I have a question about Proverbs 29:18. Until recently I had always been encompassed by this idea of vision. It is the "Leaders have Vision" mentality that drove this idea into me. Recently someone suggested that the word Direction would better translate in this verse than our concept of vision. The idea being that we can know what God's vision for the church is but without direction "the people perish". What are your thoughts on this?
Kaleb Heitzman | Homepage | 02.01.08 - 9:39 am | #

Kaleb,

The thing I like about Greenleaf, is that he does have a clear sense of vision, direction, or what I think of as awareness. I don't necessarily take vision to mean that a leader clearly knows where to go, or what the end result should be, but that the leader is aware of what is going on, and is guided by higher principles, that cannot always be articulated.

It is tough to really get at what Greenleaf is getting at by simply cutting and pasting a few quotes from him as I did in this post. He started off the paragraph I quoted from him by saying "I do not have a precise definition for vision. To me, the full meaning of vision, like the meaning of spirit that is used here as the driving force behind the urge to serve, lies beyond the barrier that separates mystery from what we call reality." Vision for Greenleaf is the realization that a life of serving, is what we are about, not cranking out products. Unfortunately, we have been duped into acting like the direction we should be taking is indeed to crank out more products, and it is no surprise then the state the the world is in as a result.

My New Catholic Edition of the Bible translates Proverbs 29:18 like this "When prophecy shall fail, the people shall be scattered abroad; but he that keepeth the law is blest."

For me, the "law" in this case is that sense of "direction", or "vision", that is guided from the Mystery side of the border with reality. Prophecy that fails, would be the "free market system."

So I'm not sure if we can ever really know what God's vision is (and I tend to think that when we think we do, we are likely way off base), but if we are honest with ourselves we will have a good sense when we are going in the right direction. For me, servant leadership, as professed by Greenleaf , is in the right direction.

Just some ramblings.

Thanks for the question and comments.

Tom
Tom Jablonski | 02.01.08 - 10:53 pm | #

Thanks for the reply. It is excellent insight as I have not read much of Greenleaf's work. I think this idea of prophecy hints better at what is being said. I wish I could sum up what I mean in words but I cannot. Again thank you for the insight. I enjoy the thought provoking posts because it causes me to develop as a leader.
Kaleb Heitzman | Homepage | 02.02.08 - 12:42 am | #