What Does Your Heart Break For?
We’ve been continuing in this great series at Community called The Leader Within. In this four-week series we’ve been talking about the Heart of a Leader, the Vision of a Leader, the Struggle of a Leader, and this weekend we’ll be talking about the Legacy of a Leader. Click on any one of these titles to view the message online.
This series has really focused on the question, “What does your heart break for?”
When you think about an effective leader, one who has overcome obstacles and become an unstoppable force for accomplishing his/her vision, you think about someone whose heart breaks for something. The most effective leader is one who takes that absolute heartbreak and channels that into a vision so big that he/she become relentless at pursuing it. These people are the best communicators, the best fundraisers, the most compassionate, the most generous, filled with the most integrity and determination, and they literaly become unstoppable at achieving their vision. They never experience lack of resources, lack of vision, lack of excitement, lack of momentum, or lack of help. They are contagious and are incredibly effective at engaging others in their mission.
Alright let’s bring this to the generosity scope here for a minute if you aren’t seeing how ingrained it is in this already. People ask all the time about the ‘secrets’ to raising money. Especially in the economy these days, churches, businesses, everyone is trying to figure this out. There’s no secret really, but the key lies in a perception shift we MUST make:
We act all day long like money FUNDS vision. We stop doing things and we quit moving forward because we don’t have any money. We make decisions and treat situations in certain ways because we don’t have any money. We stop dreaming about the future and start blaming things in the past and present because we don’t have any money. Money doesn’t fund vision, it FOLLOWS vision! So if you don’t have any money, then you might not have any vision big enough to demand that money!
The people who aren’t succeeding at the income side of things can blame the economy all day long. It’s a convenient thing to do in this climate. But ask yourself these three questions to see if it’s really the economy’s fault or if there’s maybe something else going on…
1. What does your heart break for? [Now stop right here if the thing your heart breaks for is not the thing for which you are trying to catalyze generosity. There’s your problem right there. Go hire a consultant and try some fancy tricks, but the best advice is to let someone do this whose heart really breaks for it and you go do something that your heart breaks for. Authenticity will get you further than any fancy tricks. God – and others too! – know the heart.]
2. Have you communicated effectively with your people what your heart breaks for and how that translates into the vision for your church or organization? Let me ask that again. Have you communicated effectively? Have you built relationships with your people first before you casted vision all over their laps? Do they know what you’re about? Do you know what they’re about? Could they deliver your organization’s vision in a 1-minute stump speech? And could you rattle off their interests from memory so you know directly how to speak to them where they are?
3. Have you clearly made an ask of your people to join you in this effort? Is your vision big enough that they can see how imperative it is that they and everyone they know join you? Have you created the space big enough for them to see the huge potential and drastically reallocate their own lives in order to join the mission?
Just the other day I was talking with two new church planters who are planting out in Chula Vista, CA. Two incredibly sharp guys, Chris and Brad. Boy, these guys get it. Their hearts break for helping people find their way back to God in Chula Vista and surrounding areas. You get that within 30 seconds of Chris sharing his vision for the new church plant, Momentum. They want to become a reproducing church that goes multi-site in the Chula Vista area and reaches people in all types of neighborhoods and contexts in that area. They realize how important it is to understand where their people are at and how they can join Chris and Brad and their families on this mission.
My guess is that the majority of us reading this blog have hearts that break for something…. But are we letting it stop there or are we relentlessly pursuing that which we have been called to pursue with those that can help us pursue it?….
5 Responses to “What Does Your Heart Break For?”
August 26th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Nicely written. By the way, what are you passionate about? As if I don’t know! Just like to see you put it in one sentence. I’m waiting!
September 16th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
I’m already there…so I will just say AMEN! Preach it sista! Sometime soon we should talk for realz…cause my passion is taking off HUGELY!
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September 8th, 2018 at 11:44 pm
Thanks for finally talking about >What Does Your Heart Break For?
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