Vision and the “SpringHill Way of Life” Part I

Sunday morning I had the opportunity to speak to our Michigan overnight and Day Camp summer staff teams about having a Godly vision for one’s life and how to achieve that vision.  I had my daughter perform a ballet piece where she was on point a number of times and perform pirouettes as part of her routine.  She was my illustration for the message.  Here is the summary of the first part of my message to our staff:

Vision is a dream that you have a plan to achieve and then you work to that end.

Vision answer’s the “Be” question. Who do you want to be?  What do you want to become?  It’s qualitative in nature compared to be quantitive.

It’s what you see in your mind’s eye about who and what you want to be.

It’s also what others see in you, who they see you as.  This factor becomes a test of whether we are fulfilling our vision- do others see this as well.

The “Be” question is different from the “Do” question in which we answer the question “what do we want to do?”, “what do we want to accomplish?”  The “Do” question is the mission question and mission and vision are not the same thing.

Vision is about “being” and mission is about “doing”.  Both questions are essential in our lives and our work but they are not the same thing.

Without vision we can not have mission, without the quality of “being”  we cannot sustain any sense of “doing”.  We run the risk of “doing” without integrity.

Yet to have vision without a mission is to risk being self-absorbed, to miss the calling God has on our life or  the calling on the organizations we lead and serve.

My daughter’s vision is to be a professional ballerina.  This requires an enormous commitment on her part, for her to live a “way of life”  In my next post I will walk through the “SpringHill Way of Life” I shared with staff, it’s our way of helping staff achieve the vision God has for their and our lives.