Book of the Week: Making Vision Stick

This week’s book of the week was Andy Stanley’s Making Vision Stick. Stanley is the pastor of North Point Community Church.  He is one of the smartest leaders I have ever had the privilege to be taught by.  The guy breathes organization and systems.  He is often criticized for his use of corporate leadership within the church, but he rebuttles that all truth is God’s truth and he is simply utilizing God-given principles to maximize results in his church.

One of my favorite Stanley lines is “Your organization is perfectly aligned to achieve the kind of results you are currently getting” (rough quote, but you get the point).

In this short read, Stanley outlines how to make a vision truly come alive and stay alive to a people you are leading.  The vision of their church when they started was “to be a church that unchurched people like to attend.”  In the book, he claims that the church is so much more than what that statement encapsulates, but it keeps them focused with a memorable statement.  He has five major lines of thought for the book, and so I pulled a quote out of each one.  Enjoy!

Top 5 Lines:

  1. State the Vision Simply: “It is better to have a vision statement that is incomplete and memorable than to have on that is complete and forgettable” (21).
  2. Cast the Vision Convincingly: “To cast your vision convincingly, you need a reason for why now is the time” (32).
  3. Repeat the Vision Regularly: “We all need to be reminded why we are doing what we are doing.  We need to be reminded what’s at stake” (38).
  4. Celebrate the Vision Systematically: “What’s celebrated is repeated” (40).
  5. Embrace the Vision Personally: “You want the people who choose to follow you to end their journeys with more respect for you than when they began.  For that to happen, you have to embrace and live out the vision” 51).