Principles of Effective Leadership - Lesson 16

Dr. John Johnson
Principles of Effective Leadership
PC506-16
Vision and Leadership (Part 1/2)
Lesson Transcript

Dr. John Johnson [00:00:01] I'm going to guess none of you here have. That is your vision. I'm not sure if it's my vision, but let's say that's my vision now. Then that starts to define all these different possibilities. So someone says, Hey, John, have you thought about adding this to what you're doing in your life? I might go, No, because it's not. It doesn't fit. If somebody said, Hey, would you be interested in giving a portion of your time every summer to leading our high school youth camp? Well, it's not part of my vision. It's not part of my abilities anymore. For one, I used to do that. I don't do it anymore, but it doesn't fit with where my life's going. But that's why it's really critical to have no emission and a vision, because then it begins to set. It begins to define what you say yes to and no to. Right. And just as we have to do that, as people organizations have to do that, because organizations can if they're not careful, they can start to attach a lot of layers to themselves. I'm part of this Middle East partnership that's becoming increasingly a pretty important part of my life. But I have to every now and then, step back and ask the question, Does that fit with my vision? Because it's all about choices. We're going to shift now to talk about vision. When we finish vision, we'll come back and we'll dissect the next section. Let me give you one picture of a group of men who had a vision. Okay. So if anyone here been to him, I think we've got a busload of kids from our church there this week, in fact. What's this video about? Yeah, it's about how many guys? Five guys who caught a vision to see a camp begin to reach lost kids. Right. Ambitions are pretty powerful things, aren't they? They can change the world. I spoke at humor for a week for a lot of the adults. And I saw this video and I got it. It's just an amazing camp. I love videos like this, you know, because I love to see people dream. And it's amazing what happens when people do. What do we mean by vision? Well, part of it is this ability to see into the future. You know, people who are visionary or people that they look at and they catch a vision. They see something. Maybe these five men sitting around a living room one day started thinking about something they could see out there, a dream, if you will. Just like a lot of church plants, they start that way. People come together, they see something out into the future, a mental picture, if you will. It's the second part of it. A clear, startling picture of the future. Andy Stanley, who's written on Vision, says vision is a clear mental picture of what could be fueled by the conviction that it should be. And maybe you could add there and by the faith that it what.

Speaker 2 [00:03:29] Could be.

Dr. John Johnson [00:03:29] Could be. Can be. Yeah. So a vision tells people where you're going. I remember once when I pastored it in Europe, I remember I met this guy at Shell who was a real visionary, and I would talk to him about his life and he would just talk about these mental pictures. He could see it's almost a spiritual gift. I'm convinced some people have they can see out into the future. So Alexander the Great, some examples. Historically, Alexander the Great had a clear picture in his mind of a world united under one flag. So he took an army and what had to keep sustaining the energy is he kept the vision in front of them. Macedonia We're heading down Greece. We're going to head down here to eventually to Palestine. Were going to cross Persia, were heading through India, I think ended up in Afghanistan, where every army of the world eventually ends up. It's always the cul de sac. It was the cul de sac for Alexander the Great, which the side note sometimes underscores why leaders might politicians in particular would serve countries well if they read history. Walt Disney. Walt Disney had this vision. He had a vision for a full length animated cartoon. But somebody was sketching out that maybe a cartoon that you saw in a newspaper, he could see it. It actually. Animated. Today we have Toy Story three. You know, all of that goes back to really the vision. And isn't it an amazing just profound how. Toy Story three let's say examples like that is just this whole animated taking on more and more flesh, if you will, and reality. Henry Ford talk about a visionary, had a vision of a motor car large enough for family, small enough for an individual priced low enough to be affordable. That was his vision. It's a great vision, wasn't it? He did it. Or I remember as a kid, John F Kennedy in 1960 had a vision of seeing men on the moon. It was this dream and it propelled the nation towards that. One of my favorite stories is Sony. And you have to understand, if you don't understand the context of this, you might go, Well, what's such a big dream about that? The changed perception that Japanese products are junk? Why was there this perception? See, for some of you you go, Really? But why was there a day Japanese products were synonymous with junk? Because of was because of World War Two? Exactly. World War two. Japan was defeated. They were trying to get on their economic feet in the late forties through the fifties, and most of it was just junk. I remember distinctly as kids when something didn't work. I mean, if you picked this up and you kept clicking it on and nothing happened, you said this thing must be made in Japan. It was just our default. It was not an exaggeration to say that anything that broke didn't last nit and work right. We always said must be made in Japan because most of the stuff was junk. So Sony comes along in the early fifties and you said