Kingdom Keys: Christian Leaders Need a Sound Vision Team

[Donna Ghanney]

One of the Kingdom Keys in effective Christian leadership is to never become complacent with the Christian organizational God-given vision, no matter how sound and well shaped it is.  Even if the organization seems to be running well enough on autopilot, the fact is nothing is ever truly fixed, finished, or completed because every aspect of a Christian organization is a work in progress, and kept solely by the power of God.  The most successful Christian leaders continually look to improve their organization’s performance at reaching a broader audience to impact growth in the Body of Christ not the organization.  They continue to learn and find Biblical knowledge to increase improvement, Kingdom of God principles and Godly methods; do things better, keep spreading information throughout their organization, and improving the skills and abilities of their vision team for the purpose of the “good of God”.

 

One of the most dangerous traps a new Christian leader currently faces is once they made an immediate improvement; they think they’ve basically fixed the problem.  They are satisfied with their immediate contribution.  The short-term fix looks good in everyone’s eyes, however, without continuous nurturing, the cracks will start to appear.  Minor flaws in the processes and procedures start appearing, and vision team and members start to become negatively fearful.  The clear God-given vision you shared with your vision team in the beginning starts to become unclear.

 

A common misperception at this point is to think that in order to make sure the cracks do not appear, you need to seek personal perfection.  This usually leads to having more of a repression approach to leadership, which will inevitably fail.  You need to cooperate with each other, not dictate.   Dump the idea that you have to know it all right now, as there will always be more to learn.  Shift your focus from individual perfection to Christian organizational excellence.

 

The good news is that as long as you plan, coach, and facilitate your vision team involvement and performance, you will build an excellent Christian organization.  By encouraging innovation, suggestions, criticisms, and comments, you and your vision team will have a much better chance at eliminating the cracks.  Better yet, if you start your Christian project approach with this mindset, the cracks will never appear in the first place.

 

You need to balance the skills and capabilities of your vision team.  Give people the freedom to make mistakes, but make sure they become skilled, reorganize, and try again.  Don’t close the eyes to mistakes; just don’t bring out the physical sword.

 

Effective Christian leadership demands a delicate balance between sensitivity and authority.  Most Christian leaders fail to establish a sufficient balance to make the equation work.  When they give too much free rein towards vision team empowerment, the plane tilts too far.  The Christian leader will sooner or later end up having to counter balance with exceeded authority, which then tilts too far in the opposite direction.  People need to operate within a framework of boundaries and ground rules.  These boundaries and ground rules need to be made aware of right from the beginning.  Christian leaders do have to lead and be authority figures, but have the wisdom of God when relating to people less as a boss or authority figure, and more as a servant mentor and servant collaborator.  Finding that happy and spirit filled medium is the true sign of a genuinely inspired and effective Christian leader.

 

Powerful Christian leaders embrace the process of discovery by never giving up the quest for qualified and factual information that support the “good of God”.  They allow God to control their purpose and destiny so that no one else controls it for them.  They are never 100% satisfied as there is always room for improvement and pruning of themselves and their vision team.  Keeping an eagle eyed sharp focus, all the time, and never drifting from the entire picture, is a clear and concise Kingdom Key to great Christian leadership.  Another Kingdom Key is to embrace and manage critical opposites in every facet of a Christian organization whether it is balancing the focus towards board members vs. vision team, authoritarian rule vs. liberty, or member expectations vs. member capabilities.

Christian leaders will need to develop a vision team with discipleship capabilities according to the Holy Bible’s Kingdom Keys and Principles in order to be effective in this hour.