Fan Favorites – The Vision for Outpost 169 with Pastor Wayne Blackburn [S01E21]

Visioneering

In his book Visioneering, Andy Stanley said “Everybody ends up somewhere in life. A few people end up somewhere on purpose. Those are the ones with vision.”

On today’s podcast, we are privileged to talk with one of those Visioneers whose vision has helped to see Outpost 169 of Victory Church grow into one of the largest Royal Ranger outpost in Florida and one of the top in the US. One of the exciting areas of OP169 is their Expedition Ranger Outpost. Most Wednesday nights you will find more than 25 Expedition Ranger’s actively involved, and of those 25, 12 are GMA candidates.

So, in today’s episode we will unpack the journey of OP169 through the eyes of our special guest Pastor Wayne Blackburn, hear his insights on the importance of “vision” and why he has been so supportive of Royal  Rangers.
Before we steer the conversation towards Royal Rangers Pastor Blackburn talks about Victory Church and vision.  Victory Church is one of the largest AG churches in Florida, and  28 years ago Pastor Blackburn was there at the inception which was in a borrowed space.  Now, after all these years more than 120 ministries flourish under his leadership?

 

Questions We Tackle

 

1) Do you need a vision to charter an Outpost? (In other words, is the Royal Ranger ministry such an established God inspired ministry that it’s just plug and play?)

 

2) How do you create an environment where visions can be born?

 

3) How does a Commander avoid vision myopia?  God exists in perfect clarity and light.  To visioneer you must have good vision and in our human experience that takes two things: Light and clarity.  Sometimes we are so close to what we are looking at that it is always blurry.  Other times we are operating the dark.  Getting ahead of where God is leading.

 

4) Are great visions usually planted in the hearts of the servant or in the hearts of the served?

 

5) Sign up and tell everyone you know.  After 13 marathons I often get the question, “How do I get started”.  I respond, “Sign up and tell everyone you know”.  A good first step to getting a vision off the ground is to put some skin in the game and then share what God has laid on your heat as often as you can.  When OP169 started was there a point where you just had so say, “Let’s charter, and then tell everyone we know?”

 

6) The opposition.  Every vision will face some.  Even at our Outpost I have seen opposition. How do you tell the difference between opposition and just good Christian counsel?  Also, sometimes the opposition can come from those closest to you and that can be the toughest to discern.

 

7) There are Outposts around the country that do not have Royal Rangers beyond the Discovery Ranger level.  Once a Ranger moves into the fifth grade he is transitioned to the youth ministry of that church.  What are your thoughts on this decision?

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