We often speak of educating our students from a biblical perspective, for God’s word and his truth to serve as the foundation of everything we do as Christian schools. While that’s good and as it should be, as school leaders and even moms and dads leading our families, we want to ensure we’re also leading our schools and homes from this perspective. Specifically, as we consider things like direction and focus for our schools and our family, are we guided more by the philosophies of the world around us or by the God of the universe to whom we claim we belong?
For our school, this means we need to be guided by a strategic plan, activated by a clear and compelling vision. These things are essential to a well-run school (or any organization, for that matter). Put simply, vision answers the question of where you are going as a school—it defines your direction and provides a picture of your future. A clear and compelling vision might be, “We are called to be a school that mirrors Revelation 7, creating accessibility for traditionally culturally, academically, and economically underserved students in our school.” Another vision might call for a school to “equip our students to be on mission for Jesus in a global marketplace through vocational and work-as-mission opportunities.” Yet another might be, “God is calling our school to be a life-equipping institution, preparing engaged Christians for education beyond their time here, whether that entails traditional higher education or other nontraditional routes.”
Each of these examples calls on a school to chart a specific path to accomplish its unique vision. That path is the school’s strategic plan, which may include goals and initiatives like creating an academic services center in the first example, adding a foreign language immersion program in the second, or vocational education opportunities in the third. The strategic plan provides leadership focus and allocates time, energy, and resources to further the school’s vision.
In what may be a helpful metaphor to help understand the concept. Think about going on a vacation with your family. The first question you ask is, “Where do we want to go?” The “where” is the school’s vision. Once you’ve decided on the destination, you create or pull up a map to get there. The map is a step-by-step description of how you will reach your destination.
A school board, head, and leadership team with a compelling vision and a strong strategic plan has organizational clarity on the school’s direction and spends less time meeting about things that are largely irrelevant to the overall mission and governance of the school. Hopefully, they can communicate more effectively and clearly to their constituencies, and they are able to make decisions that are consistent with the direction they are headed. Clear communication as to direction enables them to gain support from interested donors and volunteers because these things help people understand where the school is headed.
As leaders, we know that we are responsible for leading with vision. But where does vision come from? There has never been an era with so many resources on how to lead. Thousands of books, articles, and content are available every year teaching us how to influence others. These tell us that vision is a product of self-reflection, getting in touch with your inner purpose, the product of past successes, the result of brainstorming with others, or the fruit of market scans and identifying needed gaps.
Scripture gives a different perspective. In Habakkuk 2, the Lord says,
“Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so he may run who reads it.
For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.
In passages far too numerous to set forth here, God’s word makes clear that vision is revelation for God’s people and spiritual leaders. Henry Blackaby reinforces that vision is not human-made or generated. Instead, God gives it to you. This makes sense when you think about it. After all, if the school we lead is God’s school and not ours, which it is, it makes all the sense in the world that God would want to tell us what direction he wants us to lead his school. The same is true for your family. God wants to lead and guide you in directing your family, as well.
Most of the time, the problem doesn’t arise with believing that God is in charge or that he wants to speak to us. The problem comes in listening to the Lord.
We live in a loud, distracting, anxious world, one that is specifically designed to lead us from the voice of God. We have a very real enemy who wants nothing more than to keep us from hearing God’s voice, and to therefore keep our schools and our families off God’s agenda. Yet, the only way we can truly be assured we are following a vision that is God-breathed is to take the time and effort necessary to hear what he has to say about his school. As cultural commenter and author Mark Sayers said recently, detection precedes direction.
Before we can gain direction from God, we have to learn to hear his voice. Many of us have no idea how to do that, and we’ve never experienced it. As Sayers notes, we have to engage patiently in the discipline of listening.
To partner with God as He brings renewal in the world, in the systems and organizations where we live and lead, we must learn to detect His voice before moving forward: this is a countercultural act in an anxious system, which demands instant action, quick fixes, and fast-acting remedies for pain. Waiting on the Lord, seeking His voice, is an act of revolutionary stillness.
Practicing the spiritual discipline of solitude and silence, of spending extended time quietly alone with God with our Bibles and journals, perhaps in his creation, is a great way to begin. Practicing solitude and silence is like exercising for most people—few sit quietly in the Lord’s presence for hours or even many minutes initially. We have to work up to it. But soon, God will be faithful enough to allow for stillness and peace to enter our hearts, giving us clarity of thought and a sense of his presence that allows us to hear his voice.
Sometimes, his voice will come quietly in those moments. Sometimes, it will be a passage of Scripture or something we notice in creation or our interaction with others. Being still in his presence makes us more attuned to listening for his voice in all of these interactions and gives us a greater ability to discern his voice when we hear it.
Over time, as we hear and journal our thoughts and insights as he gives them, God begins to forge a vision narrative for what he wants to see for those we lead. As we begin to share some of these things with our leadership team and board members, or with our spouse, asking them to pray for God’s discernment, the Lord will continue to clarify and affirm his vision.
This is rarely an overnight process but takes patience and time. Nonetheless, the result is clarity and alignment. Carrying out a new vision and the strategic plan to support that vision will involve change. Change is difficult; it sometimes requires people to put to death the way they have done things in the past and learn new things, which is often scary and hard. Leaders who bring people through change will face resistance and challenge, but when aligned around a God-given vision, leaders have the courage to press on when they face these challenges, when others might abandon change.
Most of all, God wants to give his people vision because he loves them. He wants them to listen to his voice because he wants to communicate with them, be in a relationship with them, and draw them deeper into intimacy. In this way, detecting, discerning, and leading with God-breathed vision is an act of intimate worship with the God who saves and loves.
Over the past year, the board and leadership team at Grace have been praying and creating a strategic plan for our school, discerning the Lord’s will and plan. This plan has involved focus groups of some parents and conversations with teachers. We are excited to begin to reveal this plan to our families and faculty, and we’ll begin at our State of School and Celebration of Learning next week. We hope you can join us.
Leave a Reply