2020 vision is a blessing to anyone and a rarity after fifty. Many people can go well into middle age without reading glasses, so long as their arms grow a little longer. This far-sightedness has a great name: presbyopia. Presbyopia usually begins with the inability to read fine print—a fitting parallel for minds with a low tolerance for persnickety details. In time, we all develop presbyopia, but our far-sightedness is too often focused on the glories of the distant past. Many of us—perhaps too many of us—find our sense of self by looking to the past. Who we were, what we were, who our friends and family were, what we liked—these building blocks of selfhood can anchor our vision behind us, locking us to the past for our sense of value. When we look only backward, we fail to pursue the mission and vision which Christ sets before us on the road ahead. How much healthier would we be if our presbyopia were to turn its gaze toward the future! 

We should think of “2020 Vision” as the way we collectively survey the road ahead of us, specifically, next year, 2020. 

What should we see ahead? In short, our vision should take in—clearly focused—the next steps of our mission: Growing in Christ; Making Him Known.  What steps will lead us closer to full Christian maturity, fuller commitment, and greater alignment with God’s will and Kingdom?                                                                                                     

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It’s not enough for your pastor, staff, and elders to see these steps clearly; if you cannot see them yourself, you are more likely to keep your gaze fixed upon your own comforts, your own will, and the blessed glories of the past.  Here are some of those steps as I see them: 

1. The Second Mountain

David Brooks is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times who, late in life, has experienced spiritual reawakening through his relationship with his Christian girlfriend. In his recent book, The Second Mountain, he details his awakening in terms of the “two mountains” of this life.  The book takes its title from a heuristic that Brooks developed to differentiate the people he wanted to be like from those he didn’t. “It’s gotten so I can recognize first- and second-mountain people,” he writes confidently. Those on their first mountain of life tend to focus on themselves: on establishing an identity, on managing their reputation, on status and reward. The second mountain is normally reached only after a period of suffering (“the valley”), and those who make it there come to focus on others. “The second mountain is about shedding the ego and losing the self,” about contribution rather than acquisition, egalitarianism rather than élitism, Brooks writes. The satisfaction of second-mountain people is deeper (it is a “bigger mountain”) and leads not to happiness but to joy.

So much of this life is focused upon working hard to make something of oneself, establishing reputation, security, and a living for yourself and your family. The “second mountain” is the life we live for others. It’s not a mountain everyone climbs. 

For those of us following Jesus, our spiritual development can be seen as our effort to minimize the first mountain and maximize the second. We should all have a second mountain in our vision, our presbyopic focus.

2. Children and Youth

We need our children and grandchildren to be nurtured in the faith with clear picture of that second mountain built into every one of them. We nurture them well when they see their life and adulthood as more than self-establishment, but a life lived for Christ’s Kingdom characterized by mission, outreach, and service to the Lord. Helping them develop a lifelong roadmap which includes a second mountain is not only the best thing we can do for their spiritual formation; it is one of the best things we can do for this world and God’s Kingdom. 

3. The Village

In an age of increasing digital isolation (Hey! Yeah, I’m talking to you—put down your iPhone!), it is crucial that the local church become the local “village” where people make significant personal and social connections. In the non-stop suburban sprawl that is The Inland Empire, loneliness is epidemic, even though surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people. Why? Because we live in our cars and our personal rabbit trails between home, work, the bank, and Trader Joes. We need First Pres to become a true village—a place where children know adults their grandparents’ age who are not their grandparents, and adults know the names and characters of our youth and children. Deep down, we all long for these connections and we need them. The Body of Christ must be intergenerational in more than just paperwork; we need to connect relationally and deeply, since we share the same destiny.

Let us be of one mind and spirit as we look forward to 2020, knowing that the Holy Spirit lives among us and works within us to form us after the image and likeness of Christ, and may we increasingly grow to give ourselves away in order that we summit that second mountain before Jesus calls us home. 

As Brooks writes, “Jesus is the person who shows us what giving yourself away looks like.” †