, but she was also really stressed because. And I think some of you can empathise.

She was like, it's winter here, I've packed away my swimmers. My summer clothes are, like, in the top of the wardrobe. I've got to get them out and I've got to pick and I've got to make sure I don't need to go and buy new things. And all of a sudden there was all this preparation. She had a very short timeline, men, I should just say she bought less stuff before that trip than any other trip.

So give your spouse two days. It works really well. But we had a wonderful holiday. Like, we had a really good time. But I think Cindy might have preferred a little bit more notice to prepare.

And churches can run into that same challenge as well, because we often pray for growth. We say, God, would you bring new people in that we can love, that we can care for, that can be part of our community that we can share the gospel with? But sometimes we pray for it and we don't prepare for it. So we pray and believe that God's gonna do it. And so then when people come, as people have been coming, volunteers start to feel more and more weighed down by the load.

The pastors are stretched thin. New believers aren't discipled effectively. People fall through the cracks, leaders get. And volunteers get tired and weary. And the thing that we prayed for becomes the thing that strains us.

But it doesn't have to be like that. In fact, in Scripture, we get a better pattern because we see there that wise leadership prepares ahead of time. In Exodus 18, we see a tired Moses who's carrying the weight of leading the people, and his father in law, Jethro, comes to him and says effectively, moses, you look tired. You can't keep doing this. It isn't good for you.

You're going to wear yourself out and the people are going to suffer as well. And so he gives Moses some advice and Moses sets about preparing to lead the people. Well, we see it again in Acts 6. The believers are growing, the church is growing and there's a strain happening. Believers are being overlooked, some are being preferred over others.

And so the apostles prepare. They say more growth is going to come. Let's prepare so that the gospel continues to spread. And this is the key principle I want us to see is that preparation helps sustain gospel momentum. And that's why our mission goal three matters.

It says this, we are becoming a church resourced and ready for the future. By 2028, we will have built the financial foundation needed to staff our church for growth, particularly in the areas of youth ministry and outreach. And then specifically the next slide.

We believe that by 2030, Horizon will be supported by three full time staff. Not so they can do all the work of ministry, but so like Ephesians says, they can equip the saints for the work of ministry. So our hope is that by 2028, which is only two years away, that we have the financial foundation in place so that we can spend some time prayerfully and carefully and wise bringing the right people in to serve this community. We don't want to be in a rush there, so we want to do that well, knowing that that's going to take us some time. Now moving to three full time staff will feel like a huge step for us.

Like, I don't know how that is going to happen, but we serve a big God. We've already taken our first step on that journey. Some of you will know that nine months ago, as we stepped out in faith for the first part of that journey, after lots of prayer and discussion, Cindy and I and the team here prayerfully decided that I should step away from my role in a Christian school where I was working four days a week, and that I should step into full time ministry. Here we're like, we're stepping out in faith. That is the first step of that journey, of that mission goal that we will move towards three full time staff.

And it's been such a blessing. Like I don't think I could properly express to you how much of a blessing that is. Hopefully you feel blessed by it as well because the growth has been coming. We've grown a lot since that time and it's so good to be able to serve well. But what we've seen is that God has been good to us over many years and because of really faithful stewardship, we've been able to take that step of faith because the church has got some savings to dip into so that we can do what we've been doing.

But we know savings is not a long term strategy for continued growth. Preparation is a long term strategy. So the other set of numbers we don't talk very often about here is about money. We always want, as Pastor James said, giving to be done joyfully and prayerfully and not under any compulsion. But what we want to do this year is we want to share with you because so many of you are sowing into the work here.

And so we're gonna, a bit later on in the year, we're gonna spend some time on a Sunday just sharing with you things around budget and kind of where that's going. But this morning I wanna outline just two simple things for you. The step that we took last year so to go for a full time minister to support the church. Reach said to us when they came in and did some analysis of kind of our operations, they said you guys are running at about a 0.5 to 0.7 FTA. You should be running at about 1.5 FTE.

You're really short on staffing. And so we took that step. But for us to maintain that first step of faith, we need around $4,000 extra per month now on top of what's coming in already. And so that can feel like a bit of a daunting figure. But God through his people I can see will do something incredible.

