RL 367: Dreaming Big for 2025 (Part 1: Vision)

[00:00:00] These kids, this generation are the most likely to declare themselves atheists, Gen Z, but it's not out of animosity toward Jesus. It's out of ignorance. They just don't know. If not us, who? If not now, when? And so it develops a sense of urgency. And that's, I think, how we get to the BHAGs or get to the big dreams that become plans of action.

[00:00:25] Welcome to episode 367. Today we start a series on Dreaming Big for 2025. How do you develop and launch a vision for your church? How do you discern together what God is calling you to do? Today we talk about the two-sided vision approach. That's today on The Reclaimed Leader.

[00:00:52] Welcome to The Reclaimed Leader Podcast. I'm Jason Tucker.

[00:00:56] And I'm Jesse Skiffington.

[00:00:57] We're two pastors in the trenches who are passionate about church health for greater gospel impact.

[00:01:03] We share the ups and downs of ministry, strategies that worked for us.

[00:01:07] And some that didn't.

[00:01:08] Best practices and practical tools for church leadership.

[00:01:11] The goal? To help all of our churches flourish. Let's get started.

[00:01:18] Hey everyone, welcome back to The Reclaimed Leader. It is so good to be back.

[00:01:23] And listen, we are talking like right in our wheelhouse today. We're talking about vision, which is one of our favorite things to talk about.

[00:01:32] Which is nice. You know, there's a lot going on in the world and we just got off our two Christmas episodes.

[00:01:36] And really today is about how can we start, maybe just a little bit, because we're all super busy right now.

[00:01:42] But how do we start dreaming a little about 2025? What is next in the life of the church?

[00:01:48] And the only way that I know, Jesse, to get real forward progress and anything in church life is just to get started.

[00:01:57] Just to get started thinking about it.

[00:01:59] So over the next few weeks before Christmas, we're just going to take a little time almost as a primer.

[00:02:05] Everybody usually waits to January 1 to really think big and that's fine, but I think it's good to get a little bit of a running start.

[00:02:13] So we're going to talk about some things before the change of the new year.

[00:02:17] Sounds good. Yeah, I love it.

[00:02:18] I mean, this is the stuff that we really started the podcast to talk about, right?

[00:02:23] So if we're going to be leading change and helping our congregations be healthy, vital, flourishing churches and healthy and all that and lead change and continue to do that, then vision is an essential and big part of that.

[00:02:38] And sometimes you just, I don't know, I want to be careful. I say this, sometimes we just got to come up with something that moves us toward the goal, right?

[00:02:47] And so being thoughtful about that and in this season, while we're turning our attention to Christmas and got a lot on our plates, but getting ahead of that a little bit and saying, where do we want to go next year?

[00:02:58] Where, where's the Lord leading us? And beginning to put some language around that and some vision around that I think is helpful.

[00:03:04] And for leader types, I think it's also encouraging to our hearts. We like to think of those kinds of terms.

[00:03:11] So it's kind of fun to get to give ourselves permission to think big picture too.

[00:03:15] And I think the other thing of why this is a good time to do it is as you're navigating all of your holiday stuff, you're, you're discerning at the same time.

[00:03:25] You're getting a sense as you're interacting with everybody, you're getting a sense of, man, what can we do as a church on the other side of the new year that can really continue helping people to take a step toward Jesus?

[00:03:38] Whatever that looks like in, in whatever situations you're coming across, it's kind of just like an active listening as you're listening and interacting with people and sort of discerning.

[00:03:48] I feel like the Holy Spirit's usually telling us, Hey, um, maybe this thing, maybe this is a direction we need on the other side of the holiday.

[00:03:56] So I think this is actually a really good time to start talking.

[00:03:59] And I like how you put that where you're kind of listening in between the things, listening in the, the little quiet moments that you do have along the way.

[00:04:06] Cause I think sometimes if we sit down and like try to force vision, it doesn't quite compute or it's sort of this slow drip of, of, uh, the Holy Spirit moving and working in our hearts or in conversations with others.

[00:04:18] And we start to pick up some threads and some themes and it starts to take shape in us.

[00:04:22] And so even if you don't have a day to go off on a vision quest somewhere, your vision is developing in your head, in your heart, in your community, kind of through that slow, but sure dreaming together.

[00:04:35] And so you're talking about dreaming big in 2025 and how we come to vision.

[00:04:42] And I don't know, I was kind of just wanted to pause over that.

[00:04:45] How do, how does that come about?

[00:04:47] I mean, how do you move towards vision?

[00:04:49] I mean, you're listening between the cracks, but how has that been part of your leadership?

[00:04:54] Where do you notice that showing up the most?

[00:04:57] Yeah, I think in this a little bit about what we're going to get into is, is how this, this vision happens.

[00:05:05] I think part of it is, it depends on how you're wired and where your gifts are as a pastor's for me personally.

[00:05:11] I'm, I'm a vision person.

[00:05:13] So I usually end up having, it doesn't mean they're all good visions.

[00:05:19] That's right.

[00:05:20] But I'll end up having, you know, kind of many different visions about different things on a regular basis.

[00:05:26] And the challenge for me is which one of these seems to be from the Lord?

[00:05:31] Are they all from the Lord?

[00:05:32] And if they are, you know, which ones do I follow up on?

[00:05:35] And, and let me start having conversations with others about these things and see if they're also feeling that you got to sort of check it with the discernment of the community.

[00:05:46] Um, but usually for me, it happens pretty organically.

[00:05:51] And I'm going to, I'm going to talk about that today because vision can come.

[00:05:54] It's two sided.

[00:05:55] It can come from the dream side.

[00:05:57] If you're a visionary, it can also come from the process side.

[00:06:00] Sure.

