As we close out the first month of the year, most church leaders have taken a portion of this month to pray, dream and plan out this new year.  Many have envisioned great things for their church/organization in this year and hope to close out 2010 having completed those great things.  This is, however, where the breakdown often takes place for leaders.  Most leaders are decent at the ‘envisioning’, but not so good at the ‘enacting’. In this new year, I want to challenge you as a leader to not simply be a dreamer, but to be a doer.  Put feet to your dreams and who knows, you might just change the world!

Here’s a few thoughts on enacting the dreams you have for this new year:

• Once you’ve established WHAT you want to do or you want your organization to do, you need to quickly establish HOW you are going to do it. If you never move past the what, your dream will never be anything more then a good intention.  Your organization, and especially a church deserves better then good intentions.  Create clear, realistic action steps to accomplish the what.
• Once you’ve PROMPTLY established the how, set-up accountability to make sure it is completed. There are figurative junk yards all over our nation where great ideas that could have transformed the church as we know it now rest.  These ideas never became reality simply because one or more leaders did not see the vision through to completion.  Once you start a good idea, you must finish it for it to truly be good!  This accountability might be colleagues that you share the vision with or it might be outside coaches/mentors.  Whomever it is, this is crucial.  As the popular saying goes, you will live up to the level that you inspect, not the level that you expect.
• Involve OTHERS in your dreams for this new year. Identify what you need to accomplish your vision and start to engage people that can help you.  These people may not even be in your organization, but if they have something to offer in the pursuit of the dreams for your organization, don’t be afraid to engage them.  Look for experts to offer wisdom, advisors to offer direction, and volunteers to offer energy and effort.

I hope you as a leader are as excited about 2010 as I am!  It has the potential to be an amazing year, but my prayer for you as a leader is that when December 31, 2010 rolls around you will be able to look back on this year without regrets and knowing that the dreams you had for this year were tried, some were realized but all were met with more then thought, but action!