somewhere there was this audacious dream. Let's imagine a day. Can you see it where when it says Made in Japan, it will be synonymous with with what? With high quality, right in the fifties to say that I'd be driving a Toyota and a Subaru and Ashley saying, when I buy a car, I typically buy something made in Japan. It be you kidding? But Ashley, I love my Toyota. So I've had several I've had several Subarus. Why they never give me any trouble. Sony, If my wife came home tomorrow with the new Sony computer, I wouldn't go a junk. What do you buy that thing for? I'd go on Bad choice or we will be the most competitive enterprise in the world. You can see something like that coming out of Jack Welch or back to scripture here, Paul Romans 15. Paul was always the visionary, wasn't he? So here he is in Romans 15. We know Paul was a visionary. He thought in visionary ways. So here he is. He's towards the end of his life. First 17. I see what he says. I have reason to boast in Christ Jesus regarding what pertains to God, for I would not dare say anything except what crisis accomplished through me to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed, by the power of miraculous signs and wonders by the power of God's spirit. As a result, I have fully proclaimed the good news about the Messiah from Jerusalem. What Paul is doing here is reflecting on the vision God gave him when, by the way, years ago on the Damascus Road, God gave him a vision, literally. Paul had a visionary experience and saw that. Here's the picture, Paul, I want you to see. You're going to reach who you're going to go after. Non-Jews, Gentiles, which had to be talk about in an audacious thing. And Paul would be probably thinking, not me, not by a long shot. But God gave him this vision and he ran with it. So my aim is to evangelize where Christ has not been named in order that I will not be building on someone else's foundation be created for. A lot of church planners thought that way. Instead of coming alongside to a church next door and trying to tap into that. But I know a lot of church planners who really do live by that. That is why I've been prevented many times from coming to. But now I no longer have any work to do in these provinces, and I've strongly desired for many years to come to you. Whenever I travel to Spain for I do hope to see you when I pass through and to be sent on my way there by you once I have first enjoyed your company. This is Paul verse 28. So when I have finished this and safely delivered the funds to them, I will go by way of you to Spain. But I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness and the blessing of Christ. So what is Paul doing? He's writing. He's not in Rome. He's writing to the Romans. He wants to get to Rome. His vision is. I see Rome in my sights. In fact, I'm looking all the way to the edge of Spain, which think about Spain back in this time. Spain had to be like the outer edge of the outer edge. I mean, was there anything further than Spain? It's like Paul looked out to the furthest, furthest point, which defines him as an apostle. That's because that's what apostles do. They're pioneers. They're visionaries. And some people live like that. Think like that. And this is what, again, vision is all about. They have the picture before they get started. That's why they lived their lives backwards in that sense. Now, big, big question. What's the difference between a mission and a vision? Here's why I put it this way here The vision flows out of the mission or build sign, but maybe it better. Is that flows out of the mission? Or here's the statement I'm going to ask you to. Let's say this together. Can we say this vision particular arises the mission? He didn't say that to say it. Vision Particularized is the mission. Say it again. Vision Particularized is the mission. I want that to just start to etch in your soul here that this is what vision does it particularized this? What does that mean? Particularized is the mission. If we just take the word particular, it is. What is particular to you? It takes the mission and individualize it, if you will. Barnhardt is the one who helped me years ago with this distinction. The mission statement notice is a broad generic definition. Broad generic. It's like back to our seminary illustration. The mission is to train men and women to serve the church. That's a generic statement, right? So the mission statement is a broad, generic definition of the key ministry objectives. The vision is the clarification of the specific direction and activities the church will pursue towards a true ministry impact. Another way to distinguish them, the mission is more philosophic. Why The vision is the more particular or strategic Where, but why are we here? This is our mission. Where are we going? Where's the dream? What do we see out there? That's the vision. So vision is more focused. It's a picture of what God is calling us to do. It's what gives us our distinctive. So the seminary, let's say we conclude, is this broad missional philosophic statement. The vision is particular. So let's dream for a little bit what we'll particularized our seminary see? That's what we're doing with the vision. Let's stop here for a moment. Make sure we have clarity. Did you see the distinction between the two? Any question. The vision particularized is that it ought to have something of a dream, something that's going to inspire us. We see it out there. We're starting a new seminary here on 55th and Hawthorne. What might be our vision. When I say flows out, it can't compete with it can't go off. It's got to build on the mission. So what we say, our mission is to train leaders to serve the church. Broad, philosophic, generic what might be start to get to a vision that builds off of this. What can we dream about here?

