A brilliant and beloved Southern California professor was fond of urging his fellow believers to live life on purpose, employing principles which he dubbed VIM.
Those lives that bear the marks of wholeness and flourishing for the good, Dallas Willard contended, tend to stem from persons who have firmly embraced Vision (the first letter of the acronym).
Alongside Vision come Intention and Means. Our infant ministry on the Tulsa campus – testing its wobbly legs with gangly stops and starts that are common to the very young – had started hammering out our Intention piece.
Just what were we sensing that God actually wanted? What would bring a ready smile to his magnificent countenance?
Jim Garton and I set out to give it our best in crafting a mission statement. It was clear that International Student Ministries needed one.
What shall we count as ISM’s Intention (the aim or aims that could be counted on to mark us and keep us grounded and focused through coming years). While we understood that a mission purpose can be tweaked and that often the best of aims can meet with course corrections, we felt daily the gravity of this assignment. It weighed on us.
At long last, with a lot of needed grace from above, we landed the plane.
The stated purpose carried two crucial features, neither of which could be realized apart from the other. Students needed to be able to enjoy the assurance that they are genuinely welcomed and cared about. Relationship must be key, with Christ’s tangible love and presence the heartbeat of it all.
The team’s next newsletter to be rolled out would herald our reason for being. Our Intention:
International Community Outreach exists to glorify God by meeting practical and spiritual needs of international students, through acts of service and through the proclamation of the gospel of Christ.
With our stated mission now in place, all that remained was to live it out!
This was to take some doing.
©2024 Jerry Lout
Great ‘intention.’ I have always loved Willard’s VIM idea and have seen it at work in many ministries. Great post! Keep writing.
Thank you, Rebecca. Yes, the farmboy-turned-educator surely made his mark.
Thank you, Rebecca. Yes, the farmboy-turned-educator surely made his mark.
VMI, Jerry, it is true that the Lord doesn’t need us. It is true that He does what He wants. But it is also true that it gives Him much pleasure to challenge us to enter into relationship with Him and live daily, in His shadow, go show and tell others about Him. As D W said. this is the easy Life, just trust Him and He does the work. Our relationship with Him is what intrigues people and the Holy Spirit uses us, in relationship, to honor Himself. Wow, what a plan.
What a plan, indeed, Ken. Thank you.