Rick Warren posted this on twitter a few weeks ago and I cant get it out of my head.

“you must decide whether you want control or growth.  Exponential growth by its very nature is uncontrollable.”

I think most people if asked would say that they are not people who control.  The true test of control comes when you have to let go of stuff that you are in control of.  Most times we dont even realize we are controlling something until we have to give up that control.

As leaders we need to always be looking for areas where we can release control so that we can experience growth.  here are some questions for thought.

-do i need to know everything that is happening in the organization?
-do i feel like no one can do the job as good as I can?
-do people in the organization grab the ball and run with ideas or do i need to be in every meeting?
-is there one central table that controls all of the decisions?
-are ideas other than mine praised and welcomed or are they criticized and shut down?
-are ideas shut down because “we already tried that and it didnt work”?
-are meetings dominated by one guy at the top with great ideas or are ideas birthed on a grass roots level without the input of the top leader?

This is all i got for now.  I might add or take away from these questions, but it does help me to gauge how much control i am leading with.

each year SEU hosts a leadership forum gathering some fantastic leaders from around the nation.  This past year Jack Welch was interviewed by Bill Hybels, where Jack made a comment that really grabbed me.  This is not a word for word quote, but this is what I took away…

on communicating vision…  ”leaders need to communicate vision until they are absolutely sick of saying it, then at that point the communication has only begun”

I am sure Jack said this much better that I did, but you get the point.  For some of us our vision changes so often we dont even get a chance to say it until we are sick.  For others of us we have so many visions we never get sick of saying the same thing because there are so many things to say.  Some of our visions are stated in a 10 page document so confusing you need a seminary degree to understand it.  I dont know about you, but I definitely have made all of these mistakes.

here are a few questions to think about
-can it be said in one word?
-is there one vision that is repeated EVERY week in your church?
-if a new person walked through the doors are they guaranteed to hear it?
-how many times has the vision changed in the past 5 years?
-have you had to say no to other things to protect this vision?  (if not you probably changed when you should have stayed the course)
-has your vision been so clear it has caused people to leave your church?
-do you have metrics centered around your vision to measure growth?
-if asked would people besides the staff be able to state the vision in one word?