Speaker 2 [00:14:34] Well, you can address culturally relevant issues. It's going to be downhill.

Dr. John Johnson [00:14:41] Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2 [00:14:43] To dialog and then to the dialog with the community about the relevance of Christ.

Dr. John Johnson [00:14:49] Okay. So our vision in particular is to enable students with a. Particular capacity to dialog with a Northwest culture. Does that sound like a vision? It's particular. It's not going to be something Dallas is going to write or Denver. This is ours. And maybe we say, Yeah, because as we look out in the future, we believe that a key way to impact culture is going to be through effective dialog. Part of what you're saying. So then eventually, as we start to put pieces together, how we're going to do that, the strategies are hum. A letter department might look very different. What you're suggesting, for example, to train in a dialogical method of preaching, believing that this is how people today or out into the future will learn. You with me? You see how this starts to work. So part of it is tracking trends. We'll talk about the scene where where will people be? How will they think we've been put here? So we've got a part of it. And Sandy's helping us see is that our dream has got to take into take the context into consideration. Anyone else want to throw out another idea?

Speaker 3 [00:16:17] So part of the mission is to train leaders to take that step, be to train leaders in specific fields or be.

Dr. John Johnson [00:16:25] We might say our vision is to train pastors. So if somebody calls and says, Hello, I'm calling Western Seminary, I'm aiming towards my Ph.D., I want to be an educator, someday we might go, What? So thanks for the interest. That's not who we train. I want to really develop administrative skills to lead parish church ministry. Michael you won't really find much in our curriculum. Now, do we beat ourselves to gold? Cash? Hey, we need to assemble together. We've got to. We've got to add this. We're going to miss students. What would we say? It's not that, you know, it's it's not our vision. It could fit into our mission, but it's not our vision. That's okay. Somebody calls and says, I really want to be a pastor. What would we say? This is just the place. A female calls. I want to study theological education. Oh. Now, we got to think that through a little bit, don't we? So is our definition of pasture impressive enough? Are we training female pastors or. We're going to have to think that through. Maybe we are. You see how the vision begins to. Particularized what you're going to do. And that's okay, because here's what we have to come to terms with. We can't do everything. If we try to do everything, what happens in a sense, to do everything is to do nothing, right. To believe in everything is to believe in nothing. It's sort of the same idea. Here's now the process. How do we gain this? How are we going to do this? Well, I've broken into some pieces, so to use a common phrase here, we have to go to the mountain. Visions Don't come while you're in the mix of all the noise and distraction. If a vision is getting clarity, seeing something, you have to get a lot of other images out of your brain. Some of the pieces I've broken up here is, first of all, reflection you reflecting on the culture, the needs. You're looking at what is Francis Schaefer when he did his LaBrie in Europe, you're familiar with that? Kay Francis Schaefer, this Christian intellectual, establish what's called La Brea, which was these. He came to Europe and he could see the landscape and he saw a lot of wandering intellectuals who were lost in this pretty secular culture. And he created these these centers where people could just come and talk. And out of that, many people found Christ, or they took their seed bad faith, and they began to talk about worldview, thinking how to really address the arguments out there. So God really used him in that. But it was his vision. It didn't just come to him. He got away. He thought about it. Know, sometimes it's more immediate. I packer theologian up in region grabbed hold of his vision for ministry after as he put it one long afternoon with the Lord or Nehemiah is a great example here who gained a vision. If you turn to Nehemiah one, I think he gives one of the best biblical pictures of this process. He has these guys who come back from Jerusalem, tell them, Hey, we were just there, Things are ugly, walls are broken, the morale is down. Verse four Chapter one. When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and I mourned for a number of days, fasting and praying for the God