[00:06:00] You're a process person.

[00:06:01] Either way you can get to vision.

[00:06:03] But for me, it's usually, um, I'm daydreaming or I'm dreaming while asleep.

[00:06:12] I'm thinking of things I'm perceiving things and things just sort of bubble up.

[00:06:17] And I, I end up saying, Oh, well, let's see if this thing has legs.

[00:06:22] It feels like it would, but it's always testing the vision, right?

[00:06:25] So it's not just, uh, Oh, Hey, I've got this great idea that we're all going to do.

[00:06:30] Congratulations, everybody.

[00:06:31] You know, you know, swoop in with your fully baked version of the vision.

[00:06:34] Yeah.

[00:06:34] Yeah.

[00:06:35] It's just, I think that is a really winsome type of leadership to Jason.

[00:06:38] It's just like, it's a collaborative vision that is highlighting your gifts as who God

[00:06:46] made you to be as someone who wanders, who dreams, who thinks big, big thoughts, and then

[00:06:50] bringing those back into conversation with a variety of different people that kind of flush

[00:06:54] it out and discern together and collaborate.

[00:06:56] And if you're, if you're like me, I know we're kind of wired the same way.

[00:07:00] Um, it kind of takes shape and iterates and matures into something that maybe I didn't quite

[00:07:06] have on my own or didn't quite get to.

[00:07:08] Sometimes I have a really clear, kind of a crystal clear picture of what I think it could

[00:07:12] look like, but most of the time it, it develops and take shape as I sounded out with other

[00:07:19] people.

[00:07:19] And so I think that's one of the cool things about being a part of the community is we

[00:07:23] get to do that work together.

[00:07:25] Even if maybe you or I, or maybe if you're a leader, that's more dream, dreamer oriented,

[00:07:31] you, you may be the one initiating the conversation or sensing some things, but now you're

[00:07:36] bringing it back to everybody else and saying, Hey, what do you guys think?

[00:07:38] So I love that about us.

[00:07:40] So, um, you talked about the process side.

[00:07:42] That's, that's a harder one for me.

[00:07:44] And I'm looking forward to diving into that process is important, but I tend to be a

[00:07:50] more on the dreamer myself.

[00:07:51] Yeah.

[00:07:52] Yeah.

[00:07:53] And, um, so, you know, part of the title vision quest, I always think of that movie vision

[00:07:58] quest, which is really a wildly inappropriate movie for pastors.

[00:08:01] Is it?

[00:08:02] I don't even remember that one.

[00:08:03] But, uh, anyway, it's a totally culturally appropriating vision quest anyway, but it's,

[00:08:10] uh, the idea is, is that, you know, you have this, this vision and you figure out how can

[00:08:16] we put this vision into reality.

[00:08:20] And really, I feel like in the church, the reason we're not good at this is we've talked

[00:08:26] about this before is that what happens in congregations is sort of twofold.

[00:08:30] One is whenever we talk about our faith, it's often very serious.

[00:08:38] It's not in the context of being winsome or fun or whatever.

[00:08:43] It's, it's, it's very serious business when people walk in the doors of the church and they

[00:08:47] want to talk about Jesus, which that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[00:08:50] I do think sometimes it prevents creativity.

[00:08:56] And it's hard to get people who've experienced church a certain way for so long to get into

[00:09:03] creative mode, to get into, you know, whiteboard dreaming sessions.

[00:09:08] I think that's, that's one of the problems.

[00:09:12] And then, and then the other thing is just energy, right?

[00:09:15] It's like when you are running low on energy, when you're just running hard, it's easy.

[00:09:24] Creativity is the thing that gets axed, right?

[00:09:27] I mean, because you just don't have the energy for it.

[00:09:29] So people ask all the time, like, oh, what does it look like?

[00:09:34] Like, how do you actually do this in a church?

[00:09:38] And I always think about Disney and their Imagineers.

[00:09:44] For those who, who aren't familiar with Disney culture, um, one of the things Walt Disney

[00:09:50] did early on to sort of create his vision for Disneyland and then Disney world and all

[00:09:55] of their attractions was he, he changed the idea of just having engineers and he called

[00:10:02] them Imagineers because what he wanted them to do is to blend creative imagination and

[00:10:07] technical know-how.

[00:10:09] And that if they could figure out how to get the really smart people that know how to do

[00:10:13] the things, get them dreaming, get them understanding how to unfold story into the technology, how

[00:10:22] to do all these things that he knew he could create something special.

[00:10:25] And I feel like we need some sort of version of Imagineering for the church, making the impossible

[00:10:30] possible.

[00:10:30] Um, uh, on the Disney website, it says Imagineers, uh, where innovation and storytelling combined

[00:10:37] to bring Disney stories, characters, and worlds to life.

[00:10:41] And I think, well, what would that look like for our churches?

[00:10:44] Maybe it'd be something like developing organizational vision is really what happens when you combine

[00:10:51] creative imagination with practical processes.

[00:10:55] You absolutely need both.

[00:10:59] My happy place is sort of like when we went to go visit North point community.

[00:11:04] I guess maybe that is my happy place, North point, but as much as we talk about it.

[00:11:08] Um, but they had, they had a room and I don't know how to explain it.

[00:11:14] It was just sort of a room off to the side.

[00:11:16] And it was covered in these really futuristic looking whiteboards.

[00:11:22] They weren't even whiteboards.

[00:11:23] Some of them were clear.

[00:11:25] It was like something you see in a movie and like a situation room or something.

[00:11:28] It was really cool.

[00:11:29] Yeah.

[00:11:30] And, and, and there was notes all over the place.

[00:11:32] It was like a beautiful mind, right?

[00:11:34] I mean, they were just, and I'm like, that's my happy place.

