Please Lead!

Lately I've been talking with different friends who fill all sorts of different association pastor roles, from children's to small groups to you name it roles in the church. Somewhere in the discussion it always comes around to what are the major things that you need from your leader(s). There are many different things that depending on the associates personality they want from those above them but without exception the thing that everyone mentions as top priority is clarity of the vision. I know in the past when I've been in associate level positions the thing that frustrated me the most and made my job the hardest was when I couldn't get a straight answer for where we're going and what we are trying to do. Without the leader or leaders being able to communicate to the rest of the staff and lay people where we're going and why it becomes very hard to get excited and band together for a mission.

As a leader we need to spend time communicating to those around us the vision of where we're going and why because if we don't we'll lose people along the way. Now I realize not everyone who is in a leadership position is gifted in creating, developing, or communicating a vision for the future. If you fall into that category of leader then it is important to put into place some people that have that gift. Throughout the Bible we find leaders who could either communicate with clarity the direction of the future or they had someone around them that could communicate it.

If you are a leader I encourage you to take the time and talk to all your staff and lay leaders and get an honest assessment of whether you are clearly communicating the vision of where you believe God is calling you to go and if they say they don't get a sense of clarity then take time to work on it because if you don't you'll start to lose people. God has called out leaders and I believe one of the most important things a leader can do is communicate clarity of the vision.