- intro about emails in response to his emails last year. Could tell peoples’ spiritual gifts (mercy—would ask about his health [was kind of ill during the summit last year], etc.). Leaders showed through with their vision casting (hope you get better, there’s a great ministry ahead of you)
- Has been praying for “record registration, record impact”
- The greatest leaders learn from an extremely wide variety of sources: from people of different cultures, political views, etc.
- Great leaders are open to learn
- intro: the perfect week in the life of a senior pastor—quickly hears an awe inspiring vision from God during his yearly retreat, delivers a wonderful sermon vision casting it, people cheer him on
- a vision like this, implemented unilaterally, will not be deeply owned
- the spiritual gift of leaders is about vision
- the most compelling vision in the world is worthless if it does not deeply resonate with the congregation, if people are not willing to sleep on cots for it.
- Jesus contrasts shepherds: owners and hired hands. They look the same until the wolves come. The hired hands abandon the sheep; the owners stay.
- ownership causes people to die for a vision
- ex: young man took a bunch of Christianity DVDs to a closed country over the objections of the organization that it was too dangerous. Was killed
- Bloody Sunday: Events at that bridge showed that Blacks didn’t just assent to Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision, but were willing to die for it.
- How do you cast a vision like this?
- High-octane leaders hate this word, but it is required: PROCESS
- Not giving people a chance to talk about the vision makes followers feel devalued and unnecessary
- Process:
- Vision formation
- “Sinai formation”: go off and listen to God on the mountain and declare it to the church.
- team process: ask your team “what does God want our church to look like in 5 yrs?”
- not as dramatic. Very slow, very inefficient. But builds community and builds ownership
- what if people get the vision off course?
- People don’ need to have their way, they need to have their way considered
- Vision refinement
- at some point consensus emerges. The temptation is to present the vision at this point
- A better way is to discuss this first draft with the smaller groups in the church. Ask “what excites you about this?” “What scares you?”
- by the time you are done, the vision is crystal clear
- the vision is refined
- people have ownership: after talking to 45 groups of 75 at Willow Creek regarding their new vision, gave those people an opportunity to give to the building project required by the vision. They gave an astonishing $45 million!!
- Vision declaration
- Not best done as a solo activity.
- Gave trial messages to elders, board, deacons. Got feedback on whether the intro was compelling, whether the points were clear. Hybels changed the talk substantially as a result of their feedback.
- Great leaders work to increase ownership as one of their main tasks.
- Vision leaks. Need to continue filling people’s vision buckets.
- Vision achievement
- Celebrate milestones. If you can tell sotries of how the vision is being achieved it helps ownership
- But, how committed are you to the vision God has given you? Will you die, if necessary, for His vision?
- Example of Paul going to Jerusalem: He was pastoring a successful church in Ephesus. God calls him to go to Jerusalem. Probably will be killed and a prophet says as much, but Paul would not be dissuaded.
- People will only follow God’s vision to us if they think we will sacrifice for the vision
- Ex: It was the end of a long speaking tour. They were flying from South Africa to Brazil (14 hour flight and Hybels was tired). But someone had forgotten to put Hybels’ visa in his passport. The only option was to fly to North Africa, then to Washington D.C., get the visa, and then to Brazil (about a day on the plane). Hybels was really tired, just wanted to go home. But God said to do it. And in the end he was greatly blessed by what happened.
