Sunday, April 18, 2010

Visioning

I'm thinking quite a bit on vision these days. If the Holy Spirit births a vision in you that is being confirmed/echoed...you need to obey.

In leadership, vision is an interesting thing. If we don't share the vision and gain buy in, the vision will be stifled by our selfishness or distrust of God's community. The way I like to illustrate it is that if God breathes his breath into you, then you can either 1) try to breathe what he's breathed into you by yourself or 2) breathe the vision into others. When other people catch it, that is when powerful things happen. When vision isn't shared...it will never gain momentum and has the potential to lead to some pretty deep sin issues (self-righteousness, self-sustenance, isolation from community, etc.)

The challenge for leaders is that if they try to share the vision with the wrong people it could strangle or sabotage the vision. Here's three ways this can happen. First, you can share the vision with people and have them be unreceptive/apathetic. Nothing ruins momentum like sharing it with a bunch of zombies. Second, you can share the vision with people and have them jump on it with negativity. This is hard to deal with because it can be taken as a personal attack and can make you feel like the only way the vision can happen is if you pull it off on your own. Lastly, you can share the vision and have someone hijack it to try to accomplish their own agenda.

Sharing vision is simultaneously the most necessary thing in leadership and the most difficult thing in leadership.

But if you share the vision and it is embraced with like minded, like hearted people, hold on to your hats for the ride of your life!

I will begin sharing with you all the vision of Operation: Sheep Initiative this week!

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