Goin' to Haiti tomorrow... Woo-hoo!

I'll be in Haiti with a team from our church for the next week, so I may not be posting until after March 6th.

Please pray for us!

- Jeff

Making Vision Stick 2: Taking Responsibility

In Andy Stanley’s book, Making Vision Stick, he shares the fact that making vision stick is the greatest challenge of leadership. So, let’s talk about how we get vision to stick…

Taking Responsibility

As a leader, the most important thing to remember about making vision stick is this: You are responsible.

Let me be clear: as the senior pastor, I am the “Vision-Caster-in-Chief”, & I am responsible to make the vision clear. If our leaders don’t “get it”, that’s my fault, not theirs. But if our leaders look around & don’t see the rest of the church following, we need to ask ourselves where we’re failing. If the people at CLC don’t know where we’re going, it’s because we haven’t made it clear.

Ask yourself: How can we make the vision more clear? More simple? How can we make it stick? How can we make sure everybody “gets it”?

Andy Stanley suggests 5 things: ¹ State the vision simply. ² Cast the vision convincingly. ³ Repeat the vision regularly. ⁴ Celebrate the vision systematically. ⁵ Embrace the vision personally.

We’ll take these one-by-one, beginning with my next post.

Making Vision Stick 1: The Greatest Challenge of Leadership

Over the next few weeks, I’m planning to share with our church's Vision Team the meat of a great little book I just read by Andy Stanley called Making Vision Stick . I thought about buying a copy for each of our Vision-Team members, but thought we’d all be better served if I cut through the fluff, carved the meat off the bone, & served it hot & fresh in bite-sized pieces.

So… Open up! Here’s comes some good eatin’!!

The Greatest Challenge of Leadership: Making Vision Stick

The top executives of some powerful companies like Starbucks & GM attribute their well-documented floundering to the fact that they lost their vision… They turned their attention away from the target that led them to their greatness in the first place. This is all-too easy—even for a church—and has 3 primary causes: 1) success, 2) failure, & 3) everything in between.

The passing of time makes room for our human tendancies to lose focus & drift away from simplicity. In other words, time robs vision of it’s “stickyness”. Why? Because, as Andy puts it, “vision is about what could be & should be, but life is about right this minute.”

But the good news is that an uphill battle is NOT an impossible one, & God is the One Who gives vision… If He has given it, then He will help bring it to pass!

So, how do you get your God-given vision to "stick"?

I'll begin sharing what Andy says in my next post.

Thtill Lurking About

I love Bugs Bunny cartoons! One of my all-time favorites is when Bugs & Daffy are running away from Elmer Fudd (you know... The billionaire who owns a mansion & a yacht. Huh-huh-huh-huh).

Anyway... Bugs & Daffy dive into a hole, panting and terrified, listening for Elmer. They hear the sound of his feet pass them by (emphasized by a little orchestration, of course), then wait a few seconds before Bugs whispers to Daffy, "You take a peek and see if the coast is clear."

Bugs gives Daffy a boost, Daffy pokes his head out of the hole, then BLAM!!!

Daffy falls on his butt to the floor, tottering back-and-forth while smoke rises from his head.

"Thtill lurking about!" Announces Daffy in his half-spitting/half-talking voice as he collapses to the floor.

Well, my friends... I'm Thtill Lurking About!

I knew it had been a while since I posted, but when I logged on tonight, I saw that my last post was on Jan 25th. Oops... My bad!

I've been working on some projects that have been taking up the time slot I had set aside for blog posts. I know: excuses, excuses... But it's the truth. The only reason I'm able to write tonight is because I'm up WAY past my bedtime. (Please don't tell my mommy!)

Anyway... I've got a good share of these projects finished, so I'll be back at the keyboard in the days and weeks ahead, rambling, ranting, raving, & writing (not necessarily in that order).

So, for those of you who read my blog more than once (you glutton for punishment, you), I haven't quit.

No, I'm... BLAM!

Thtill lurking about!