of heaven. And so he poured out his prayer to God. And after actually several months, he began to distill crystallize a vision. So visions grow in quietness in prayer. Or you begin to become you come to grips with a number of things. Part of it is you come to grips with the context. Of what's going on in the world around us. They see what is who they are. Maybe where I'm at in my life right now. They look at abilities and part of this here, if we were the seedbed of Western, we'd have to really look at each other and go, So what are we really good at? Because there's no sense dreaming up to be something where none of us know how to do. So what are our abilities? What are our passions? What is it that really gets us our energy going inside? What are our core values? What are our goals? What are we aspiring to? Certainly in this reflection time, what we really want to get to the heart of is what is the will of God? What is God putting on our heart? I mean, this is where we would take time, right, to say, what do you hear God saying? Now a lot of the vision starts, maybe more individual. One of us who maybe has been called to be the lead in all this needs to take this personal time to work through these questions. But as I'm going to show in a moment, it doesn't stop there. In a visionary process. The leader doesn't gather his team and go or her team and go. Let's go dream and see what God might be showing us. That's a fair challenge. But without, first of all, your own process of going through that, your own mountaintop experience, it may change a lot when you begin to work as a group, but you can't go into it in a vacuum. It's really important that you think this through on your own. Just because I see how much God does that with great movement, it always starts with the leader. I give it just a brief story of Bill Bright here. You remember Bill Bright, that name familiar? Who was you know, he was the genesis behind Campus Crusade for Christ. And he shares that it was all about a vision God gave him. One night he could see students, college campuses, you know, coming to Jesus. He gained the vision of a lost world and a mandate to fulfill the Great Commission studying for a Greek exam. He found himself in the presence of God, where God laid out a canvas, embracing the world in a most definitive way. God commanded him to invest his life fulfilling the Great Commission we just read. Nehemiah Nehemiah gained a vision of a rebuilt wall. He could see that, couldn't he? He could see. Hey, wait a minute. It doesn't have to be that way. Abraham began to get a vision of a great nation. Jacob received that same dream vision. Genesis 28. Moses was given a vision of a redeemed people out of the slavery of Egypt. Peter caught this vision to catch Lost Men. Luke five And he dropped his nets. Paul, as we read, got this vision to reach the Gentiles. Who is Pulao? One day he was reading John 1412 You know what that first says? Jesus in the upper room says, Now greater things will you do? Because I go to the father, talk about a visionary statement. It's like Jesus said, I'm going to give you a vision, guys. You're all kind of lamenting, I'm leaving you. You're thinking, Oh, it's all going to be lost. Ashley, my leaving you is needful for you to do even more amazing things than you've seen me do that Me think how radical that was. They had seen him walk on water, heal. All of these people changed the world and he is gone. You guys are going to do even greater things and it's necessary. I go for you to do that. He was imparting a dream, a vision. One of my favorite stories is Bill McCartney, who, you know, was the coach at Colorado and he was a very successful football coach, won a number of national championships. But he thought the thinness of it all, that another trophy to put on my mantle. And one day, because of his passion for the Lord, he was sitting in his car at a stadium and he was looking at the stadium. And as he tells a story, he caught a vision of seeing that stadium not filled with spectators, passively sitting there all excited about a small little pigskin moving up and down the field. He kind of vision of something. What if these stadiums are filled with men getting right with God? And he started a movement called Promise Keepers? Or think of Billy Graham. Billy Graham, as he tells the story, cut this vision of stadiums filled with people who would come and hear the gospel with suspicion and everything changed after that. How do visions come? They come when, first of all, we get away, we reflect. We're really sensitive to hear the voice of God. We open ourselves. God, give me the dream that you made me for.

