The council have just released some nice pictures of how they want the city centre to look; you would think the good folk of Stoke on Trent would be delighted with this. Not so I am afraid.
The problem is the council is very good at releasing pictures regarding the regeneration of the city, where they have proven to be less good, in fact quite awful, is in actually delivering real tangible results. Someone commented to me that the only people who make money in this city are the architects who provide the drawings, other than the odd supermarket development we have yet to see the promised investment in the city, indeed while other cities have seen a plethora of development in the last decade or the cranes have been visible by there absence in Stoke on Trent.
Leaving the political ramifications of this to one side there is a lesson here for Church leaders, it is important to not just paint a good picture of were you want to go or what you want to deliver, you have to deliver results.
Seriously I am sick of hearing leaders sprout off about filling football stadiums, how about this that you fill your auditorium first, that you complete that social action project that you have promised to engage in, that you reach in and speak life to that area of need in your city/town/village, that you will develop and nurture your people to help them to become all that they can be in Christ.
Or if you don’t have the capacity to do this stop drawing pictures, telling everyone you
are going to, seriously it’s not just your credibility at stake it has a knock on effect for the rest of the church.
Below are some of the I have learned in 25 years of leadership, and believe me I am still learning, still a work in progress.
1. Be right, remember he is the master builder, make sure your vision comes from the source, to often it is easy to fire arrows into the wall then draw targets around them, in other words don’t try to fit God into your vision it usually falls flat and gets messy
2. Be focused, don’t be distracted, all to easy this one, be get like Nehemiah, go on read it see how tenacious he was about the Project that God had placed in his hands
3. Be real, don’t try to spin it out if it has not happened, be honest with people
4. be prepared, it’s gonna take a lot of hard work and sacrifice and stuff, I always think of Joshua going across the Jordan into the promised land, he still had to fight for it, there was still work to be done, too many leaders think when they receive the vision that’s when the hard work is done, absolutely not it’s only just began. There will also be those who oppose you, sometimes from inside your ranks. Deal with it.
It’s so true that you will never see it till you see it, but it is just as true that words without actions are futile, after all it is the book of acts that outline the growth of the early church not the book of intensions. Pastor, leader, be a doer.
