Entries Tagged 'Vision' ↓

Sometimes “tomorrow” is a bad word — “Instead of doing (fill-in-the-blank) today, I’ll do it tomorrow!” (i.e., procrastination).

But, other times, tomorrow is an inspiring word. Tomorrow gives us the opportunity to dream, envision, and plan for the future. Tomorrow is an opportunity to take what we’ve learned yesterday and today and apply it on the next leg of our journey.

Scripture cautions about how we view tomorrow, though. James wrote …

How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. (James 4.14-16)

And, Jesus said …

So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. (Matthew 6.34)

However, Jesus also talked about the importance of looking ahead in counting the cost of being his disciple, saying:

… don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’ (Luke 14.28-30)

I think one lesson is that we need to entrust our tomorrows to God — don’t take them for granted, don’t worry about what may or may not happen — but be prepared to pay the price of following Jesus and helping others follow Jesus, too, for the transformation of the world!

So tonight, June 30, 2008, we look ahead to tomorrow when we (officially) begin the next leg of our journey in Clearfield. We look forward, with great anticipation, to all that God will do in and through us as we seek to serve God faithfully!

During this transitional time in our lives, it might be a good time to recast the vision for this blog. This blog started out as a place for us to post summaries of our sermons (in late 2004) and it has broadened over the years.

The current tagline of our blog is: Life. Leadership. God’s Mission. The purpose of this blog is to provide a resource in these areas — for the people we serve and lead and for anyone around the world who may happen to land on our site by way of a search engine.

In order to live out this purpose, we’ll sometimes write about what’s going in our lives — as long as our experience can be a helpful resource and influence others for God.

We also want to be a resource for leaders. So, we’ll sometimes write about movies as long as that movie has a particularly strong life and/or leadership lesson (see Randy’s post, Movies for Leaders; there’s also a Movies category, where you can view all the movies we’ve written about). We’ll also occasionally write about leadership books that we’ve read (see the Books category).

Since the beginning of 2007, we’ve sought to be a resource for people considering adoption, particularly international adoption (see the Adoption category). That’s one of the main reasons we continue to share details about Ethan’s transition (of course, we also know that our friends/readers like to see how Ethan is doing).

It still amazes us that the biggest day in the history of this blog (in terms of visits) was “gotcha day,” the day Ethan joined our family, February 12, 2008, when this blog had 531 visits! (FWIW, some of our biggest days since our time in Korea have been in the days since the announcement of our relocation last Sunday, hitting/surpassing 200 a couple times.)

While our blog will continue to change and evolve in the future, we expect the basic purpose to remain the same: to be a resource for others!

It’s our first day back to work (after parental leave). As we get back to the cause of leading our churches in mission, I’m thinking about an image I saw while we were in Korea.

During our tour of Kwanglim Methodist Church, I saw a large wall poster of John Wesley on horseback, which included the phrase (in English and in Korean): “The world is my parish.”

I saw the poster as we walked by it in the hallway. A couple minutes later, I went back to take a picture of it because it had really caught my attention. Here was this incredible church (70,000+ members) — plus all of the other Methodist churches in Korea — that was the fruit of John Wesley’s amazing ministry.

It’s a good reminder that what we do for God can make an impact on the world — in our lifetimes and beyond. It’s also a good reminder as Joleen and I get back to the mission of leading our churches in the work of God’s kingdom.

Do you have a tool, an appliance, or a gadget somewhere around the house collecting dust, something you bought (or were given) one time but have never used? A lot of us probably do, and it makes me (Randy) think of Radio Shack’s slogan, “Don’t just buy stuff, do stuff.”

Radio Shack’s slogan also makes me think of a good slogan for Christ-followers: Don’t just believe stuff, do stuff!

Following Jesus involves more than attaining knowledge about God and the Bible. That’s important, but following Jesus is a way of life. When there’s a disconnect between what I believe and how I live, there’s a problem!

This is why you’ll normally see us use the description, “Christ-follower,” as opposed to descriptions like “Christian” or “believer” (not that there’s anything wrong with these tags, necessarily). I like “Christ-follower” because it indicates action. I believe God expects more from me than simply believing some things about him.

I believe God expects us to live out our beliefs!

I just wrote this for our charge’s (monthly) church newsletter (November 2007) …

Currently our sermon series is based on Acts 2.42-47, which gives us a snapshot of what the first century church looked like. They were a faith community, living their lives together, giving away their lives to others.

Being together lends itself to the concept of interconnectedness. We are connected to one another and we are not complete without the other. As believers in Jesus Christ, we are one body (Ephesians 4.4-6).