Speaker 2 [00:26:26] We pray not to say.

Dr. John Johnson [00:26:29] Well, no, I'd say, No, you don't want to pray that because then you might settle for too small of a vision. I mean, God, my answer that prayer. And then you might go, I'm comfortable with that. I'm okay with that. That's not scary. That's not risky. But Ashley, maybe more specifically and Lord, I want a vision that's far bigger than myself. That's going to take a lot of boldness and courage, but then pour your courage in to me, right? I think that might get us further down the road. Many people have been have kind of been. But the vision of unworkable thinking. Unworkable. Unworkable. Yes. Some kind of brain dead whim, I think, or something like that. But that vision isn't working. Go ahead. Oh, okay. I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The vision can't be just reckless imaginings that are going to go nowhere. A book I mentioned early on in this course that I think is really great reading for visionary types is the book by Attila Belsky From Vision to Reality, and wrote this book because a lot of us visionary types have lots of great visions and ideas, but they tend to have a high mortality rate. It's like planes that never get off the tarmac. There's one other piece of reflection that's very important, and that is once discontent. So where do the visions come out of they come out of these pieces I've talked about. But when you trace visions, they largely also come with this unwillingness to accept things as they are. So Nehemiah is again, a great example, right? He hears a need and what happens? He's upset. He's upset. It really ruins him inside. So sometimes ask yourself the question if somebody said So, Adam, what's your vision? Well, Adam, I go, What's my vision? How do I get there? Well, here's one great secondary question. What ruins you? I mean, what is it that just you go, I hate this. I just I don't want to see this. That might be the Holy Spirit pointing you towards your vision. About five or six weeks ago, I was in a gypsy camp in Sidon, so south Lebanon. So we're in this gypsy camp. This gypsy camp is sort of like this here. So if you go from Beirut here and you head south along the highway, so here's Lebanon, along the coast, there's Sidon and Tire, which is a little further down. So we're inside and inside. And there is this gypsy camp of several thousand people. Now, these gypsies, gypsies, by the way, tend to be sort of like the untouchables of the world. Gypsies, as far back as history, have never been embraced, respected, valued. They're often associated with pilfering line thievery because that's really how they survive. And these particular gypsies go all the way back to India. So they traveled east, west. Here's the Mediterranean Sea. They can't go any further. So they go all the way because their camp is right on the coast. So we went to this camp, very desperate people. They've been here for years. Lebanese government won't give them any identity. They have no citizenship. They they are like the Palestinians who make up a chunk of Lebanon, Palestinians like gypsies. They have no papers. They have no. Imagine if your life, you had no identity, no driver's license, no passport, nothing official to say who you are. No health card. If you got in an accident or you got sick, you have nothing and you're disowned. So when I was there, we were minister to these people. I came across a group one day, a small group of high school age kids, and I took their picture and it broke my heart because here they are, you know, high school kids, nice. And I looked at them and I thought, they have no future, just no future. They have nothing to look forward to. I mean, imagine if you were them. What do you want to be when you what college you're going to go to? What would they say? Nothing. There's nothing. And it's right next door to a power plant. I mean, here's a chain link fence and here's their shacks, basically metal and wood and cardboard. One room you look in and this is their whole family, nothing. And there's this pipe that comes from the water. Plant that cools, the turbines that pour out spills out, and this is where they drink. You see enough images. If you're not careful, you just become okay. I've seen that. I've seen that in India, I've seen that in Manila, I've seen. But there was something about these students that just I just thought, no, they've kind of have a future. Somebody's got to do something. It hasn't been able to leave me. Is God given me a vision of something? You know, I started thinking, what if I could mobilize some people and create a some kind of teaching center, teach these high school kids and equip them so that actually they might go out and have a future. Well, that's how it works, isn't it? How do we develop a vision? I think you go and you dream and you just envision and yeah, you dream and just think