Developing Your Personal Vision (Part 2)

Last week we looked at the intersection of passion, proficiency, and profitability and how that can help us discern our calling or vocation. Once we know that, our next step is to write out our vision.

A leader needs a good vision to be a person worth following. Jesus’ vision could be broken down into four different parts: a purpose statement, an operating set of values or guiding principles, a future dream, and strategies to accomplish his mission.

In Matthew 4:19, Jesus changed the disciples’ purpose from fishing for fish to fishing for people. Their purpose was clear—they would be equipped and commissioned to bring people back into right relationship with their heavenly Father.

In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus shared his values or guiding principles—in essence, love God and love people. Note that these values are rank ordered. Loving God above all else equips us to love people well. In fact, you really can't love people rightly until you love God firstly.

In Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus shared his future dream—disciples from every nation in the world! Jesus' future picture of the Kingdom is inspiring and challenging, still motivating his followers today.

In Luke 13:32 and Acts 1:8, Jesus shared his strategies to accomplish the mission. The first passage points out his immediate goals of healing and driving out demons before going to the cross and resurrecting. The second passage refers to the future when the disciples would focus on all geographical regions, spreading the Kingdom message.

[Next week I will wrap up the KNOWING part of our serving leadership framework by discussing several disciplines Jesus modeled for us.]