Vision Navigator

Wanted to pass along a link to a great article by Will Mancini, which was published on the web a week or so ago [link to the full article is here]– here’s an excerpt:

What if the real challenge of translating vision to reality is something inherently wrong with our current models for vision? What if strategic planning models and long-range planning teams spend countless hours developing a vision or a plan that, by its very nature, is unrealizable? What if we changed our paradigm or working definition of vision in a way that made it naturally and organically more likely to blossom? What if we could make vision so clear that action was inevitable?

I believe the real challenge of turning vision into reality is one seven-letter word: clarity.

This resonates with me on so many levels. It’s part of the reason I joined up with Mancini and the Auxano team in the first place.

For when leaders pursue clarity, they find a unique vision from God that nourishes them and compels others to join. It’s not about the latest tricks, trends, or techniques then. It’s not about coercion or manipulation. Rather, it’s about leaning into, living, and casting a clear vision that invites others to participate in God’s mission — catalyzing folks into action to become part of something larger than themselves, a unique expression of Christ’s body on earth.

What is your experience? Do you see a connection between vision and reality in your life, or in the life of your church?

Today, millions of Americans will go to the polls to select the next leader of our country. This is the culmination of a campaign season that has stretched on for nearly two years. Two years of fundraising, stump speeches, commercials, talking points, debates, attack ads, conventions, endorsements, policy statements, comedy sketches, and opinion polls. Two years of jockeying for position, making a case, and trying to gain a competitive advantage.

In many ways, it’s the ultimate contest. And as such, it’s easy to see why so many people see the Presidency as the ultimate prize to be won.

To the winner goes the spoils. Perks. Power. Prestige. Position. Or so we’ve come to expect.

But Jesus gives us a different perspective. In Mark 10, he says to his disciples:

“You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:42-45

So leadership is not primarily about wielding power, or exercising one’s authority. It’s about service, and self-sacrifice. Using power to empower others, and preserve their freedom. So while we may desire the perks, power, prestige, and position, what we need is a sense of accountability, responsibility, humility, and consistency.

Leadership is therefore not a prize to be won, but a responsibility to be accepted, as a sacred trust. Great leaders serve. Leading, not lording.

My prayer and hope for the next President is that he will embrace this notion. My personal challenge is to flesh this out in my own experience. To pray for those who have authority over me, and to serve those for whom I’ve been given responsibility. To trust, and to be worthy of trust.

What are your thoughts on leadership? Which leaders have inspired you by their service and self-sacrifice?

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This post is part of a Synchroblog on Leadership. The following blogs took part in the experiment:

Jonathan Brink - Letter To The President
Adam Gonnerman - Aspiring to the Episcopate
Kai - Leadership - Is Servant Leadership a Broken Model?
Sally Coleman - In the world but not of it- servant leadership for the 21st Century Church
Alan Knox - Submission is given not taken
Joe Miller - Elders Lead a Healthy Family: The Future
Cobus van Wyngaard - Empowering leadership
Steve Hayes - Servant leadership
Geoff Matheson - Leadership
John Smulo - Australian Leadership Lessons
Helen Mildenhall - Leadership
Tyler Savage - Moral Leadership - Is it what we need?
Bryan Riley - Leading is to Listen and Obey
Susan Barnes - Give someone else a turn!
Liz Dyer - A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Polls…
Lionel Woods - Why Diverse Leadership is Good for America
Julie Clawson - Leadership Expectations
Ellen Haroutunian - A New Kind Of Leadership
Matt Stone - Converting Leadership
Steve Bradley - Lording or Leading?
Adam Myers - Two types of Leadership
Bethany Stedman - A Leadership Mosaic
Kathy Escobar - I’m Pretty Sure This Book Won’t Make It On The Bestseller List
Fuzzy Orthodoxy - Self Leadership
Sonja Andrews - Leadership In An Age of Cholera

David Hayward had a thought provoking post earlier this week on Spiritual Engineering. He notes the preoccupation the Nazis had with social engineering, and how their desire to achieve a perfect society ironically translated into a genocidal agenda to contain or eliminate those who were considered to be disruptive or inferior.

He closes the post by asking this question: “When we try to engineer the kind of community that we want, are we actually doing violence to the body of Christ and violating his parts?“

Below was my response:

I think we all naturally gravitate towards engineering things in our favor, whether we’re conscious of it or not. It’s part of our broken, fallen nature seeking safety and self-preservation, and is not something we can escape. When we give in to this need for self exaltation, and organize others around our cause, then we recognize it as the warped type of social engineering you describe, where the goal is uniformity, not unity — promoting our own agenda, rather than participating in God’s mission.

The key to me is being aware of this, and humbly submitting ourselves together to become the community that God wants us to be. This involves dragging our own thoughts, feelings, convictions, biases, etc., into the light — sharing them with each other — airing them out — arguing if need be. And realizing that none of us has “the answer” in our back pocket. We all have limited perspectives at best, and we all need illumination from our Heavenly Father, the Waymaker, to show us the way forward.

This involves trust — trusting that God really does want to guide us and show us the way if we ask. It also involves trusting our Father’s heart, even when the path runs through the desert, is obscured, dark, or full of stumbling blocks. Because God’s purpose for the path often has more to do with the process — growing our faith, making us more dependent on him, and more loving/forgiving towards ourselves and each other — than the actual destination.

The question for me then is not whether we should try to engineer or not, but who’s agenda we’re advancing — each day — today — in this moment…

What are your thoughts? When church leaders cast a vision for your community, do you feel motivated or manipulated? How might the trust you place in leadership impact your perception?