One of the things that has been running through my mind recently is how our team – NieuCommunities South Africa – can allow/encourage/foster individual senses of vision and calling while also holding a corporate sense of mission. And, how can I as a team leader, help that? And, how can I help infuse a sense of vision without overriding everyone else’s dreams?
I’ve been thinking, talking, praying about it. Then, I come across a quote in Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch’s book The Shaping of Things to Come that nails it for me…
What a great visionary leader does is awaken and harness the dreams and visions of the members of a given community and give them deeper coherence by means of a grand vision that ties together all the “little visions†of the members of the group. (p. 188)
That’s what I want to do – help each of us discover our own dreams. Then, look at them together and see what it all means. To celebrate and integrate those individual pieces into the whole. To help us come to OUR vision.
BTW, this is an excellent book. If you are beyond learning about the idea of the emerging church and are busy trying to be the Church and figuring it out along the way, I would say it is a must read. Alan Hirsch is going to be with us in SA in September 