Cookie Monster and vision chasers …

“Sesame Street” was one of the TV shows I sometimes watched as a kid, yet I never really knew if I liked the show or was just a little fascinated with a few of the muppets.

One stands out: Cookie Monster. The blue-fur muppet who screamed for, and drooled over, cookies.

“COOKIE! … Cookie! Cookie! Cookie!” he would yell before vigorously devouring a cookie.

Today, we have a similar version of the Cookie Monster. But instead of being a muppet, it’s often a minister. And instead of the focus being a cookie, it’s the topic of “vision.”

“VISION! … Vision! Vision! Vision!” is what these modern-day “leadership gurus” slobber over.

I was reminded of this today when a popular minister, once again, posted yet another blog post about “vision.” The topic of vision seems to pour off the blogs, books, conferences presentations, and sermons of many of today’s church leaders, demonstrating a growing disconnect with the people they lead.

I’m not saying vision isn’t important. It is. The problem is with leaders who are so addicted to leadership that they spend an inordinate amount of time on the subject of vision and greatness with the people they’re supposed to be leading.

Their leadership is misguided in a few ways:

1. It often has nothing to do with where their people are at. The average American never writes down their personal goals. That’s because many people do not think the way many of these leadership-oriented leaders do.

They don’t dream about greatness.

They don’t have lofty visions of great organizational feats.

They don’t dream about getting their picture on the back of a book cover, or speaking in front of an audience of thousands.

The greatest of their dreams are made up of humbly drawing close to their God and really connecting with Him. Of having a marriage that works because they really do love their spouse. Of loving and caring for their children, and guiding them well into being adults of good faith and character. Of having a career that will provide for their families as well as being a way to make a contribution. And stretching themselves to care for others less fortunate than themselves because they really do care about others.

If they can pull all that off, they believe life really will be great!

They don’t have to write those goals on a piece of paper because they’re etched on the forefront of their minds and deep in their hearts. They will not forget them.

Yet, to have a leader stand before them constantly talking about legacies of greatness, pursuing great things, achieving great accomplishments is like talking in a foreign language. It’s not where they are at in life.

2. It’s not the primary role of the leader. It might be shocking for some of these leaders to understand their ongoing message of grand visions isn’t the work God has called them to as a leader in the church. Their work is to preach the Gospel, to make disciples, and to equip those disciples to do the work of ministry.

Yet many of these leaders spend their time teaching on goal-setting, developing a vision, building a legacy, being dream chasers, moving mountains with faith, making the sun stand still, and any number of miraculous things that really are not the basic content of Discipleship 101.

While these leaders drone on about vision, their people remain biblically illiterate. They do not know or understand basic Christian doctrine. They cannot communicate the Gospel because they’re not really sure what that is and arean’t equipped by their leaders. And they don’t fully understand what Christ actually accomplished at the cross.

But they have an idea they should write down a goal, and dream great dreams.

In the model Jesus gave us, He never focused His time or attention on talking about having visions of greatness. In fact, His message was quite the opposite of that.

3. It shows what they would rather be doing. This persistent, non-stop flow of “vision talk” exposes what many of these leaders are more interested in: pursuing personal or organizational greatness. They would rather hangout with other leaders talking about achieving visions of greatness than do the more basic work their office exists to accomplish.

These leaders often miss the most simple of truths before them. It’s this: to help an unbeliever come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior, and to help that new Christian grow into being a mature disciple of Christ is the greatest thing they could ever possibly accomplish! By being focused on the basics of teaching, preaching, praying, equipping, and serving, the leaders will achieve a great vision of actually doing what God has called them to do.

By pursuing vision, and visions of great visions, they may fill up auditoriums with people, but far too many of those people remain ignorant of a saving faith in, and biblical knowledge of, Jesus Christ.

Leaders who spend an inordinate time chasing vision and leadership greatness are misguided leaders whose vision chasing cause them to fail their real mission.

Scotty