Having a vision

As the new board of Faith House Florida began to take shape, a friend was asked to help. This friend has owned association management companies for many years and is considered one of the leading authorities on how to operate an organization.

We asked him about coming to visit with the Faith House board as we developed the vision and mission statement. He said I was getting ahead of the process.

'The first question', he said, 'is to ask if the group should even consider continuing to exist. Perhaps you are trying to make something happen that should instead be allowed to just stop existing. Why does this group exist?'

The answer was a simple, '52'. That is the number of residents we could house at that time. We knew of another organization in the Pinellas County area that was raising several million to build a facility that could house approximately 40 residents. Their budget for all the work they do, and it is wonderful things they do, is an amount that is a multiple of our annual budget. However, on any given night, we have the facilities to help 52 people who have said they want to get sober.

For my friend, the expert in associations, there needed to be more of an answer. One recent morning during devotions, the answer appeared. It was Luke 15:24. It is the vision I see of Faith House Florida.

'My son was dead, but now he is alive again! He was lost, but now he is found!'