I’ve been thinking about leadership again – particularly as our Clergy Conference comes closer. I’ve been reading Sotirios Christou’s ‘Evangelism and Collaborative Ministry in the Local Church’.
‘Give people a clear understanding of what the situation is now and what you believe it can be in the future.
Show them the discrepancy between the two, which is the arena of challenge and faith.
Explain the process of change which will take you from where you are now to where God wants to take you in the future.’
That sounds fine to me but …. … the magic seems to me to be in the tension between the need for the leader to state the vision clearly, restate it even more clearly and restate it ad nauseam …. and the need to involve people in the vision so that they respond to it, own it and are able to influence/adjust it … recognising that the best answer may not be the first vision of the leader.
After that, the rest is easy.