[00:11:37] Surround me with whiteboards and let's dream.

[00:11:40] Let's vision.

[00:11:41] Let's start with nothing and let's go.

[00:11:44] And I know that that's just not how everybody's wired.

[00:11:46] And what we're going to get into today about having a big vision and dreaming big.

[00:11:51] Uh, there's a companion episode.

[00:11:53] So we did about four months ago, episode three 51, where we talked a little bit more, uh,

[00:11:59] we do a little bit more of a deep dive into vision.

[00:12:02] So you may want to listen, go back and listen to that one as well.

[00:12:05] But as I said, you can tackle vision in one of two ways and neither way is better than

[00:12:10] the other.

[00:12:11] One is from the dream side.

[00:12:14] You're a dreamer.

[00:12:15] You're a visionary.

[00:12:18] The question I always ask is what's a dream that I can't shake?

[00:12:23] Mm-hmm.

[00:12:24] What's a dream that's related to the, the future of this church, of this ministry, of

[00:12:29] what, of this community.

[00:12:31] And I just can't shake it.

[00:12:33] Where's an area that I have this kind of holy discontent about.

[00:12:40] And I think for me, that's an indicator that perhaps that dream is God breathed.

[00:12:45] Yeah.

[00:12:46] Thinking about that, what I know you guys have, you've had a lot of iterations of that, but

[00:12:50] what is anything come to mind?

[00:12:52] One of those times where you just couldn't shake it.

[00:12:54] You know, like this.

[00:12:55] Yeah.

[00:12:56] Yeah.

[00:12:56] So it was when we renovated our sanctuary to accommodate contemporary worship along with

[00:13:04] traditional.

[00:13:04] And then the second one is actually a longer one.

[00:13:07] And that's planting a campus in an underserved community, a church that doesn't have, or a

[00:13:13] community that doesn't have a lot of church, you know, options.

[00:13:17] And we, I've actually been dreaming about this since the first year I got here 12 years

[00:13:22] ago.

[00:13:23] And it keeps coming up.

[00:13:25] And so now finally we decided we're going to do something about it.

[00:13:28] And we, we invented a team on our elder level.

[00:13:33] That's actively looking into what are these possibilities, but that's a dream that just

[00:13:38] won't go away.

[00:13:39] Uh, I've definitely, it's like, it is a holy discontent.

[00:13:42] And, and I just can't seem to shake it.

[00:13:45] So for me, that seems like, I think God's trying to say something, um, cause it's not going

[00:13:50] anywhere.

[00:13:50] And it feels like it's in the trajectory of his mission.

[00:13:53] Yeah.

[00:13:53] And I think that's the thing is, you know, when we're talking about vision and mission,

[00:13:56] we're not in, in this context, there's vision and mission statements that you work together

[00:14:00] and you sort out.

[00:14:01] And then there's sort of the dream vision part.

[00:14:03] That's like a direction to go in.

[00:14:05] That's in keeping with sort of your established vision and mission or the thing that God has

[00:14:10] called you and your church to.

[00:14:12] And I love that.

[00:14:13] I like that picture of, I just couldn't shake it.

[00:14:15] I couldn't, you know, and, and it keeps coming up in conversation or it's something that seems

[00:14:20] to resonate when I share it with other people and together we're starting to get excited.

[00:14:24] So those are the things that you kind of go, okay, let's lean into this one a little bit

[00:14:28] more to now drive from just dreaming about it to beginning to even think about what,

[00:14:33] what would it look like to move in, in, in the direction of that vision?

[00:14:37] Yeah.

[00:14:38] And I think for some, and I'd love to hear too, like how this works for you.

[00:14:42] I think sometimes when I feel like I don't, I feel like there's something I, that God's

[00:14:49] trying to show me, but I don't know exactly what it is.

[00:14:51] I will literally just do a prayer walk around the building or just be in conversation with

[00:14:56] God.

[00:14:56] Okay, God, what am I seeing right now?

[00:14:59] What are you, what are you showing me through the interactions?

[00:15:03] We've had the circumstances.

[00:15:06] What are we missing?

[00:15:07] What are we getting right?

[00:15:08] Like, it's just kind of a conversation where we're just asking a bunch of questions and,

[00:15:12] and oftentimes God will start giving me stuff.

[00:15:17] And I don't know, that's another way.

[00:15:19] How about you?

[00:15:20] What about from the dream and part?

[00:15:21] You hit on, on that, something that is a big part of the, how God works in, in my wiring.

[00:15:28] It's through good questions.

[00:15:29] It's like curiosity about what is that?

[00:15:32] Why is that on my heart and mind?

[00:15:33] What's going on there?

[00:15:34] And kind of trying to explore it and tease it out and think about it.

[00:15:37] And I've noticed, I don't know if you've ever done like, uh, if you're into puzzle games

[00:15:41] or things that are like, or crossword, or maybe you're working on a puzzle and you get,

[00:15:46] you kind of hit a wall.

[00:15:47] Yeah.

[00:15:48] And so you're stuck for a minute.

[00:15:50] And for me, sometimes it is just stepping away for a little bit and working on something else.

[00:15:55] And then as it's kind of processing and rolling around in my heart and mind and my brain and

[00:16:01] whatever, all of a sudden it kind of, the pieces will click into place.

[00:16:03] And then I go back to work.

[00:16:05] And so I think it's, it's something that takes time and it needs to mature and, and yet somehow

[00:16:11] it's operating in the background as you're doing other kinds of things.

[00:16:15] And so it's something that comes along.

[00:16:18] And then there are these moments of sort of like connection or clarity that I really try

[00:16:23] then hard to capture those and make sure that then we go, okay, now I'm starting to see

[00:16:27] how it fits together.