Perhaps the image of a puzzle is helpful. Each piece of the puzzle is unique and distinct to itself, yet it is pretty meaningless apart from the whole. You rarely know what the completed puzzle looks like when seeing only one piece. But when all the pieces are connected, a complete picture emerges.

We’re connected to one another. We’re not complete without each other! Imagine those puzzle pieces are people, imagine yourself to be one piece of that puzzle. God designed us to connect with others.

In Acts 2, the believers connected to study the Scripture, to pray, for Holy Communion, to worship, and to eat meals together. They connected by pooling their material means and giving to anyone in need. Their connection was a witness and many came to know Christ because of it.

I hate when I put a puzzle together and there are missing pieces. It’s so disappointing after all that work! And yet there are pieces, people, missing from our life together as the church.

Do you sense their absence? They may be absent from our Sunday worship gathering. Their gifts may be absent from our midst. There are those absent for they have not yet recognized God’s saving grace. And there are those people groups who are absent for they have yet to hear the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.

Who are you missing?

Andy Stanley has written a must-read book for leader/communicators who want to maximize the adhesiveness of their vision!

Andy Stanley, founding and lead pastor of North Point Community Church, is one of a handful of writers that I read everything they write. You’ll find some of Andy’s books in the sidebar already, but the latest book I’ve read, and the latest addition to the list of recommended books for leaders is Making Vision Stick (see Google Books’ limited preview), part of the new Leadership Library series from Zondervan.

The first thing I love about the book is that it’s only 74 pages long. If all books were as short, I’d be able to read a lot more books!
Here are some of my favorite quotes:

One of the greatest challenges is making vision stick. Vision doesn’t have much adhesive (12).

To get people to sit still long enough to understand your vision is hard enough. But to get them to actually organize their lives around it is supremely difficult. The urgent and legitimate needs of today quickly erase our commitment to the what could be of tomorrow (15-16).

It’s the leader’s responsibility to ensure that people understand and embrace the vision of the organization (17).

5 things you can do to increase the adhesiveness of your vision …

1. State the vision simply.

Andy writes …

if your vision is going to stick in people’s minds, it must be memorable. [...] People don’t remember or embrace paragraphs. They remember and embrace sentences (19). [...] And, If the vision is too complicated, nothing changes (23).

2. Cast the vision convincingly.

In this section, Andy says leaders must define the problem, offer a solution, and present a reason for the solution. He writes …

Every vision is a solution to a problem (25).

Buy-in by others hinges on your ability to convince them you are offering a solution to a problem they are convinced needs to be solved (26).

Further …

A leader points the way to a solution and gives a compelling reason why something must be done now (30).

3. Repeat the vision regularly.

As committed as I am to the idea of casting vision on a regular basis, sometimes I feel a bit guilty. I like I’m repeating myself (35).

I was glad to read this statement. I’ve been saying/feeling something similar in the last couple of years. But as Andy points out, the repetition is an essential component of vision-casting.

4. Celebrate the vision systematically.

Celebrating a win incarnates the vision, bringing clarity in a way that words cannot. (40)

5. Embrace the vision personally.

Your willingness to embody the vision of your organization will have a direct impact on your credibility as a leader. Living out the vision establishes credibility and makes you a leader worth following. When people are convinced the vision has stuck with you, it is easier for them to make the effort to stick with the vision (47).

Andy wraps up the brief book saying …

If God has given you a picture of what could and should be, embrace it fully and refuse to allow the busyness and urgency of life to distract you. [...] Seeing a vision become a reality requires more than a single burst of energy or creativity. It requires daily attention. Daily commitment (72-73).

Making Vision Stick is more good stuff from Andy Stanley. A must-read for leader/communicators.

Movie inspires viewers to keep dreaming!

Last week, we watched The Astronaut Farmer. The movie made me think about dreams and creativity.

A few years ago, I read John Maxwell’s Thinking for a Change, which includes a sad survey on the state of our creativity. The survey reveals that as we age, we become less creative. According to the survey, 2% of men/women in their 40s were found to be highly creative. As they continued their study, they also found that 2% of 35-year-olds were highly creative. This proved to be true all the down until they reached 7-year-olds. 10% of them were determined to be highly creative. However, as researchers continued, they discovered that 90% of 5-year-olds were highly creative!

These results cause me to wonder what happens between ages 5 and 7 that causes us to lose our creativity. Maybe Dr. Suess was right, “Adults are obsolete children.”
The Astronaut Farmer is about a middle-aged man’s dream to go into space. In the process of building a rocket in his barn, he encounters a lot of skepticism and ridicule from small minded people who don’t understand his dream. Charley Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton), when asked by reporter why he was building a rocket and planning to launch said, “It’s always been my dream.”

