Recapturing the Art of Inspiration

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
- John Quincy Adams ---- Vision often has a integral role in how one defines leadership. The ability to see that which is to come, that which is to be attained, or that to which the group should strive is the classical understanding of vision. John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, seems to indicate however that there is a fundamental aspect of leadership in relation to vision casting that is not included in the above parameters of vision, namely the inspiration of others. It is one thing to understand the possibilities an organization, or in our case a church, can achieve. It is another thing altogether to inspire those who have vested interest in the future of the church to become personally active and responsible for that vision. I fear this is a lost art, especially in the realm of pastoral leadership. Too often I find the traditional pastor using his or her leadership privileges to negatively challenge a congregation in respect to what they are not. As we all should know, it is much more effective to inspire a group based on who they are and who they can become as opposed to placing guilt on them to be more because of what they lack. Adams seems to imply that without this keen understanding and employment of inspirational vision, the leader ceases to lead. Perhaps it is the recapturing of the vision of who the Church can be that will actually save us from our current drowning.