Leading Hope with Kevin Jack

Thought 1

– There are different types of mentors: Professional (Skill/Career), Personal (Life/Integrity).

– Do you want to be a mentee or an apprentice?

Thought 2

– Some of your best professional mentors will come outside your field.

– Your best personal mentors will always have a decade on you.

Thought 3

– Don’t ever ask anyone to be your mentor, ask them if you can take them to lunch.

Thought 4

– Mentors are shortcuts.

– Books are great mentors.

– Targets should not become the focus instead of progress, improvement.

– Bucket List: Things you want to accomplish before you die. Resolution: Things you want to accomplish before the end of the year.

– Curious List: All the things I want to know something about.

Tool 1: Don’t do less, do different.

– If your work is mental, to re-charge you must do something physical. If your work is physical, to re-charge you must do something mental.

Tool 2: Distance Your Work

– If we need to disconnect, which we do, we must make it harder to work.

Tool 3: Find an activity you get lost in

– Mindless easy activities do not release your burden. It takes energy to engage in what will lighten your load.

As we expand our grasp of emotions we have a better way of understanding, and dealing with in healthy way, what we’re feeling.

Burnt-Out: Syndrome conceptualize as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed that is characterized by: energy depletion, increased mental distance, or feelings of cynicism related to one’s job.

When we are lazy in the diagnosis we are usually wrong in the treatment.

The key question: What’s really the issue and not just the buzzword that everyone is using right now?

Recommendation: Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown

You are better at seeing close up or far away.

You need to be aware of how far into the distance you can see.

Your vision and focus should work like a lens.

The Rhythm:

– Get involved in the details to increase your up close vision.

– Lead at altitude to increase your distance vision.

Step 1: Create Alignment

– Clear Teaching on ministry philosophy

– Elevated Guests, Baptism, Serving (Create Cultural Symbols)

– Defined discipleship process

– Clarified our church values.

Step 2: Get Input

Email to the whole staff & Board

– What is working great?

– Are there any fires that need put out?

– 3 month, 1-year, 10-year expectations?

The Listening Experience:

– 4 groups, 70 people, staff as guides.

– Closed Business: Businesses close all the time, and so do Churches. Some Churches even stay open while being functionally closed because they’re no longer accomplishing their mission. If we were to close, why would that be?

– Field: Imagine we were starting all over again: what would we do? What would we do different?

– Outside a High School Football Game: If we were going to reach all these people what would we do? How would we reach all these people?

– Another Ministry: What would we do if we had unlimited resources? What would we do if we had no resources?

Step 3: Vision Group

Prep:

– Outlined the process

– Prepared a report from the listening experience focusing on: Issues that need addressed, the heart of our Church, and opportunities.

Starter Questions

– What was one of your most meaningful experiences in Church?

– What were some of your thoughts on the “heart of highland park” report?

– What should we not pursue, what should we be sure that we don’t accomplish if we didn’t have a vision? Titled: “Not This”

– What could we accomplish in 20 years? Titled: “This”

Groups of 3-4

– What 2-3 projects or focus points do you believe we should focus on over the next decade?

– Why? What is the result/outcome of these projects.

Solo Project: What do you think we must accomplish in 2-3 sentences?

Large Group

– What are we seeking to do?

– Why are we seeking to do it?

– How will we measure it?

Principle 1: Create as much input as you possibly can.

Principle 2: Set the vision with the largest group you can.

Principle 3: Set the Standard for the Vision

Principle 4: Work in this pattern: Problem, Focus, Metric, Inspiration

You can kill yourself before you start by doing one of two things:

– Doing too much work on your own.

– Doing too little on your own.

Doing too much means no one else can own the vision.

Doing too little wastes time & risks the true vision.

A Healthy Dynamic

– You should be clear on what the vision is not.

– You should be clear on your process: How will you arrive at the vision.

The process you use is how you get someone to lean in instead of rolling their eyes at “vision”.

Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint.”

Reason 1: Vision enables us to see, do & become more.

Habakkuk 2:2, “Write the vision, make it plain, so that he may run who reads it.”

Reason 2: Vision grants individuals agency.

Reason 3: The output of the vision process is unity. Unity is not the prerequisite, it’s the output of the work on & towards the vision.

Some things should be left as they are because if they improve it will cause more problems or injury.

The unfocused leader sees every improvement as a step forward, the focused leader takes strategic steps forward in quality only in areas that they want to build upon.

Not every improvement is a step forward. You might create a monster you didn’t want, and you might make something that needed to die harder to kill.

Be cautious, be wise, about what you improve & do it strategically.