Day: September 3, 2011

Leaders See the Road Ahead
Will Mancini of Auxano provides a great summary of what he calls the Vision Frame.[1]  It is a quick way to review the work of the church in light of its mission and thus shift the focus of assessment from attendance and money to the outcomes the church is commissioned to generate.

The Vision Frame focuses thinking on values, measures, mission and strategy.  The frame is illustrated in Table 1.

Table 1: The Vision Frame

The question asked by Mancini is, “Do you have compelling answer to these five questions?”  These questions define the DNA of your congregation so to the degree to which the answers are fuzzy your team will lack focus and experience dissonance between what they hope to carry out and what is actually happening.

Next Steps

Now that you have these questions in hand why not take time with your key leaders and work through each of them. Keep it simple.  The task is to bring clarity that inspires action in the same direction. As a leader you serve as a catalyst to this kind of thinking.

If you are confident you are a leader then use the definition below to double-check how you are doing.

What is leadership?

Leadership is the capacity, moral authority and skill needed to influence a group’s goal attainment in an ethical, spiritual and socially responsible way. Leadership is a spiritual gift (Romans 12: 3, 8). The Apostle Paul encourages leaders to do act with diligence i.e., earnest thoroughness and attentiveness in accomplishing the task.

Lead well!  Have fun!