The Eldership

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The Eldership

• The Need for Vision
• Session 1

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20 Questions to determine your churchs
health 1 Question Do you have a clear vision?
One that is biblical, widely known, and owned by
your people, articulated with clarity and
redundancy by the leadership? Leadership A
Practical Journal for Church Leaders, Summer 1997
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Need for Visionary Leadership in the Church

• Proverbs 2918
• Matthew 2514
• Changes in Society
• Women in the workplace
• Busy - Busy - Busy
• Increasing number of singles and singles again
• Technology
• Neighborhood to Globalization
• Changing values
• Challenges
• Generational Differences
• Compromise of the Points of Uniqueness
• Challenges to be contemporary
• Role of women
• Availability of volunteers

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What Exactly is Vision?

• A reality that has yet to come into existence.
• A view of the future that grows out of and
  improves upon the present.
• A mental model of a desirable or idealistic
  future for the organization.
• The essence of leadership.

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Properties of Powerful, Transforming Visions

• They are appropriate for the organization and for
  the times.
• history, culture, values, consistent with present
  situations.
• They set standards of excellence and reflect high
  ideals.
• They clarify purpose and direction.
• They inspire enthusiasm and encourage commitment.
• They are well articulated and easily understood.
• They reflect the uniqueness of the organization.
• They are ambitious
• Visionary Leadership, 1992, Burt Nanus

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7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen
CoveyHabit 2 begin with the end in mind
Although Habit 2 applies to many different
circumstances and levels of life, the most
fundamental application of "begin with the end in
mind" is to begin today with the image, picture,
or paradigm of the end of your life as your frame
of references of the life--today's behavior,
tomorrow's behavior, next week's behavior, next
month's behavior--can be examined in the context
of the whole, of what really matters most to you.
By keeping that end clearly in mind, you can
make certain that whatever you do on any
particular day does not violate the criteria you
have defined as supremely important, and that
each day of your life contributes in a meaningful
way to the vision you have of your life as a
whole.
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Examples of Visionary Leadership

• David 1 Chronicles 282
• Nehemiah 24-5 17-18
• Jesus Matt 417-19
• President John Kennedy
• Southwest Airlines
• Don Shula
• Walt Disney

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David
King David rose to his feet and said "Listen to
me, my brothers and my people. I had it in my
heart to build a house as a place of rest for the
Ark of the Covenant of the LORD, for the
footstool of our God, and I made plans to build
it. (1 Chronicles 282).
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Nehemiah
2 4-5 I answered the king. If it pleases the
king and if your servant has found favor
so I can rebuild it. 2 17-18 Then I said to
them, You see the trouble we are in Jerusalem
lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned
with fire. Come let us rebuild the wall of
Jerusalem and we will no longer be in disgrace.
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Jesus
Matt 4 17-18 Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is near.Come follow me and I will make you
fishers of men.
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John F. Kennedy
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Southwest Airlines
No carrier knows its niche as well as
Southwest. "Most companies fail in their growth
because they don't have a vision," Putnam
believes. "They don't know where to go. When
you have a vision and someone comes to you with
some convoluted idea, you can hold it up to the
vision and ask, ' Does it fit? Does it fly? If
not, don't bother me.' A vision must be so
strong that it can outweigh the egos of managers
that might want to take off in a different
direction. Vision is the bigger picture that
motivates employees because they understand how
their individual efforts contribute to the
overall dream. Southwest Airlines was founded by
visionary thinkers. Rollin Kings crazy,
forward-thinking idea gave the company its start.
Over the years visionary thinking and big dreams
have encouraged people to enlist in the crusade
to provide legendary service and give ordinary
people extraordinary opportunities. At Southwest
the vision lives, and visionary thinkers continue
to provide the inspiration for its future.
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Shula
Someone has said that a river without banks is
a puddle. When I apply that saying to human
interactions, it reminds me of the job of a
coach. Like those riverbanks, a good coach
provides the direction and concentration for
performers' energies, helping channel all their
efforts toward a single desired outcome. Without
that critical influence, the best achievements of
the most talented performers can lack the
momentum and drive that make a group of
individuals into champions. In my work with the
Miami Dolphins over the years, one single vision
of perfection has motivated all of my
coaching--that's winning every football game.
Without exception, every coaching strategy I've
adopted has been aimed at that one target. A
broad target that's easy to achieve leads to the
"puddle" of mediocrity. Keeping that specific
focus before the team and concentrating the
efforts within narrowly defined limits are my
tasks as the coach of this football team. I
believe that if you don't seek perfection, you
can never reach excellence.
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Walt Disney's Vision for a New Kind of Amusement
Park The idea of Disneyland is a simple one.
It will be a place for people to find happiness
and knowledge. It will be a place for parents
and children to spend pleasant times in one
another's company a place for teachers and
pupils to discover greater ways of understanding
and education. Here the older generation can
recapture the nostalgia of days gone by, and the
younger generation can savor the challenge of the
future. Here will be the wonders of nature and
man for all to see and understand. Disneyland
will be based upon and dedicated to the ideals,
the dreams and hard facts that have created
America. And it will be uniquely equipped to
dramatize these dreams and facts and send them
forth as a source of courage and inspiration to
all the world.
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Disneyland will be something of a fair, an
exhibition, a playground, a community center, a
museum of living facts and a showplace of beauty
and magic. It will be filled with the
accomplishments, the joys and hopes of the world
we live in. And it will remind us and show us
how to make those wonders part of own lives.
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Our specific mission at the Memorial Road Church
of Christ is to equip and empower men, women,
boys and girls for Christian leadership,
evangelism, worship and service in families, in
the church, in the community and around the
world. Through equipping and empowering our
people from the cradle to the grave for
leadership, evangelism, worship and service, we
will develop members who seek to proclaim God's
standards to the world rather than defend
themselves against the world. Our primary
methodology will be, first of all, to mold our
members into people who know God and his word,
love people, and practice the teachings of Jesus
Christ. Second, we will recruit, train, place,
nurture and empower our members locally to carry
out the God-given mission for His church
universal. In summary, we will equip our members
by teaching them what the word of God says, by
giving them the opportunity to observe people
carrying out that teaching in life situations,
and by placing them in positions to teach others
what they have learned (Ezra 710). We will
empower our members by giving them the platform,
freedom, resources and authority to carry out
assignments in a climate that applauds effort and
does not condemn failure.
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Properties of Powerful, Transforming Visions