I'm not worried about that. I'm trusting that God will work in the hearts of his people and that that'll be knocked over pretty easy. The next figure under that, it's even in a bigger one because it's a bigger number for us to move on the next step of our faith journey towards two full time staff. That would be 11,500 on top of what's coming in now. So it's not the 4,000 plus the 11,000, it's just the 11,500 for us to move towards two.

Now that's not going to happen next week. We realize that this is going to be something we build towards. But what we wanted to do is we actually wanted to put those numbers there so that you understand that on this next part of the journey for us to step out in faith, that that is what we'd be looking at. And as we said, we'd be looking in the area of outreach or perhaps someone to work in with our awesome team of youth leaders, someone in a part pastoral role there to support our families as well. We believe that God can do this.

And what I want you to do over the next couple of Days this week, and you'll see it on here, is I want you to ask yourself, God, how might you be asking us to or me to sow into this? How can my generosity ripple the gospel into families? Because that's exactly what we're talking about. I mean, the greatest example for me is that my parents were saved at youth camps. And that's an incredible thing that people invested, and that's now rippled into a whole generation and a second generation now of grandchildren who are loving and following the Lord because someone invested in them when they were teenagers.

When we were working through the book of Philippians last year, I loved the way that Paul talks around financial generosity of the people in Philippi. He spoke about their giving as gospel partnership. I love this because he didn't say you gave. And it enabled me, Paul, to do ministry. He said, when you gave, you became partners in the gospel.

It was like we stood shoulder to shoulder in sharing the gospel. And that's how we think about giving here, too. We believe that as you give, you're not just enabling the church to do ministry, you're standing partner. So shoulder to shoulder as partners in the gospel, and what an incredible privilege that is. So I'd encourage you this week on those dedication sheets.

Would you prayerfully consider how God might be asking you to partner with the ministry here? I think oftentimes we can see and hear about giving on a Sunday, and we think I'll deal with that later in the week. So please don't ignore this part of church life. Don't ignore this part of a growing, maturing disciple of Christ. We have tried to make it super simple for you.

There is a list of ways that you can give. You'll notice up the top that we have put there that a regular pattern of giving helps us to budget well. And so if you have the financial capacity to do that, to sow in on a regular basis, that actually enables us to budget effectively. I want you to prayerfully consider that. I don't want you to give because you feel pressured.

I want you to consider what God might be asking you to do. If you're married, I want you to talk to your spouse. If you're not, just talk to yourself. No one will question that. Talk to God and just say, God, what is my part in this?

Give out of what you have. Don't give out of what you don't have. That's really important. We want to be wise stewards of the blessings that God has given us. So give out of what you have, not out of what you don't have.

And I can't wait because I'm confident it's going to happen. I can't wait to share with you as we move through this year the blessings of God on this church and on the people of this church as we see God do incredible things. So next week I want you to come back, I want you to bring your dedication card with you, all right? Bring that with you. Fill out the ones we've been through.

Next week we'll go through the other three and then. Cause as part of next week's service, we're gonna pray into these. We're gonna pray for you. Cause a lot of this is just about God. How do you want me to grow in my faith this year?

And so bring those back next week because we're gonna see God's faithfulness as we lay these stones. And we say to him, how do you want us to live out Jesus for generations this year? Let's pray. And God, we thank you for your word, Father. We thank you for the vision you've put on this house.

Lord, we thank you for the way that you have challenged us with these big mission goals. God. And they can feel daunting because in the natural, we can't see how those things are gonna come about, Lord, we can't see how every one of us is going to have a. Or a friend who comes to know you over the next couple of years, Lord, we can't see how we could possibly hit those giving targets. But we know that you are a God who blesses the faithfulness of your people.

And so we say, God, would you use us? We come before you faithful, seeking you. And Lord, we say, would you use us? Let the gospel go forth. Let it ripple into homes.

Let it change generations of families. Let it change the culture and climate of workplaces. God, let it go into streets and homes and neighbourhoods where it isn't. Now, Father, let that happen. Because faithful people here said, God, would you use me?

And Father, we just pray your blessing now as we get ready expectant for what you're gonna do next week as well. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen. Am.