Leaders must have a place to lead their followers. This place is usually called a vision or mission. Whatever the name, we as leaders must have a goal towards which to lead our followers. So, the question is, where do we get this vision? Many of us look to the great leaders of our time. People who are incredible leaders and know where to lead. We think if their vision worked for them it will work for us. We attend their conferences, buy their books, and even though they tell us not to, we do everything just exactly as they do. We choose a form of Christian plagiarism instead of trying to find our own vision. We then wonder why it just doesn’t work. Maybe it is because we live in places like Sahuarita, AZ. Sahuarita is much different than Orange County, Chicago or even Seattle. While I am not saying that we must always be original in everything we do, we must find the vision that God has for our little slice of the Kingdom.
A few months ago I was at a conference full of church planters in Orlando, FL. This conference had all of the church planter gurus sharing their best practices on how to grow your church to millions of people in just under a year. I remember being overwhelmed listening to some really awesome visions from a bunch of type “A” personalities. I even found myself thinking of how I could force my square peg community into some of these round hole ideas. One of these ideas had to work for me. Then I heard a man speak in one of the breakout sessions named Bill Cornelius. He spoke about leadership and at the end of his talk he told a story about how the Holy Spirit led him to pray for vision for 100 hours. As I was sitting there God spoke to my spirit and said very clearly to me, “COPY THAT”. Pray for vision (what a concept). So I spent the next few months praying several hours a day. God showed up. As a matter of fact He spoke very clearly. It is amazing how when we seek the face of God He is faithful to speak to us. I know this sounds simple. The problem is that most of us do not want to take the time to wait on God. We would rather “borrow” on the time someone else has spent with God than spend the time ourselves to get on our knees and wait on God to speak His vision to us.