Without A Vision ...

[by Bill Reichart]

Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint (Proverbs 29:18).

Without vision: family members eat separately in their own rooms; churches argue; companies only have employees.

"Without vision, people will define their own vision and the loudest voice will prevail."

Vision unifies us around a preferred future; a future that can’t be accomplished by yourself.

Great leaders cast a clear, concise and compelling vision.

"If your vision doesn't scare you, then both your vision and your God are too small."

For vision to to motivate it must connect on 3 levels:

1) Mind-to-Mind – Vision is strategic. While your vision may be, as Jim Collins says, "big, hairy and audacious," people have to believe that it is attainable. When you connect, it becomes “OUR PLAN” and people give their resources.

2) Heart to Heart – Vision is passionate. When people see you, they see, feel and taste the vision. It becomes something you were created for and are willing to die for. When youconnect, it becomes “OUR DESIRE” and people give their life.

3) Soul-to-Soul – Vision is personal. It comes from God but it permeates your life. A calling. A confidence that IT will be accomplished. When you connect, it becomes “OUR CALLING” and people take responsibility.

Winston Churchill believed that leadership's foundation was vision. He had five tools he used when he got ready to communicate vision. Here they are:

TOOL ONE: STRONG BEGINNING (CAPTURE THEIR ATTENTION)

TOOL TWO: ONE THEME (STAY FOCUSED)

TOOL THREE: SIMPLE LANGUAGE (EASY TO UNDERSTAND)TOOL

FOUR: WORD PICTURES: (STORIES AND ILLUSTRATIONS)

TOOL FIVE: EMOTIONAL ENDING (A COMPELLING CONCLUSION)

And take this poem by Sir Francis Drake to heart:

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

What Constitutes Change?

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

"Vision" by Andy Stanley

[Here are Vince Antonucci's notes on another of the sessions at the Exponential Conference. Andy Stanley is brilliant and makes everything seem so ridiculously simple...]

Vision = Mental picture of what could be, fueled by passion of what should be. Vision begins as a burden, What’s clear in here must become clear out there – or people won’t know how to follow us.

5 Things To Do:

1. State it simply
- Memorable is portable
- We suffer from the curse of knowledge
- People don’t ask stupid questions, they’re just letting us know how poorly we’ve communicated the vision.
- Northpointe’s Vision: “Create a church that unchurched people love to attend.”

2. Cast it convincingly
- Define the problem (If people don’t feel weight of problem they won’t be excited about the vision).
- Offer the solution (Your vision is the solution to a problem.)
- Explain why and why now (Why now in this community?)

3. Repeat it regularly
- Discover the rhythm of your church
- Build vision casting into the rhythm

4. Celebrate constantly
- Problem with vision – no pictures going somewhere that only exists in my head.
- So when we get “pictures” – hold them up – celebrate the win.
- Stories do more to clarify vision than anything else.
- Don’t miss opportunities to showcase examples

5. Embrace it personally (and publicly)
- Share with staff and church when you invite someone, what happened this week in your small group, etc.
- Don’t miss opportunities to showcase examples.

How Do You Know If Your Vision Is From God?

[From Perry Noble dot com by Perry]

If you feel confident that you can accomplish what is in front of you with no problem at all … then you didn’t hear from God.

If no one is angry at you … then you didn’t hear from God.

If you don’t have to ask anyone to sacrifice to make the vision come true … then you didn’t hear from God.

If religious people are not steaming at you, blogging about you and/or leaving your church … then you didn’t hear from God.

If you have the money in the bank to do what God has asked you church to do … then you didn’t hear from God.

If every step is perfectly designed and nothing happens to totally throw you off along the way … then you didn’t hear from God.

If someone doesn’t try to talk you out of what you are about to attempt … then you didn’t hear from God.

If you don’t stay up at night thinking about the vision … then you didn’t hear from God.

If your vision is in contradiction to God’s Word … then you didn’t hear from God. (And no, you didn’t get a “special revelation” that gave you permission to trump His Word!)

If you know all of the answers … then you didn’t hear from God.
__________________________

Today's Quote

"Without vision, people will define their own vision and the loudest voice will prevail."

The Top Seven Temptations Senior Pastors Face

[From Perry Noble dot com by Perry]

#1 - Selling Out God’s Vision In Exchange For A Paycheck

I know so many pastors who fear losing their jobs because they think if they say what God wants them to say or attempt what God wants them to attempt then they will get fired. They claim to believe in the Sovereignty of God but then cower before the “all powerful … committee!”

#2 - Trying To Please Everyone

You CAN’T do it – no matter how you preach, what you wear or who you talk to – someone is going to get angry at you. Jesus never tried to please everyone…He was faithful to His Father and His calling – we should do the same.

#3 - Thinking Working Harder Will Solve The Problem

There have been so many times I have felt like I needed to violate the 4th commandment in order to make things happen … BUT – the commandment to rest is not a mere suggestion. It’s a command!

Sometimes the godliest thing a pastor can do is walk away from the work for awhile and relax … and let God prove how HE is perfectly capable of running the world (and the church) just fine!

#4 - Sacrificing Their Family

I’ve seen so many pastors allow the church to thrust their wives into activities that they hate – but the pastor tells them to do it in order to “keep the flock happy.”