what if and all of this here. But I think a big part of what helps you define your vision is what wrecks you. I remember once I heard a message by Rick Warren and I, I really resonated because he said, figure out what Rex you Hybels gave a similar message. What Rex you. That's a great question, isn't it? You know, I've been a pastor for the last 28 years in many ways, just because what has wrecked me are dying institutional churches. It's not where I choose to pastor, but it's where God put me. And I think it's because I come more and more to realize just what ruins me inside. If the hope of the world is the church. Then it seems like some of our best energies should be about trying to see the church become healthy again. What? Rex Me? What? Rex You would be very different. Maybe. Adam I know this passion has been for, you know, maybe what Rex him as he sees where high school students are going today. No, it can't go down that course. Got to do something. What's the vision God's given you? Maybe ten. You know, he sees something out there that just ruins him. Going to the mountain involves reflection. And one of the principal questions ask yourself is you're reflecting. So what bugs you? What bothers you? What disturbs you? What is it that you just believe that is is of God that God is putting on your heart that says, no, This is sort of like, well, who was it? Bob Pierce who years ago in Korea after the Korean War, saw all of these Korean orphans and they had no future. And out of that board, the vision of World Vision novel name, right? World Vision Today. World Vision is is a great organization doing stuff all over the world. But it started with somebody who had a vision. He could see something and it started with something that ruined him. Maybe in this tune like video. It was the same thing with these five guys. Maybe they saw maybe they saw kids in their community and they saw summers that were wasted. They're just sitting around. They're lost. They're not doing anything with their lives. What if we gathered them together and gave them the most outrageous experiences and then in that context, shared Jesus? It's a great vision. When I was working with Youth for Christ years ago, YFC Campus Life, we would take kids to Forest Home, which is a camp north of San Diego, up towards L.A., up in the mountains. It's a great camp. I remember once I took seven, seven guys with me who were totally pagan and they were high school jocks, drinkers, but for some reason they started coming to I don't know why I think it was God had to be coming to this group. We were leading the what used to be 150 of us kids that would meet every other week at peak. And they came and I was talking about this camp one day and to my surprise, they all signed up. Oh seven. No interest in God. Well, I discovered a little bit why when I got there, what was going on? Because I went to a counselors meeting and I came back. They had already stolen a couple of tables from the dining room, took it into the cabin. They were all sitting there playing poker, smoking cigars, drinking beer. And I'm sure they thought, you know, want me to do we're going to go up there and we're just going to party. So I thought, what do I do? How of what do I do? You know, I I'm trying to build bridges with these guys. I could have come in and said, Hey, has anybody explained the rules around here? So I sit down and I play poker with them. Oh, well, we actually had a great time. So of through the whole camp, we had these great experiences, we had these rallies, we were having these snow fights, we were doing all these crazy things. And one by one all seven came to Christ. And I always remember this. One of the kids said to me, he said, John, I never knew you could have so much fun and not feel guilt when that great. In other words, the joy of Jesus to a certain extent, was the tipping point. Now, I would suggest that that was probably part of the mission of the camp. And it worked, by the way. And maybe what ruined them when they started this camp was to say, you know, they hear a lot of kids that are chasing after pleasure, entertainment, happiness in all the wrong venues, and it's messing them up. It's killing them. Let's show them what real happiness is in that Great. I think that's cool. Happiness, evangelism. It comes through. Yeah, reflection. It comes through here. Going to the mountain and also involves imagination. Any great endeavor that begins with imagining the ideal. It's kind of like Caleb at the end when Joshua says, What do you want? And Caleb says, I want that mountain. He's still thinking, dreaming, imagining. So it's not about maximizing what we have. It's about going beyond what we have. So I put here visions must expand people's horizons, but they've got to be rooted in a certain reality. Okay. So far and I'm going to say this, then we're going to take a break here. Vision