[00:16:28] So good questions and, and being curious about what does that even mean?

[00:16:33] What would it even look like to plant another church somewhere?

[00:16:36] What would it, what would it take?

[00:16:37] What kinds of things would need to be true for that to happen?

[00:16:40] Um, so that's, that's on my side of things.

[00:16:43] I just, good questions lead to, to learning.

[00:16:45] And I remember when, um, we've shared this before on here, but when we did our rolling

[00:16:49] Sunday model for Sunday mornings, it really came out of a series of really good questions

[00:16:55] that God had put on our heart about how do we be a church that meets the needs of a multi-generational

[00:17:01] community and does all kinds of things to do that on Sunday morning.

[00:17:05] And so it really started to mature and grow from there.

[00:17:07] So yeah, that curiosity and questions and allowing space for the iterations to come.

[00:17:12] So that actually is a segue to, that's how you come at a vision from a process side.

[00:17:18] That's exactly what you did by asking questions.

[00:17:22] You entered into a process to discern a dream.

[00:17:25] Are you calling me a process dreamer and not a dreamer?

[00:17:29] No, but, but I do think like, that's just a great example of how that works.

[00:17:33] Because at some point, a dream will only be a dream and we'll never move towards implementation.

[00:17:39] If you, if you don't begin to look at it and think about it and go, okay, what is it going

[00:17:44] to mean to, to bring this towards some sort of reality?

[00:17:48] And I think sometimes, uh, and this would be, I think true of, of, of a lot of leaders that

[00:17:53] we can end up stuck in dreamland and never quite figure out how to move things towards

[00:18:00] reality or towards implementation or even to make progress toward it.

[00:18:04] So I'm glad that we're including this as part of the conversation.

[00:18:07] So there's the process sides that, that begins to move us towards actually seeing it through.

[00:18:12] And that's crucially important.

[00:18:14] Yeah.

[00:18:15] And that's usually the part that most leaders don't realize that, um, it's not just whether

[00:18:24] or not you have vision.

[00:18:25] It's, do you have some sort of process to then unpack that vision and turn that vision into

[00:18:32] reality?

[00:18:33] So, uh, again, just to use the example, um, because it's an easy one when we were launching

[00:18:41] contemporary worship.

[00:18:42] Let's say, let's say any church out there, let's say pastor, you want to launch a contemporary

[00:18:46] worship service.

[00:18:47] Your church is maybe you have a blended service or maybe it's a more traditional only.

[00:18:52] And you really see the need to do that.

[00:18:55] Well, you might have a vision of what that looks like, but then the next part is you got to do

[00:19:00] the math.

[00:19:01] What, what are the details?

[00:19:03] What are the things that would need that would need to be true?

[00:19:07] Yeah.

[00:19:07] Um, and we talked in episode three 59 one about the, uh, the moon shot landing on the

[00:19:14] moon, you know, assuming it really happened.

[00:19:17] Yeah.

[00:19:17] I don't know.

[00:19:17] Are you, are you a hoax guy?

[00:19:18] I don't know.

[00:19:19] Uh, but you know, let's the moon shot takes math, you know, from that movie, hidden figures,

[00:19:28] such a great movie, but it takes math.

[00:19:30] You got to figure out then what would need to be true for this dream to happen.

[00:19:36] And, and so you need both, you need vision and you need process in order to dream big.

[00:19:41] So the first thing you do, and this is what all the stats tell you is, okay, you come up

[00:19:45] with what you think your dream is.

[00:19:48] The first thing to do is to write it down.

[00:19:53] It's funny.

[00:19:53] I don't have the stat in front of me.

[00:19:54] I know that Michael Hyatt talks about this a lot, the stat that it's some crazy number,

[00:19:58] like, uh, the likelihood that your dream will actually get accomplished just by writing it

[00:20:05] down.

[00:20:06] And the reason is, is something happens from your brain to the pencil tip in that it makes

[00:20:12] it real.

[00:20:13] Yep.

[00:20:14] And I think if, uh, pastors, if you're just looking for a process, take a dream and write

[00:20:18] it down.

[00:20:19] You've just started a process.

[00:20:21] Uh, yes, it's the first step.

[00:20:23] Yes.

[00:20:23] There's a lot more to go, but that's how you start and start thinking about what are the

[00:20:28] obstacles?

[00:20:29] What is preventing you from this dream?

[00:20:33] And then again, what would have to be true?

[00:20:37] So, so let's, again, let's formalize that as a step.

[00:20:40] So you write down your dream and that's the next thing you ask.

[00:20:43] What's stopping this dream from happening right now?

[00:20:45] What are the actual obstacles?

[00:20:47] Not the, not the fears or the anxieties.

[00:20:51] That's like another bucket.

[00:20:52] What are the actual obstacles to, to this happening?

[00:20:56] It's funny when you start asking that question, uh, you sort of stripped down the excuses.

[00:21:02] Yeah, I think, yeah, I think getting it down on paper and then starting to go, okay, how,

[00:21:07] how can I move in that direction?

[00:21:09] And what, what would get in the way?

[00:21:10] And those things start to, you know, collectively without naming them, they feel really big or

[00:21:17] I'm not sure how we could ever do that.

[00:21:18] But then when you start to think a little bit more about what those things actually are,

[00:21:23] they're not as big as you might think.

[00:21:24] Like, in fact, I think sometimes we over anticipate the size of the hurdles or obstacles that would

[00:21:30] be in our way.

[00:21:31] Yeah.

[00:21:32] There are real things that will have to be overcome, but we're going to tackle those one at a time

[00:21:36] along the way.

[00:21:37] And it's not insurmountable.

[00:21:38] It's actually doable.