• They are appropriate for the organization and for
  the times.
• history, culture, values, consistent with present
  situations.
• They set standards of excellence and reflect high
  ideals.
• They clarify purpose and direction.
• They inspire enthusiasm and encourage commitment.
• They are well articulated and easily understood.
• They reflect the uniqueness of the organization.
• They are ambitious
• Visionary Leadership, 1992, Burt Nanus

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The Eldership

• The Need for Vision
• Session 2

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Developing Vision Statements
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REMEMBER
A Vision isA view of the future that grows out
of and improves upon the present.A mental model
of a desirable or idealistic future for the
organization.
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REMEMBERA Vision is

• appropriate for the organization and for the
  times, for the history, culture, values, and is
  consistent with present situations.

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Properties of Powerful, Transforming Visions

• They are appropriate for the organization and for
  the times.
• history, culture, values, consistent with present
  situations.
• They set standards of excellence and reflect high
  ideals.
• They clarify purpose and direction.
• They inspire enthusiasm and encourage commitment.
• They are well articulated and easily understood.
• They reflect the uniqueness of the organization.
• They are ambitious
• Visionary Leadership, 1992, Burt Nanus

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Developing a clear vision of perfection is almost
like producing a movie in your mind. I recently
had a chance to work with the top management and
the heads of dealerships for Freightline, a
leading manufacturer of large trucks. Jim Hibe,
a the president, spearheaded the development of a
new service vision for their dealerships--one
that would permit them to go way beyond their
competition. In preparation for their key annual
conference, they produced a thirty-minute video
that illustrated two hypothetical dealerships.
The first, called Great Scott Trucking, typified
the present mode of operating for many of the
dealerships limited hours (eight-to-five on
Monday to Friday and nine-to-twelve on Saturday)
uncommitted employees few, if any extras (like
donuts and coffee for truckers waiting for their
vehicles) and so forth. When you entered the
dealership, everything seemed to be organized for
the convenience of the employees, not the
customers. For example, the manager comes in
about 1145 on Saturday. Seeing a long line in
the parts department, he says, "Make sure you
shut her down at twelve. The line will make a
good Monday."
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The other dealership was called Daley
Freightliner and was a customer-driven operation
with twenty-four-hour service--seven days a week,
committed and trained employees willing to go the
extra mile, and all kinds of services for the
truckers. They had a lounge with LA-Z-Boy
recliners and a huge TV showing first-run movies.
There was a quiet, dark room with bunk beds in
case the truckers wanted to sleep. Employees
drove repaired trucks to the front rather than
making the drivers retrieve them from the back
lot. Many of the dealerships were closer to
Great Scott Trucking than they were to Daley
Freightliner, so when the conference opened with
the video, it made some people squirm. But it
beautifully pictured the new service vision for
all to see and experience. I followed the video
with a talk entitled "Raving Fans," all about
having customers who want to brag about you.
After that, dealers who were closest to the Daley
Freightliner image shared their success stories.
To me that program was an excellent way to
communicate a new vision of perfection. (Ken
Blanchard in Everyone's a Coach, 1995)
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SWOT ANALYSIS

• Strengths
• What are your congregations particular strengths?
  Do you do something that is unique to your
  congregation?
• Weaknesses
• What are the areas where you are lacking?
• What do others seem to do that you cant seem to
  carry out?

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SWOT ANALYSIS

• Opportunities
• What is happening in the external environment
  that could provide opportunities for your
  congregation?
• Threats
• What things in the external environment pose
  threats to your congregation?

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Possibilities

• Spiritual Growth
• Evangelism
• Helping Others
• Missions
• The results of your SWOT analysis!!!!