Discovering and Developing Missional Vision: Leadership Part 1

I hope you've been enjoying the blog posts over the last month. I've really enjoyed reading the contributions based on the theme of Establishing a Missional Culture.

Today marks the start of a new theme: Discovering and Developing Missional Vision. One of the things that gets me most excited is being able to release and support people into putting into action the vision God has given them. Seeing people live out their calling, especially those who aren't your typical pioneer or confident leader, is something I find really fulfilling.

I expect most of you who have been on a journey with Missional Communities with us for a little while will have been thinking about and concentrating on releasing your pioneer leaders, the ones who are 'early adopters' - those who are usually bursting with vision and raring to be released. Great! That's definitely the place to start.

This week however I'd like to use this blog post to explore a little how to help those for whom vision comes a bit less easily, who are less 'self-promoting', more introverted or simply lack confidence or experience. For Missional Communities to become fully established within a church it is important to be raising up leaders of all shapes and sizes - MC leadership is not just for the raving extroverts or the 'obvious' leaders you have in your church!

I'll post in 2 parts; today I'll ask a few questions of you to ponder on, thinking about some of the underlying foundations and leadership culture in your church. Tomorrow I'll give a few tips of how to help encourage more people into leading with a missional vision.

So, some questions for you to consider:

• Do you have a vision for raising up leaders?
• What is the culture of leadership in your church? Do people know that leadership isn't restricted to one 'type' of person? Do they have a biblical understanding of leadership?
• Do you have a process by which vision is taught, released and nurtured across the whole body? Are you making it simple or expecting too much?
• What examples of leadership are you holding up to the church?
• Are the testimonies you profile of God at work in every day life as well as the more 'spectacular'?
• Are your MC leaders able and equipped to encourage and release others in their MC into their own vision and calling?

Setting good foundations and a biblical view of leadership in your church is vital in enabling people to discover the vision and call God has given them.

Tomorrow I'll share my top 10 tips on releasing vision in the non-pioneers, the under-encouraged or those lacking in confidence!