My primary function as the senior leader of this faith community is three-fold:

1. VISION CASTER - Jesus is the Dream Master and He has called me to receive that vision and be the Vision Caster. I must deal with the vision. I must spend time with Jesus and it must be evident that I am spending time with Jesus (as it was evident with the early disciples in the book of Acts 4:13). I must be stretching myself as a leader and vision caster by being around others great leaders, reading books by great leaders, and submitting myself to the tutorship of other great leaders. I must fight to receive the vision from Jesus and I must lovingly lead our flock to reach this city according to the vision God has given. Fighting for the vision of Jesus is of utmost concern. We must all embrace the vision, but as the senior leader if I don’t have it down then nobody else will.

2. TEACHER - Jesus is our Master Teacher, and He enables and gifts leaders in His church to teach. As the senior communicator at The Dialogue Church it is my job to really invest in the study of God’s Word and the presentation of God’s word. I must communicate the timeless truths of God in a culturally relevant way. I want to give straight up talks from the Bible in a way that people can understand (in their own language). This forces me to be a student of both the Bible and the culture.

3. LEADERSHIP DEVELOPER – Jesus was an amazing leader, and only leaders can reproduce leaders. As the senior leader of this spiritual organization it my responsibility (as Eph.4:10-12 states) to constantly raise up leaders. If I spend all of my time trying to DO all of the ministry I will be hurting God’s church. I will be neglecting what Jesus has called me to, and I will frustrating the people by keeping them from doing what God has called them to do.

I must focus on what only I can do and then delegate the rest. If we are to be a healthy growing community of faith, Body of believers, an army of servants then we must know our role and embrace it for the benefit of Jesus and His mission.

I discovered that I was spending too much time trying to figure out the graphics of our church, the branding of our church when God had already equipped others in the Body to do this. Now, as a church plant I will be involved with many things in the beginning, but I must work my way out of these jobs if I am to be loyal to what Jesus has called me to do.

As an artist, I enjoy working with the graphics, but this is not about what I enjoy this is about where I can add the most value to God’s mission. And as the senior leader there are some things that only I can do and must do.

This isn’t about the senior leader being any more important; it is about knowing your role and embracing it for the cause of Christ.

If the pilot of an airplane was spending all of his/her time serving drinks, reminding people to put their seat belts on, cleaning the bathrooms, greeting people on the way in, grabbing pillows, fixing mechanical issues, designing airplanes, THEN WHO WOULD FLY THE PLANE? Who would make sure that the plan was headed in the right direction and away from destruction? Who would navigate through the storms and keep the passengers focused on the destination?

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? (Matthew 7:15-16 NIV)

It is interesting to note that wolves often appear as sheep. They come in at first just like one of us, just like one of the family. In fact, they may pose as prophets (thinking in their own mind that they are speaking truth and doing God and everybody else a big favor by sharing their superior knowledge with the rest of us). But Jesus warns us against such spiritual vermin. He says to watch out for these viscious “vision vandals”. These guys will creep into the church when no one is looking and seek to bring about division – and they do it in the most deceptive ways. In fact, they will probably drag some sheep off with them – and definitely cause a lot of damage if not dealt with.

I can tell you from experience that it is not fun fighting off wolves. Not because I don’t like defending God’s church and God’s mission but because this battle doesn’t always start out with a clearly defined enemy. In fact, the enemy may be a “friend” or a fellow ministry “leader” in the church. The enemy starts out in sheep’s clothing. It is likely someone that you have shared a lot of Starbucks Coffee with, or had a lot of family meals together with. Possibly, your kids played together, you took vacations together or simply invested a lot of yourself in this person. But do not be deceived Jesus warns – they will devour your vision and subvert your gift of leadership and they will take others down with them. The sheep are to be protected at all costs – and that means putting down some wolves from time to time.