Articulate Your Vision

This past weekend I participated in our second annual Father/Son Trip. The twelve of us packed up the vehicles and headed north. We drove ATV's, hiked through the woods, fished in deep waters, ate fantastic food, and had great conversations. There were so many good things that came out of this trip that it is next to impossible to capture them all in one posting, so I will share with you the main idea of this group. 

The genesis of this group came about 2.5 years ago when I brought together a group of boys who were the same age as my son. These boys were going to be making some critical decisions as they navigated through high school and college. I wanted these guys to know and own the characteristics of manhood. I wanted these guys to have close friends and older men who to lean on through the years. I also knew that we had to bring them together beforehand to build trust and credibility. We began when the boys were 14 years of age and in the 8th grade. Now they are about to receive their drivers license and enter into a new world of responsibility. 


Along with having fun, my goal for this trip was to challenge the young men, along with their dads, to be intentional about their future. Each night, either before or after supper, we met for 1-2 hours to talk about vision, purpose, character traits, and life verses from the Bible. I didn't want to overwhelm them to the point of losing interest, so I made the exercises as simple as possible. Here is how it went down:

• The first night I challenged them with improving one character trait over the next year. Too often we attempt to improve ourselves in a variety of areas. However, it is usually in the area of productivity, diet, exercise, etc. How much better would we all be if we strived to improve our character! Likewise, we try to fix everything at once. Slow down... we have a lifetime to improve ourselves. Imagine the impact we could have if we improved just one area each year!

• The second night we started talking about vision and specifically keeping the "end in mind." For those familiar with Stephen Covey's book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." He challenges his readers to "begin with the end in mind." The boys came up with a time frame and context. Most of the boys wanted to cast a vision for the next 3-5 years as they graduated from high school and moved into college. I posed the question, "how do you want people to remember you when you graduate from high school?" 

• The third night we continued to talk about vision. As each person shared, I challenged them to think about another aspect.  Along with "begin with the end in mind", another component of a vision is to identify something broken that we are compelled or convicted to fix. Quite often we set out to do something that we thought was a good idea, but it never compelled or convicted us. If those pieces are missing then our vision will fail! I also challenged the guys to identify a Biblical passage that goes along with their vision that they would then memorize.

• The fourth and last night we identified action steps that would help them accomplish their vision. I gave the example of a football team. as the main vision, or purpose, is to score a touchdown or a field goal. They accomplish this by moving the ball down the field by gaining a few yards at a time combined with one or two big plays. It was important for the guys to come up with tangible, practical action steps that will help them move the ball down the field, a few yards at a time, and score!

By the end of our time together we all had a rough sketch of our vision and with potential action steps to complete it. Over the course of the next year we will continue to fine tune them during our monthly breakfast meetings. We will use these times to cheer one another on!