I’ve seen pastors go to the sporting events and school plays of every kid in the church – except for his own; after all, they will understand, right?

Pastors – there isn’t a church or ministry ANYWHERE that is worth the price of your family! (How do you know if you are sacrificing your family? Why not ask them?)

#5 - Not Delegating Their Weaknesses

One of the myths that pastors buy into is that they have to be “well rounded.” Let me be very upfront here – there isn’t a well rounded person on planet earth. NO ONE is good at EVERYTHING.

If you have a weakness … instead of spending all of your time trying to master it (which you never will) why not delegate it and focus on the things you actually do well. THOSE are the things that will add the most value to your church over the long haul.

#6 - Avoiding Conflict

Unresolved conflict is like cancer … if not dealt with it will grow and eventually kill an organization or ministry. If there is tension or unresolved conflict on a staff … it is the pastors job to make sure it is dealt with – not ignored! (Anyone need to have a conversation today?)

#7 - Not Spending Personal Time With God

When a pastor is not personally walking with God then He cannot expect His church to do so! Pastors, NOTHING should come in between us and our personal time with God – that is where our fire comes from! We NEED HIM … He doesn’t need us. SO … we need to spend more time seeking His face rather than merely asking Him to bless our plans.

15 Signs That You (Or Your Church) Lacks Vision

[By Perry Noble]

#15 - No one is ever challenged to radically rearrange their lives to be a part of what God is doing.
#14 - God hasn’t asked you to give something up.
#13 - Everyone in your church is perfect. (If you are truly reaching lost people then you will discover that ministry is messy.)
#12 - Nothing in regards to how you lead has changed in the past year.
#11 - When your youth group wants to do something you make them have a bake sale in front of Wal Mart–but when your senior adults want to do something the church covers the cost; after all, they are tithers! (And that same church will wonder why “the youth don’t come to church anymore.”)
#10 - You always find something wrong with ministries that are seeing fruit.
#9 - You can do everything you have in front of you WITHOUT the help of God AND others.
#8 - You spend more time on other churches websites than you do reading your Bible.
#7 - You think the answer to every problem is, “If we just had more money.”
#6 - No one has ever left your church.
#5 - You continually call other churches begging them for money.
#4 - You allow people with money to dictate the way you spend your time and the direction of the church.
#3 - When you go to a conference and come back and announce “we are changing everything” because you have received INSPIRATION not REVELATION.
#2 - You’ve never spent sleepless nights wondering, “How in heck are we going to do this? Seriously, I told our church we were going to do WHAT?”
#1 - You worry more about keeping the people in your church happy than you do about pleasing God and speaking the truth.

What If The Church Closed For Retraining?

[By Dave Ferguson]

My high school age daughter Amy is a barista at Starbucks. A few weeks ago all the Starbucks across North America closed shop for three and half hours in the evening. Why? To hear from Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz via video about the companies need to get back to it's original vision. Next, the store manager talked about several strategic changes that the store would make to give the customer better and more personalized service. And the evening ended by re-training everyone at that Starbucks store. When my daughter got home here is what she said to me, "Dad, you would have loved it! ... It's really weird, I know that I really work at a fast food chain, but they made me believe that it really matters."

So here is my question: If we were to close all the churches across North America for three and half hours and we had the chance to vision-cast and re-train every Christ Follower, what would need to be said and what would you do?

[Click "comments" below to leave your's.]

Personal (Sabbatical) Update

Yvonne and I are on sabbatical. I cannot express how important it is for pastors to take a sabbatical from time to time. When I am away, in the mountains or on the ocean, I can think so much more clearly and focus so much better on the real priorities of life and ministry. A sabbatical must be longer than a few days. We must disconnect from the world as we know it in order to reconnect with God. Jesus set the example. How often did He retreat or get away during His three years of ministry?

Most congregations do not understand the importance of sabbaticals. It will take good communications and teaching to change this culture. But, it must be done to preserve and improve pastoral leadership. It will pay great dividends to the pastor and the congregation.

A sabbatical (from Greek sabbatikos) is a prolonged hiatus, typically one year, in the career of an individual taken in order to fulfill some goal, e.g., writing a book or traveling extensively for research. Some universities and other institutional employers of scientists, physicians, and/or academics offer a paid sabbatical as an employee benefit, called sabbatical leave. Some companies offer an unpaid sabbatical for people wanting to take career breaks - this is a growing trend in the UK, with 20% of companies having a career break policy, and 10% considering introducing one.

Sabbaticals are often taken by professors, pastors, cartoonists (e.g. Gary Larson and Bill Watterson), musicians (e.g. Cindy Wilson, Bobby McFerrin) and sportsmen (e.g. Alain Prost). Academic sabbaticals are typically for one year following six years of full-time employment. Also taken by those young professionals who just need a break from work to determine if a career path is correct for them.

In UK and Irish students' unions, particularly in higher education institutions, students can be elected to become sabbatical officers of their students' union, either taking a year out of their study (in the academic year following their election) or remaining at the institution for a year following completion of study. Sabbatical officers are usually provided with a living allowance or stipend.

As Yvonne and I spend this time alone with God, we are already seeing things differently. God is restoring our divine vision.

We may take a little longer - until April 8 or so.