begins with what's the word? Vision begins with reflection. It means that we do what we say. We pray. We go to our mountain. Right? This is the leader. This is not anybody else. It's the leader. It's what you have to do. If you don't have a vision for your life, for what you believe God's given you is ministry to do. You got to go to the mountain somewhere. Not a literal mountain necessarily, but you've got to go to the mountain. And then here's the second piece After going to the mountain, then you engage in collaboration. This is really critical for some people to use the church Context expects the pastor to come down like Moses with the holy tablets. I don't want people to chase the pastor's vision. They'll never own it. And if they don't own it, at a certain point, they just might let you just go off on your own. So you have to engage in collaboration. You can't give away the vision process. You can't delegate it. You can't say to somebody on your staff, you know, I'm not real visionary. Why don't you go dream something and let me know what we should do here? You're the leader. It's got to be owned by the leader. But notice what I say. It must be a monologue that what quickly expands to a dialog. It's got to do that for. The biggest mistake is to assume all the wisdom is concentrated at the apex because it's not so It must be shared, massaged, develop, tested, expanded by the leaders around you. I'll close with this story. When I came to village and in my first two churches essentially did this too. When I came to village, it was a little different. I came, Ashleigh, as the interim pastor. I had come back after my second pastorate from Europe to teach full time here at Western. I was ready. I was burned out. I always have had a passion to teach. Problem was about six weeks into this. I was lost on weekends. I missed what I wanted to be liberated from. I started to really miss. And I began to really pray. And even speaking on weekends to different churches, it just wasn't the same. You know, people say I was a nice talk and I just wasn't meant to talk. So about this time Village, which was in between, pastors, asked me to come out and cover empty pulpits on different weekends and Native speaker, which then evolved into, Would you be our interim pastor? Well, I'd never been an interim pastor before, so I said okay. And I thought I kind of thought envision an interim pastor is mainly just try to keep everybody happy and, you know, just keep the ship afloat till a new captain comes. But having never done this before, I said to the leaders one day, you know, we ought to think about a vision. I want to be respectful to whoever comes as a future pastor. But I said, you know, I've never let anything that we haven't had some vision of some dream of chasing after. And I don't know how long I may be here. Two years, I don't know, or a year. But whatever it is, we got to get this ship headed a direction. So they thought, you know, that's good. So I had a basic idea of where maybe where this church could go. But we sat down one day in a basement with the leaders, sort of the second step. We entered into collaboration. We began to dream together. And out of this came a vision. At times, I thought, Should we be doing this? I'm an interim pastor, but I thought, hey, I've never led anything that doesn't have something, a vision to it. And B, Ashley, if they can figure out a vision, then that will help them determine a leader. Because then they could say to the leader, If this fits with your own vision, there might be a real match. But if somebody they're looking at has a whole different vision, it may not be the right match. It's a little bit backwards, but it worked well. Make a long story short, eventually said, Well, it seems to make sense. You lead this. I didn't go to it with the idea of this. This is a backdoor way to become the pastor was still not in my mind at all. So what am I to illustrate? I'm illustrating that Then, out of that collaboration, we began to bring it to the congregation. They began to get their fingerprints on it because that's what you want to do. You want to get a lot of fingerprints on the vision. Fingerprints mean ownership. And eventually the church embraced it as our vision for the future. It starts with that mountaintop experience, if you will, that quickly moves into collaboration. So make sure you hear what I'm saying. Well, don't try to go out and lead invasion on your own. Get people to embrace your vision. It might work for a while, but it won't last very long. And in the collaboration, be open to change that. And maybe I didn't see this clear enough. So after the break, we'll then move on to the third key in this visionary process. All right. So far, so good. You're getting it. I'm kind of going a little bit slow here, but I want to make sure you get the mission and vision piece. It's so critical to leading.