October 2009
Leadership Development Ideas - “Getting it done Leadership” Turning Vision into action
(Reflections from "Courageous Leadership" by Bill Hybels)
“Insight is important, but doesn’t create change.
What creates change is action.”
The confession: “For the first twenty years of Willow we never formalized any specific goals.” Bill Hybels isn’t bragging about this. It’s a confession. He’s a visionary-one who can dream God-sized dreams, and Willow Creek Church, with its twenty thousand plus congregation is a testimony to what God can do through a vision. But Hybels was troubled. He realized that the people of Willow needed more than just a vision. They needed a plan, a step-by-step explanation of how to move from vision to reality. But he had a problem. As he says, “I had never gone through a strategic planning process, not in my business days before entering the ministry, not in youth ministry days, not in all the years of Willow. I sensed it had to be done, but I didn’t know how to do it.”
That all changed, however, and Hybels and his ministry team went through a strategic planning process that helped them not only re-vision the ministry, but make sure that all of the various ministries came into alignment with the process as well.
1. The main thing
Before laying-out the game plan, they wanted to be sure that they were in unison about their vision. Was God still calling them to turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ? It was.
2. Areas of emphasis: Strategic focus
After agreeing that their God-directed vision was still their ‘call,’ the team knew that, for internal planning purposes, they had to define exactly what it was that they needed
to emphasize. They chose three major areas of emphasis that would give them a strategic focus:
- Evangelism
- Spiritual maturity
- Invest their knowledge, resources, and themselves outside the walls of their church
3. Balanced Emphasis
Why should they mess with goals? They had seen thousands of people come to Christ without them! But as they prayed about it, they felt that they would never become the church they hoped they could be without specific goals to help them get there.
4. “Big, hairy, audacious goals”
They wanted their goals to be big enough to require God’s supernatural activity-goals that would keep them on their knees. They set goals for each of the three strategic focus areas: evangelism, spiritual maturity, and outside investment.
5. Finding Champions
In order to reach these God-sized goals, Hybel’s team realized that they needed personal commitment from those in the leadership circle. They asked for a five year commitment from each leader-to provide leadership for the achievement of one of the goals. Each goal now had a champion, with God’s power, to oversee its achievement.
6. Alignment: Getting everyone on board
One thing hadn’t really occurred to the team, however. As they communicated the new plan, they just assumed that all of the ministry teams were on board. They found that each sub-ministry didn’t really feel a responsibility to align themselves with the overall plan! The most difficult part of the process was getting these free thinkers to align themselves with the overall plan.
What can a men’s ministry leader learn from this? Well…whether the entity is as large as Willow Creek or a men’s ministry, the above process works. A clear vision, areas of strategic focus, balanced emphasis, God-sized goals, goal champions, and the alignment of activities with the vision goes a long way toward doing our part in the accomplishment of God’s call on our ministry.
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