58 Leadership Quotes On Casting Vision From Derwin Gray

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In an effort to add value to church leaders, The Rocket Company is attending the Velocity 2014 Conference and will be live-blogging throughout the event.  This is an incredible conference which should be on every church planter’s list for equipping and training.

Derwin Gray, Lead Pastor of the great Transformation Church in Charlotte, is one of my absolute favorite church leaders.  This morning he conducted a ministry-changing session entitled “How To Effectively Cast Vision.”  I am honored to share his thoughts with you.

The following are 58 Leadership Quotes And Lessons On Casting Vision From Derwin Gray– Velocity 2014:

  1. Effectively casting vision never comes to an end.  It is a discipline.
  2. One of the greatest resources we have is our ability to cast vision.
  3. The Jew and Gentile debate was more than just a circumcision knife.
  4. We in America have let the culture dictate how we do church rather than Christ.
  5. Don’t criticize.  Create.
  6. Vision is the God-inspired ability to see a future that does not yet exist, but should.  This future is so Messiah-exalting and life-giving that people run into the future and drag back to the present.
  7. What is not but should be according to the glory of God?
  8. Does the vision inspire people?  Do you wake up in the morning and inspire you?
  9. You cannot cast a vision that has not cast a spell over you.

10. An effective vision casting has four parts – The Problem.  The Solution.  Why The Vision Must Be Implemented.  Why The Vision Must Be Implemented NOW.

11. The vision must address a problem.

12. If America was a nation of 100 people, 77 would not be Christians.

13. Churches in America are 10 times more ethnically segregated than their neighborhoods.  Churches in America are 20 times more ethnically segregated than their schools.

14. If you want to know if your church can be multi-ethnic, look at the school closest to it.

15. About 30% of our servant leaders are teenagers.

16. Every member has a role to play.  I am calling them into their destiny.

17. If 10% of the people at your church are doing 90% of the work that’s your fault.

18. The vision cannot be about prostituting people.  It must be about adding value to people.

19. Our vision is to heal a broken planet.

20. Our vision is to make you more human.

21. How do you measure a fully-devoted follower of Christ?  Are we multi-ethnic?  Are we missional?  How many people are getting baptized?

22. It is going to be normative that churches are multi-ethnic, multi-generational mission-shaped communities.

23. You never leave the fundamentals.  You just drive deeper and deeper into them.

24. Every human being wants to be part of a cause beyond them.

25. Why do we let the 12th man in Seattle outcheer us?

26. Because people matter to God, they matter to Transformation Church.

27. Cool don’t help you when you get cancer.  Cool don’t help you when your wife leaves you.

28. What is the vortex of our vision – Love.

29. When you are preparing your weekends, are you more concerned about shock and awe or that love reigns.

30. You don’t have pastoral care at your church and people still give tithes and offerings.  They’re idiots.

31. You can sell books but will the world actually change.

32. Transformation Church is not a building but a collection of broken people being made whole.

33. Who is Transformation Church?  How is “I just want to use you.”  Who is “Tell me your story.”

34. We will never have evangelism training at Transformation Church.  No one ever had to train me on how to love my wife.

35. If your people are not evangelistic, what are you telling them about Jesus?

36. You can walk until you know who you are.  But to know who you are is a gift from God.

37. We are ruthless in our communication of the vision over and over and over again.

38. We must, by God’s grace, embody the vision.  If not, we are duplicitous.

39. Half of my son’s basketball team now comes to Transformation Church.

40. The essence of leadership is embodying what you want people to do.

41. What have we created where it’s odd that high capacity givers are humble?

42. I can bench press 400 lbs.  I’m strong.  I don’t need you to carry my bags.

43. Recruit and develop a team that embodies the vision.

44. The most gifted person may not be the right person for your team.

45. Do your systems and processes move like an arrow to make your vision sharper?

46. If God has called you to something He will call you through something through prayer and fasting.

47. Sometimes you got to lose some people for a great vision.  We got to be Jack Bauer sometimes because that dude makes some difficult decisions.

48. Hard decisions must be made.  If you don’t want to make them don’t become a leader.

49. What sense would it make to learn the plays but not play the game.

50. People will give to a big vision.

51. We never have enough money to keep up with what God is doing.

52. We don’t teach tithing.  We teach a theology of the grace of generosity.

53. Your ethos, culture must communicate the vision.

54. Christians love to be busy because it keeps them from engaging people who are lost.

55. You can’t give away what you don’t possess.

56. Do you really believe your church can give a foretaste of the New Heaven and New Earth.

57. If you want to know what your vision is just look around.

58. You learn to pastor by pastoring.