[00:21:39] And it's actually, you'll find that as you get momentum towards your dream, that those

[00:21:43] obstacles tend to get pushed right out of the way so much easier than you ever thought.

[00:21:47] Anyway.

[00:21:48] So, but yeah, sometimes we make that into an impossible, you know, hill to climb before

[00:21:53] we even think about what it actually is.

[00:21:55] Yeah.

[00:21:56] Yeah.

[00:21:56] And you know, what's coming next?

[00:21:58] My favorite question to ask people that say we can't do it.

[00:22:01] What if we could?

[00:22:02] Yeah.

[00:22:03] But what if we could, Jason?

[00:22:04] What if we could?

[00:22:05] That's my favorite thing to ask.

[00:22:06] And I talk about all the time because it always amazes me how it works.

[00:22:11] Even when people know that the question is a, is a technique.

[00:22:15] Yeah.

[00:22:16] Like, like my people know that when I ask that question, they know exactly what I'm doing.

[00:22:19] What if it did happen?

[00:22:21] What would, what would need to be true?

[00:22:22] Yeah.

[00:22:22] I think those are really good.

[00:22:23] And I'm always like that other question alongside that is, is sometimes we sell ourselves short

[00:22:28] as a, as leaders because we are of our own insecurities and maybe we want to be humble

[00:22:32] in a healthy way and stuff.

[00:22:34] And so sometimes even thinking in terms of that other great leadership question, what

[00:22:38] would a great leader do?

[00:22:39] Or what would someone who could pull this off?

[00:22:41] What would they do?

[00:22:42] What steps would they take?

[00:22:43] How would they overcome these obstacles and kind of taking it off for yourself?

[00:22:47] Um, I've learned to ask, I think has become a helpful question for me, but what would I,

[00:22:53] what would I want someone else to tell me?

[00:22:55] What advice would I want to hear from them about how to, and then what would I tell somebody

[00:23:00] else that's trying to tackle a dream or a vision in their own life?

[00:23:03] What would I encourage them to do?

[00:23:04] And kind of thinking through some of that stuff for yourself so that repositions in your head

[00:23:10] and your heart about like, I, I think we can do this actually.

[00:23:13] And I think that, isn't that what your question is?

[00:23:16] That's it.

[00:23:16] But what if we could?

[00:23:18] And now all of a sudden we're thinking in terms of what's possible and not, not what's

[00:23:22] impossible or would be too hard or whatever.

[00:23:25] And that's not a terribly, what we just described is not a terribly long process.

[00:23:30] You could do this in one session, but you could do that over the course of an hour with your

[00:23:35] leadership just to start asking questions and like, Hey, where are we, where do you feel

[00:23:39] like God's leading us in 2025?

[00:23:42] And you know, the first quarter, what do we feel like God wants us to do before we hit

[00:23:47] Easter?

[00:23:48] What's, where's the gap where we're trying to help people grow in their faith in Jesus

[00:23:53] and, and we don't really have a, a effective way of doing that.

[00:23:58] What could we do?

[00:23:59] Yeah.

[00:24:00] I, we've kind of learned to ask a question and it's on my whiteboard.

[00:24:03] So I always see it for myself, but if God could do one miraculous thing in our life together,

[00:24:08] what would we want it to be?

[00:24:09] Ooh, I like that.

[00:24:10] If God was going to do something like one miracle, what would we pick?

[00:24:13] What would he ask him to do?

[00:24:14] And it just, again, whatever.

[00:24:16] I mean, it's like a kind of a strange question in some ways, but it gets our minds and our

[00:24:20] hearts rolling in the direction of, of what's possible, what could happen.

[00:24:24] And sometimes, I don't know what we'll get into this maybe as we go through this series,

[00:24:28] but what do we do with the stick in the mud people that are like, stop dreaming about stuff.

[00:24:33] You know, we do what we do and that's good enough or something.

[00:24:37] And yeah, I think those, even those obstacles, those kinds of folks, when we're asking the

[00:24:45] questions, open-ended questions, like what if it, what if it could happen though?

[00:24:49] What would it look like?

[00:24:50] It kind of helps them lower their defenses just as a thought exercise, even to get unstucked

[00:24:55] for just a little bit.

[00:24:55] It does.

[00:24:56] And I think most people, if you take an approach like, Hey, thank you for that honest feedback.

[00:25:01] That's exactly what we're going to need, but we don't need that just yet right now.

[00:25:05] I really want to just let us dream.

[00:25:07] Don't worry about all the other things just yet.

[00:25:09] We are going to worry about those.

[00:25:11] And so please bring that up again.

[00:25:14] I think that's a way of diffusing it a little bit and saying, no, we truly do.

[00:25:19] We're going to need that.

[00:25:20] Yeah.

[00:25:21] You know, the favorite one that I hear almost every time we start thinking about something

[00:25:25] new is what are the unintended consequences that we're not thinking of yet?

[00:25:29] And I'm like, well, we'll have time to explore those later on, but right now we're still

[00:25:34] in idea mode.

[00:25:35] So we're not quite to that yet, but you know, you start to get, you start to, as you lead

[00:25:39] in, the more you have these kinds of conversations, you start to notice the same sorts of objections

[00:25:44] or hesitations coming up.

[00:25:45] And you kind of just learn how to coach around them to keep the ball rolling forward towards

[00:25:50] more of a dreaming mindset rather than let's solve the details and the problems that that'll

[00:25:55] come later on as the ideas take shape.

[00:25:58] Yeah.

[00:25:58] So you're at this whole process and this is the process.

[00:26:01] This is what we're talking about.

[00:26:02] So you're just asking, you know, what is it?

[00:26:05] What are the obstacles?

[00:26:06] What's preventing us from doing it?

[00:26:08] And then how do we structure this dream into goals?