The movie takes place in a small town. At one point, Farmer’s friend, Arnie, said:

I’m your friend first and a banker second, all right? Now, folks around here, they think you’re crazy. I happen to think you’re a genius. You got bad credit, but you got great character, and uh, that rocket ship of yours is amazing. But as a friend, I have to look you in the eye and say that I think it’s time you give it a rest.

Later, after serving Farmer a 30-day notice of foreclosure on Farmer’s property, Arnie says:

You got 30 days, so you gotta open your eyes. Look at this as a wake-up call, because the dream is over. It’s gotta stop now, before you lose everything.

Because Farmer throws a brick through the banker’s window, he must see another childhood friend, Nurse Goode, for a psychiatric evaluation. She tells him, “The rocket is not going to bring you a happy childhood. We all just have to grow up and just take responsibility.”

These statements remind me of what I heard Ed Young Jr. say at a seminar in early 2006: “Little people with little vision will go after awesome people with awesome vision.”

My favorite quote in the movie comes at the mid-way point. Farmer, standing before the FAA committee to determine whether or not he would be permitted to launch his rocket, said:

You see, when I was a kid, they use to tell me I could be anything I wanted to be. No matter what. And maybe I am insane, I don’t know, but I still believe that. I believe it with all my heart. Somewhere along the line we stopped believing we could do anything. And if we don’t have our dreams, we have nothing.

We must guard our dreams. Bobb Biehl says, “Dreams are like soap bubbles floating close to jagged rocks on a windy day.” Isn’t that a great picture of the fragility of dreams? Guard your dreams. Don’t let anyone cause you to doubt God’s ability to accomplish great things through you!

Creativity is something we’re thinking about as we prepare to be parents. Part of the key, it seems, is simply not killing creativity. Pablo Picasso said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

Yesterday I received my copy of the March/April 2007 issue of Interpreter Magazine (a publication of the United Methodist Church) in the mail. The cover story caught my attention: "Changing Communities, Changing Churches."

There are some great stories about United Methodist churches that, faced with the challenge of changing communities, chose to make the changes that are necessary to be effective in ministry in the 21st century.

I love Bishop John R. Schol’s comments about "healthy disruption":

Church people tend to shy away from disruption.

"We want everybody in the church to be happy," a church member once
said to me. This is shocking, because Jesus was one of the most
disruptive people who ever lived. He turned the religious world upside
down. His disruption caused Him to wind up on a cross. We fail to make
the connection between healthy disruption and the life of Jesus.

Yes!
That reminds me of a message I shared last year on the difference
between peacekeepers and peacemakers. Peacekeepers want to make
everyone happy. But peacemakers, who know "healthy disruption" is
required, want to make everyone healthy!

A sobering statement from the feature article …

Some
congregations embrace change as an exciting challenge; others wish it
would just go away. Behind it all stands one big question: Will
churches reach out to new neighbors, or will they shrink and die?

"The potential exists for a large number of church closings in the
coming years," says the Rev. Sam Dixon, who leads the evangelization
and church growth staff of the General Board of Global Ministries.

This happens when an aging church is unable to replenish its rolls
with newcomers, perhaps out of fear of a changing neighborhood, and its
finances and hopes decline, Dixon says. In many instances, clergy
members of past generations were trained for pastoral care, focusing on
their flocks, rather than as outward-looking evangelists and community
organizers.

It’s our choice. We can view the need
for change as something to be avoided, or we can view it as an
opportunity and challenge to be excited about. Not only must churches
change the way they do church, pastors also must change the way they
lead. Pastors who minister primarily to members must learn to lead and
equip  their churches to do ministry in the world.

There are some great stories of United Methodist churches that chose
to change in this edition of Interpreter. I encourage you to check them
out. The reality is, we are never immune to the need for change. We
either change or we die!

Recently, Rev. Dr. Tom Salsgiver, wrote an editorial for our conference publication called, "Keepers of the Aquarium or Fishers of People." The article got my leadership juices flowing and I started thinking specifically about pastoral leadership in a "fishers of people" context.

Both pieces were distributed as a bulletin insert a couple of weeks ago, but I thought I’d post my thoughts here, too. I hope this gives you a clearer sense of why both Joleen and I are committed to being transformational leaders in "fishers of people" contexts.

+++++

Pastoral Leadership In a “Fishers of People” Context
By Randy Willis

Tom Salsgiver recently wrote an article challenging congregations to
evaluate themselves to determine whether they are “keepers of the
aquarium” or “fishers of people.”

Keepers of the aquarium “care more about their members than those
outside the church” while fishers of people understand that their
mission is “to bring in those who are unchurched.” There is a world of
difference between these two sets of values. “How you answer that
question,” Tom concludes, “will determine whether you live – or die” as
a congregation. I believe we must be a “fishers of people” community!

