Pastors, you know more than you anyone the importance of sharing vision. Yet as I look around church world, I don’t see a lot of Pastors sharing the vision God has given them very well. Nehemiah succeeded because he was able to mobilize the people to be part of God’s vision. We are having our annual "Vision Night" tomorrow and I’ve been thinking about vision a lot overthe last 2 weeks. While I’m always trying to deposit some vision into every message, there are important moments when we get the opportunity to talk in these terms the entire evening. In my preparation, I listened to Steve Jobs’ presentation and this year’s Macworld expo. I thought I’d share a couple of thoughts from his presentation that have helped me and might help you:
#1 – He shared some victories – Steve took the stage and talked about the stage that Apple was in. The company is doing very well and more and more people are making the switch from PC to Mac. He share several stats that as an Apple user just fired me up that I’m not setting up deck chairs on the Titanic!
#2 – He limited his presentation – He talked for 90 minutes, which for Pastors is longer than we normally get, but some things happening in the company he just breezed over. When talking about the new iwork suite, he mentioned a couple of things and said something to the affect of, "Check it out. I think you’ll like it." There was tons to talk about, but he used his limited time to focus on the big stuff.
#3- He overdelivered – Last year, Steve promised the new Mac with Intel processors by June 2006. They were ready last week (5 months ahead of schedule). Too often, we plan based on all the stars aligning and give dates that are impossible to meet. Instead, Give yourself some room. Things get pushed back, plans get delayed (Can you tell we’re building out space?) and if you keep giving dates that don’t get met, people will stop believing you.
#4 – He demo’d the products – Steve was using a Mac with Intel during the presentation and gave demos of many of Apple’s new software features. I tihnk churches can get creative with people sharing their stories of how a ministry of outreach affected someone. Imagine doing an event you did last year and casting the vision by having 5 people who came to know Jesus speak about how their life has changed?
#5 – He was honest – Steve said a few of the programs wouldn’t run the same on the Intel Mac until the software companies finished upgrading their software by June. This might hurt the sale of the Intel Macs at first, but I doubt it. The programs will still run, a few just won’t run to the rofessional level that some need (Photographers, graphic designers). But I think he’d rather give the downside now going in, so people don’t feel tricked once they get it. Instead, they are getting a great computer that is vastly superior to anythng else on the market and once the software companies catch up, it will run even better.
I think there’s a lot to be gleaned here. I pray we share the vision of the kingdom even clearer than we have before!