[00:26:11] And it's like, how do we take our ideas and put it into a plan?

[00:26:17] And that's the part that most churches struggle with.

[00:26:19] You know, whenever I work with churches, that's the piece that they struggle with.

[00:26:22] Implementation piece.

[00:26:23] I think if you can figure out how to follow through and get momentum, and I think maybe

[00:26:29] we're going to come back to this conversation in this series again, but how do you create

[00:26:34] consistent, reliable follow through in your organization so that you can get some successful

[00:26:41] things in place and you start to get some momentum behind that?

[00:26:44] And it might mean that you have to start with some smaller things first before you tackle

[00:26:48] some big vision to build a brand new 100,000 square foot facility to host 1,200 people on

[00:26:54] a Sunday or something.

[00:26:55] So we can start with some small wins, some smaller dreams that can move us then towards

[00:27:00] bigger dreams.

[00:27:01] Well, and I think, Jesse, I'm glad you brought that up because if you are a visionary leader,

[00:27:07] the part you probably struggle with is the boots on the ground part.

[00:27:11] Totally.

[00:27:11] Yep.

[00:27:12] It's the handoff between vision and getting it done.

[00:27:16] Yeah.

[00:27:16] So what you're really going to need to bring alongside what I've learned for myself is I

[00:27:20] need people on my team that speak spreadsheet.

[00:27:23] I need really detail-oriented folks who are just really good at, they're going to create

[00:27:29] a signup genius and they're going to fill out who's doing what.

[00:27:33] And they are the glue that, or they're actually the handoff between vision and implementation.

[00:27:42] And so if you could find somebody who's good at that, that's really a big part of the battle.

[00:27:47] I learned that the hard way.

[00:27:48] And I think you need them to be on board with the overall sense of we need this or we want

[00:27:54] this.

[00:27:55] Yeah.

[00:27:55] If you get a detailed person involved that's not sure this is the right thing, man, that's

[00:27:59] going to really-

[00:28:00] You need someone who's really inspired.

[00:28:02] On the same page, they have a different set of gifts that are going to help bring things

[00:28:05] to reality.

[00:28:06] And I think sometimes even just changing your, I hesitate to use this word, but your self-talk

[00:28:11] about, I'm a dreamer, so I can't ever follow through on anything.

[00:28:16] I just move through.

[00:28:17] Yeah, that's-

[00:28:17] That's kind of-

[00:28:18] I remember when our friend Jim Meade, he came and worked on staff with me for a while and

[00:28:23] kind of was like an in-house coach and consultant really in so many ways.

[00:28:27] But he said, Jesse, you're so good at follow-through.

[00:28:30] And I was like, what?

[00:28:34] You're a liar, Jim.

[00:28:36] Like, no, I didn't think that about myself.

[00:28:38] But he said, I've been around a lot of pastors and leaders and you're getting things from

[00:28:41] idea to on the ground, to implement it.

[00:28:44] And it changes and develops from the time you think about it to what actually takes place.

[00:28:49] But you guys are- we're doing great.

[00:28:50] We're following through on things.

[00:28:52] And I was like, oh, I guess we are.

[00:28:54] Oh, isn't that great?

[00:28:55] I guess I am someone who can see a dream through to implementation and learn how to do that

[00:29:00] well by working with a team of different gifts and abilities to help bring it about and be

[00:29:05] more collaborative with that.

[00:29:07] And so I think when sometimes when we have this idea that we're a dreamer and so I can't

[00:29:12] actually get it there or our church, we don't have a good history of dreaming and then following

[00:29:16] through, we got to disrupt that part of the conversation and say, but what if we were

[00:29:21] the kind of church that followed through?

[00:29:22] Maybe we are.

[00:29:23] We just haven't noticed that about ourselves.

[00:29:25] And anyway, that was a really powerful moment for me, for someone to go, no, you're doing

[00:29:30] great.

[00:29:30] You're following through.

[00:29:31] Look at that.

[00:29:31] Look what you did.

[00:29:33] That's good.

[00:29:34] So a couple of tips along the way, if you're thinking about, you know, how do we figure

[00:29:39] out our vision for 2025 and maybe we're going to sit down the other side of the new year.

[00:29:43] We're going to really hash this out.

[00:29:44] Just a few tips as you do this.

[00:29:47] Number one, think football, not golf.

[00:29:50] Vision is a team sport.

[00:29:52] It is.

[00:29:52] Yep.

[00:29:53] Vision is a team sport.

[00:29:54] It's not, you know, you're not descending Mount Sinai with the tablets, right?

[00:29:59] It's not, you know, it really needs to be hashed out in community because that's in my

[00:30:06] experience, how the Holy Spirit works.

[00:30:07] I think that's theologically pretty good.

[00:30:10] And I think, you know, we, I think we've talked about this somewhere along the line,

[00:30:14] but one of the things I love the most is when I feel like God's putting something in

[00:30:19] front of us to move toward.

[00:30:20] And I kind of sounded out with different people along the way.

[00:30:23] And then all of a sudden it comes up in a meeting and it wasn't me who introduced that

[00:30:26] idea.

[00:30:26] And somebody kind of says, Hey, what if we tried?

[00:30:28] And I'm like, that's a great idea.

[00:30:30] We should try that.

[00:30:31] And it kind of like, it gives a sense of collaboration and team when, when you allow someone else to

[00:30:37] be kind of the source even of the vision itself, even if you kind of helped till the ground

[00:30:43] and plant the seeds along the way.

[00:30:44] So yeah, so good, Jason.

[00:30:46] I love that.

[00:30:47] It's a team sport and we should know because we were part of flag football championship football

[00:30:51] team.

[00:30:52] Champions.

[00:30:53] No one can ever take that away from us.

