DreamIT - Bill Hybels

Great session tonight. Worship was great. Delirious isn't until Wednesday evening but it was still awesome. :) I was reminded of how much I missed going to the Leadership Summit's at Willowcreek. We used to go every year when I was on staff at Harvest. I mentioned it to Greg and he thought it might be a good team event. Don't disagree but it might be a great personal trip for Anna and I.

Anyhow...Bill spoke on vision - he's really good at that. Key points:

• Vision must be owned.

Vision in his definition is a picture of the future that releases passion in people. Vision can be clear, it can be compelling, it can be great and God honoring BUT if it's not owned it will not have the impact it could. Bill looked at the story in John 10 and the two types of shepherds. The owner and the hirling and what happens when the wolves come. When strife and struggle come the hirling runs like hell, the owner stays and cares for the sheep. The teaching kind of came out of this because ultimately at some point every person in leadership finds themselves at a crossroad, a fork in the road to either stay the path and engage and do the work and dig deeper and stay in the owner mindset or take the easy road and become a hirling. Churches, ministries, businesses are full of leaders that have taken the easy road. I've always heard of it as the "employee" mindset but as I reflect on this I am fully aware of how much I fell into this as I began to loose my heart and passion for ministry at SoulRio.

Is it possible to have a vision, in today's world, that is worth dying for?

When followers see a leader who is willing to die for his/her vision they begin to take ownership. Acts 21 (Paul and the prophet as he travels to Jerusalem.)

Then Bill went to some specifics about vision

1. Vision Formation: there are two ways to do this, either the solo Mt. Sinai approach or the Team approach where you bring the team together and ask "What does God want this _____ to look like 3-4 years from now?
2. Vision Refinement: is the process of shopping the vision to different departments or groups of people to get their thoughts and input. Ultimately you will see some percentage of shift from the 1st step but what is even more important is the ownership that is being developed.
3. Vision Declaration: big learning here was that words matter.

My #1 take away was: The greatest determiner of whether or not people will own the vision is the level they perceive the senior leader owns it.

In my heart, I realized how much I needed to ask God to forgive me for taking the hirling approach to so many years of ministry, especially at the end. And ask for wisdom that I would not go there again. In subtle ways I can so easily go there because I don't want for things to be difficult. The agreement begins with, "I don't make enough money, barely minimum wage, to care about...(fill in the blank) which goes boldly in the face of Colossians 3:17 which says "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

So to sum up - that's what I am committed to do.