The article has caused me to reflect on what pastoral leadership
might look like in a “fishers of people” context. Tom notes that
expectation of pastoral leadership is very different in the two types
of congregations. In keepers of the aquarium settings, pastors are
expected to be “personal chaplains for their members,” taking care of
the members. In “fishers of people” settings, pastors are free to lead
the church to transform their communities for Christ.

How might a leader in a “fishers of people” context use his or her
time? I believe leaders must prioritize their time, giving primary
attention to the following areas …

• Cultivating one’s own spiritual growth and development. Leaders cannot be catalysts for spiritual transformation in others if they are not being spiritually transformed themselves!
• Developing one’s own leadership gifts. Leaders must be learners!
• Investing adequate time in sermon prep for sermons that are transformational, not just informational. Life change is a core value for transformational leaders!
• Growing a leadership culture in the local church. Transformational leaders don’t lead alone; they know it takes a crew to complete a mission!

These four areas should ideally comprise most of the pastor’s time.
Remaining time may be used for various ministry projects,
administrative tasks, meetings, emergency pastoral care (routine
visitation would take place as able with the majority of visitation
being handled by members), as well as involvement beyond the local
church (community, district, conference, etc.).

The Church is God’s means to bring God’s hope and transformation to
the world. In order for that to happen, leaders must lead their
congregations to be “fishers of people”!

Tonight was our “information sharing” meeting where our Exploratory Team (”scouts”) presented their report after months of prayer, discussion, and data gathering. Essentially, they are recommending that our three churches unite as one congregation.

The presentation came together at the last minute (though we’ve been working on it for a while). Our scouts did an excellent job leading, interacting, and responding to questions and comments, which were sometimes very negative. I am proud of them!

I will post one bit of our devotion from this evening. This was a litany that I wrote this morning that included a part for each team member to read, parts for all the scouts to read together, and parts for the congregation. You may notice that it flows out of the story that we have been encountering in recent weeks (or more accurately, the story that has been encountering us!).

Scouts - At your call, O God, we have gone ahead to check out the land that you are sending us to inhabit. Thank you for entrusting us with this task, and thank you for being with us throughout these many days.

Mary - And now, we return to share what we have discovered and what we believe God is calling us to do. We pray that God will give clear guidance as we share this report with our tribes and as we consider this recommendation in the next week.

Mary - Our tribes, while we indeed see the obstacles ahead of us, we also see God’s power at work and we believe that the Lord is with us. We can go and fulfill the task to which God is calling us!

Janet - Friends, just like our spiritual ancestors, Joshua and Caleb, the land we explored is a wonderful land! And if we obey the Lord, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us.

Jill - The land God is calling us to, is a rich and fruitful land, and God will give it to us! Do not rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the obstacles. They are only helpless prey to us! The Lord is with us! Don’t be afraid of anything!

Sam - Seven times — twice at the end of Moses’ leadership and five times at the beginning of Joshua’s leadership — they used the phrase, “Be strong and courageous!” Today, we believe that’s what God is saying to us: “Be strong and courageous!”

Joyce - Be strong and courageous as you seek God tonight and in the next week, asking that God’s will be done, and that God will bless you with clear discernment.

Denny - Be strong and courageous as you consider new ways of worshiping God and being engaged in ministry in our community. Be strong and courageous as you take the next faithful step!

Bonnie - Be strong and courageous as you draw closer to God, being more dependent on him than ever before. Be strong and courageous as you follow with reckless abandon wherever Jesus leads!

Scouts - Sisters and brothers — members of our tribes — we respectfully and humbly submit for your thoughtful and prayerful consideration what we believe God is calling us to be and do. We believe that God is calling us to be a community of authentic Christ-followers to transform this community by making disciples of Jesus Christ!

All - O God, as we sang last Sunday, “Give us clean hands, give us pure hearts. Let us not lift our souls to another … O God, let us be a generation that seeks — seeks your face, O God of Jacob!”

Gordie - And as another song says, “If you ask me to leap out of my boat on the crashing waves. If you ask me to go preach to a lost world that Jesus saves, I’ll go but I cannot go alone ’cause I know I’m nothing on my own. But the power of Christ in me makes me strong!”

Scouts - O God, we are aware of how helpless and powerless we are. But it is only in this state of helplessness and powerlessness that we sense the need to humble ourselves before you. God, in this sacred and scary moment, we yield ourselves fully for your use. Use us in ways that honor and please you most!

All - “Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen.”

May God’s will be done, and may we hear and respond to God’s leading!