[00:30:56] So the next tip is remember you're going to need.

[00:31:01] Dreaming and process to get to your vision, right?

[00:31:04] You're going to need both.

[00:31:06] So if you struggle on, on dreaming, I want to encourage you bring somebody onto your team,

[00:31:12] even as temporarily get a fellow pastor friend to come and to interact with your team or find

[00:31:21] ways to be inspired by people, you know, leaders that you admire online, you know, or, you know,

[00:31:27] purchase their talks or whatever to supply that dreaming.

[00:31:31] You can supply that that way for sure.

[00:31:33] And then, and then if you're a dreamer with no process, if you just had a very simple process

[00:31:38] of asking those basic questions, that's a process and that's enough.

[00:31:42] Either way you can get to the thing that you feel the Holy Spirit's leading you to do.

[00:31:48] Yeah.

[00:31:49] Yeah.

[00:31:49] Then once you have that thing, um, you have to ask yourself, is this, is this the kind

[00:31:56] of thing that our church would really rally around?

[00:31:59] Um, back to the, we, again, we unpack this more in, in episode three 51, but back to Jim Collins

[00:32:06] built to last the, the B hags, big, hairy, audacious goals.

[00:32:12] You didn't have to convince the folks working on the, the moon launch that it was inspiring

[00:32:20] or important.

[00:32:21] I mean, they all were willing to do whatever it took.

[00:32:24] So how, just make sure, how do you inspire your team?

[00:32:28] And the way that I, I don't know how you do this, Jesse, but the way that I find the

[00:32:31] most inspiration is to develop that sense of urgency is I'll look at research from barn

[00:32:39] or something like that.

[00:32:40] Let's say we're trying to actually, but we just did our use spaces again.

[00:32:44] I, I made the case, you know, now's the time to, we've got these kids for a couple more years

[00:32:51] and they don't know the story of Jesus.

[00:32:54] These kids, this generation are the most likely to declare themselves atheists, Gen Z, but it's

[00:33:01] not out of animosity toward Jesus.

[00:33:04] It's out of ignorance.

[00:33:05] They just don't know what they don't know.

[00:33:08] And they're also, as Barna showed us, they're the most spiritually open generation.

[00:33:12] So what, if not us, when, right?

[00:33:16] If not us, who, if not now, when?

[00:33:18] And so it develops a sense of urgency and that's, I think how we get to the BHAGs or get to the

[00:33:23] big dreams that become plans of action.

[00:33:29] Right.

[00:33:29] I don't know.

[00:33:29] How about you?

[00:33:30] I mean, what's a way.

[00:33:31] I think it's in that same lane.

[00:33:33] It's kind of like, if, if, if we did, if this ended up being, being a reality, what would

[00:33:37] the outcomes be?

[00:33:38] Why would that be worth it?

[00:33:39] And what would we hope to see and expect to see if we moved in this direction?

[00:33:44] And I think one of the other tactics, and I'll call it a tactic.

[00:33:47] I think it's wise leadership, but it's to look back into the history of the church so often

[00:33:52] and wisely, I think rightly we say, stop looking in the rear view mirror.

[00:33:56] You know, you have rose colored glasses.

[00:33:58] It was not as good as you remember it or, you know, whatever.

[00:34:02] And so we want to live forward through the windshield as you remind us, but sometimes

[00:34:06] we can go back into our story for inspiration and say one time we risked so much in order

[00:34:13] to reach these people or to do this new program.

[00:34:16] And isn't that amazing?

[00:34:18] Let's, let's be willing to risk it again.

[00:34:20] Let's go for it.

[00:34:21] So you can sometimes go back into this, the history of the church and a recent example,

[00:34:26] a couple of years ago.

[00:34:27] Now, I think I shared this somewhere along the way, but Marine view, we were talking about

[00:34:31] taking all the pews out of our sanctuary and putting in chairs.

[00:34:35] And man, for some people you would, that's like over my dead body.

[00:34:39] I will leave the church if you dare, you know, change the carpet or move the pews or whatever.

[00:34:43] And so what we had, um, pretty adaptable group of people that are mostly open to ideas.

[00:34:49] And, but then it was like this gift that God gave us.

[00:34:52] We, I was looking back through our history book is like our 50th year, uh, history was

[00:34:57] an old book that was sitting around.

[00:34:58] And I found, uh, this, uh, description of this, the seating where we got the pews from

[00:35:04] in the first place and the seating for our balcony and the pews we bought and did all that,

[00:35:08] but we didn't have enough money for pews for the whole sanctuary and the balcony.

[00:35:13] When we first built the sanctuary in 1962 on the version of it now.

[00:35:17] And, uh, in the history book, it says, uh, that, so the church leadership went looking

[00:35:22] for chairs and there was a pornographic theater closing in downtown Tacoma that was giving

[00:35:27] away its theater seats.

[00:35:29] And so the church ladies went and got the seats and with lots of prayer and cleansing, they

[00:35:33] cleaned up the seats for use in the sanctuary, in the balcony.

[00:35:38] I hope they used bleach.

[00:35:40] Can you imagine?

[00:35:41] I couldn't tell you that.

[00:35:42] So I, we got to all laugh about it together.

[00:35:45] We're like, can you imagine a bunch of church ladies in the sixties using these pornographic

[00:35:50] theater seats and bringing them into the sanctuary and blessing them for a new purpose?

[00:35:55] And I'm like, if they could make that decision, then surely we can make this decision now to

[00:36:00] do something else.

[00:36:01] And, and it was like, so I think sometimes there's a rich story in your history, maybe not as

[00:36:07] crazy as that one that you can draw on to inspire people to do something new now.

[00:36:12] And in doing that, you're honoring all those people that might be the more hesitant to

[00:36:16] change stick in the mud types that have been around forever and have rose colored glasses.

