Bruce Bridgeman was a 67-year old neuroscientist who had spent his whole life nearly stereoblind. In other words, his world was flat. He had no depth perception. One day, he attended a 3D movie with his wife, thinking that for him, the whole experience would be a waste of time. Suddenly the world changed.
“It was literally like a whole new dimension of sight. Exciting,” said Bridgeman. From that point on, he could suddenly see “normally”.1
Can you imagine? After 67 years, suddenly seeing the world in all of its depth and texture.
For those of us who have perfect vision, we mostly take it for granted. And yet anyone who has vision impairment or even has to wear glasses to read, knows that vision is an incredibly important sense. Yes, we can survive without it but it provides us with so much.
Vision is the future but it’s also the present. Vision allows you to drink in beauty, alerts you to danger, provides direction and distance, and helps you to know where to place your feet. It’s a platform or framework for moving forward.
Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” As Christians we are provided with supernatural goggles with which to see the world. Becoming a Christian is literally an eye-opening experience. You see the hope behind the headlines, the spiritual behind the secular and, hopefully, the world tinged with compassion and love. You see the image of God when you look at others. [pullquote]
That’s why it is so crucial for each individual, each corporation, each church, each school, each country, to have a vision: to be able to see and interpret the world around them and know how to move forward.
And that’s why I am so encouraged by the Adventist Church in the South Pacific’s emphasis on discipleship. There’s a clear vision: a push to make active disciples and again be an Adventist movement (not a pew-ment).
Since I was appointed editor I’ve been asked this question a lot: “What is your vision for Record going forward?”
So here it is.
First, we had to make some aesthetic changes. The magazine and the website have had a visual update. This will help to attract new and younger readers.
Our primary role is to tell stories. Adventist Record must continue to tell effective discipleship stories that encourage, inspire and disciple our readers to do the same. We will continue to share testimonies of what God has done in the lives of individuals and ministries. And we’re looking for effective discipleship stories that show God’s kingdom in action.
We will place a key emphasis on practical faith: how our faith applies to life, culture, church, community and our family as well as the difficult times in the fallen world in which we live. Record will provide an authentic, raw and honest look at the issues that many struggle with today—things like porn, mental health issues, family breakdown, singleness and many more. To achieve this, we need to be open and vulnerable together.
We will be engaging with culture, curating and creating more shareable content for online, increasingly using visual and audio content that can add to or supplement the written word. Record has always been a print magazine but the world we live in is no longer dominated by print. We need to do better in the digital space.
We plan to provide help and mentoring to develop Adventist writers so they can powerfully and effectively share their faith.
I will fail. You will not always agree with everything I write or choose to publish. But my hope is that Record can be an open place where we can talk about things that matter, things that have eternal consequence.
Hopefully we can have the candid conversations about the challenges that face us as a body of Christ and as fallen human beings. We can celebrate the good work that God is doing in the world through us, the church. And we can learn and teach how to be most effective in that world, in ministry, in relationships and in becoming more like Jesus challenges us to be.
I’m confident we can achieve this because I am inspired by the amazing, energised, God-gifted team I work with every day. But we also need you. To contribute, to comment, to join the conversation.
How? Read, share, write, feel. Visit the website. Become part of the Record community. Because without you, Adventist Record wouldn’t exist.