[00:36:20] They'll go, Oh, you care about our story and our history and our legacy.

[00:36:24] And this is in keeping with that.

[00:36:27] And I'm on board.

[00:36:28] So anyway, that's another way to inspire people.

[00:36:30] Long story.

[00:36:32] No, that's great.

[00:36:33] And you know, how do you determine something?

[00:36:35] How do you determine a BHAG or something like that?

[00:36:37] It's you're identifying what different future are we hoping for?

[00:36:42] Um, you know, if you could wave a magic wand, I heard you say that earlier, you know, what

[00:36:46] would be the thing?

[00:36:47] And then it should be a stretch.

[00:36:49] If it doesn't scare you a little bit, it's probably not big enough, right?

[00:36:53] If it's beyond your capabilities, it means you're going to depend on God for it, which

[00:36:56] is exactly where God wants us.

[00:36:57] So, um, I think those are good indicators.

[00:37:00] Also, I'll say this, another, another tip as you go, don't worry about the perfect vision.

[00:37:07] Good enough is probably good enough.

[00:37:09] It's just, just a little bit of a vision could go a long way because it rallies your congregation

[00:37:14] and gets your own in the same direction, which usually has really great return.

[00:37:19] Yep.

[00:37:20] Yep.

[00:37:20] I love it.

[00:37:21] And yeah, I think a tactic for that one too, is if you have something of an incomplete vision

[00:37:26] or a sense of it, but it's not fully articulated, do like a frequently asked questions experiment.

[00:37:31] What questions would people have?

[00:37:33] And then try to anticipate and give some kind of an answer that has a clarifying effect,

[00:37:37] I think.

[00:37:37] So, um, sometimes if it's not quite concrete in your own head and heart yet, do some examining,

[00:37:42] do that, ask some of those questions.

[00:37:44] It'll start to take shape.

[00:37:45] And the last one I threw in there, I said, it should be fun on some level.

[00:37:51] Dreaming should be fun.

[00:37:53] It should be getting you excited about what God might do.

[00:37:58] And I find that, uh, maybe it's just me.

[00:38:01] I don't know.

[00:38:01] Again, I love the room full of whiteboards, but I think there's an element of fun and excitement

[00:38:07] that should be a part of it.

[00:38:08] Yeah.

[00:38:09] And I, I think we've talked about this before too, but there was a time coming out of the

[00:38:13] pandemic where dreaming about something new felt.

[00:38:16] I, I didn't, I was like, man, it might be fun, but I'm so tired.

[00:38:20] I don't, I don't know if I want to dream right now.

[00:38:23] That sounds like a lot of work and it's already been a lot of work.

[00:38:25] And so I, I'm hopeful that now as people are listening, they're hearing this from a,

[00:38:30] from a fresher place or a different place.

[00:38:32] We've kind of gone through the crucible of a really challenging time.

[00:38:36] And now, now it's time to dream again.

[00:38:38] And if we haven't been give yourself some permission to dream and to think big again and go, God,

[00:38:43] what do you want to do?

[00:38:44] And we'll pray that God will use that to enliven you and bring sort of fresh excitement into

[00:38:50] your ministry and the things that God wants to do in your churches and in your leadership.

[00:38:54] That's awesome.

[00:38:55] I think, um, yeah, other than that, just equipping our folks with resources.

[00:39:01] We'll in our show notes, connect with a couple of our favorite ones.

[00:39:04] One of the, one that comes to mind for me is Tim Keller's center church talks about developing

[00:39:08] a theological vision for your church, which I think is a really great process to get

[00:39:14] you dreaming.

[00:39:15] Um, we'll connect, uh, Andy Stanley's little book on vision, uh, with that.

[00:39:20] So if we think of any Jesse sent them to me, we'll put them on the show notes, but yeah,

[00:39:24] we're going to, in this series again, for a couple of weeks, we're just going to think

[00:39:27] about, we're going to talk about, uh, you know, other kinds of,

[00:39:31] uh, visions or goals that we have maybe even more short-term stuff.

[00:39:35] We're going to talk about, well, then how do you finance it all?

[00:39:37] We're going to talk about creating a very clear strategy around it.

[00:39:40] So hopefully all of this together will help you.

[00:39:43] And at the end, we'll kind of throw it together in some sort of document.

[00:39:46] So it's all in one place.

[00:39:48] Yeah, I love it.

[00:39:48] And I think what the great added benefit toward working toward vision together in a

[00:39:53] community is it is an opportunity to shape culture as you do that work.

[00:39:57] And so we'll dive into that a little bit more too, but, uh, anyway, really grateful

[00:40:01] for this conversation, Jason.

[00:40:02] I, you know, we're, we love to dream big, but we also like to see real things happen in

[00:40:06] the real world.

[00:40:07] And we want to bring those things closer together in our leadership and in our churches.

[00:40:11] So appreciate getting to have this conversation today.

[00:40:15] It's fun stuff.

[00:40:16] And Hey, pastors out there, we're praying for you.

[00:40:18] We're rooting for you.

[00:40:19] It's a, it's a wild ride right now in our culture and our life.

[00:40:24] And then with all the holidays and everything going on in our churches, it's a lot.

[00:40:28] Just remember to take some time for yourself and all of this.

[00:40:31] Um, don't sacrifice your own health as you're trying to just push forward, push forward, push

[00:40:36] forward.

[00:40:36] But hopefully this idea, this dreaming is something that'll just happen organically as you continue

[00:40:43] to listen to the Holy spirit and your leadership.

[00:40:47] And we're here for you along the way because ministry is hard.

[00:40:50] It is so much better when we do it together.

[00:40:52] Take care, everyone.