Leadership | Jason Vana

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Taking Time to Dream

February 6, 2012 in Leadership, Life, Your Dream with 21 Appreciated Comments

Photo Credit: Indieridley.i.ph

Every so often, I need a visioning day: a day where I gather others around me and we start visioning and dreaming about the future of Ignite. It’s a day that refreshes me, recharges me and gives me focus for the next few months.

Friday was that day.

I had a Skype call to start planning and throwing out ideas about our Romania 2012 mission trip. I went out for coffee with one of my students and talked about how to improve the Ignite group at Monmouth. I went to dinner with our Student Representative to the Ignite Board, and dreamed about what Ignite could look like 5, 10, even 20 years down the road.

We dreamed about future trips to Romania.
We talked about monthly community service projects.
We thought about training programs, a school of ministry, and mapped out some new resources we hope to have available in the next few months.
We looked over logistics, came up with some strategic plans and set some deadlines to see these dreams become reality.

It was a refreshing day.

Continue Reading…

Guided by Principle

November 21, 2011 in Leadership with 6 Appreciated Comments

Today I am honored to feature K.C. Procter on my blog. K.C. is a husband, father, MBA graduate, blogger over at Some Wise Guy and Off The Cuff, a Mac user (a.k.a. one of the smartest people alive!) and a cubicle dweller in the most holy of companies: Starbucks. But most importantly, he loves Jesus. And ninjas. And is Superman in disguise.

You can connect with K.C. on Twitter or check out either of his blogs at Some Wise Guy and Off The Cuff.

Since finishing grad school this summer I’ve never stopped learning. Guess you could say I’m a glutton for punishment. Although I do not miss the homework.

Much like the platitude “if you’re not living you’re dying” I think that if you’re not learning you’re forgetting. There’s an awful lot of brain matter floating around our dense skulls. Might as well put it to good use, right? Or at least test it’s limits.

One of the resources I’ve become an avid fan of is Dave Ramsey’s free EntreLeadership Podcast. The podcast includes snippets from seminar sessions Dave has delivered, exclusive content as well as guest interviews with business icons and progressive leaders.

A quote from Dave Ramsey stuck out early on and has latched itself onto my brain like a parasite (in this case a “good” one).

Bureaucrats are guided by processes

Leaders are guided by principles

The Dream Team Leader

May 20, 2011 in Leadership, Life, Your Dream with 19 Appreciated Comments

On Tuesday, I shared a list of qualities to look for in people when assembling your dream team. I made the point that you need to find a team that reflects your values and vision, but also one that is willing to challenge what you think and bring new ideas to the table to help your dream grow.

We all need a team to help push our dream forward.

But as I was reading through the comments, I came across a statement that really challenged me:

I need to check myself and make sure I’m fitting these qualities in the ministry I serve.

It’s easy to come up with a list of qualities we are looking for in others. It’s easy to write out the characteristics, work ethics, values and spiritual conditions we want in the team who will work alongside us. It’s second nature for us to judge others, expect perfection out of them and figure out what WE characteristics want in the people we work with.

It’s not as easy to come up with that list for ourselves.

But if we are going to assemble a team of people to help pursue our dreams, if we are going to have others help us in our dreams, we need to make sure we’re doing our part to lead our dream team toward in pursuing a common purpose and vision: Continue Reading…

What’s Your Mission…Statement?

March 23, 2011 in Leadership, Life with 24 Appreciated Comments

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on outlining some of the steps I am doing to writing a great story with my life – things like coming up with a bucket list, listing out my goals, finding a coach, and trying something new each week.

I haven’t done so well on those.

But there’s one step I have done, one step that has shaped me, focused me, and pushed me more than any of the others:

Writing a Mission Statement for my life.

Empowering Young People

February 24, 2011 in Leadership, Youth/College Ministry with 17 Appreciated Comments

If you haven’t noticed from my blog yet, I’m pretty passionate about empowering young people to follow Christ whole-heartedly. Not only do I see world-changing potential in them, but I also know that the future leaders of our world, the future teachers, judges, lawyers, politicians, doctors and trend setters are sitting in our high schools and universities right now. And if we impact them now, teaching them to follow the ways of Christ, they will change the world just by being themselves.

And while many of us see the need to reach and empower young people, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in many churches:

Most youth, young adult and university ministries are more about managing young people than empowering them.

Ministry Beyond Myself

February 23, 2011 in Ignite, Leadership with 16 Appreciated Comments

Last night, I had a pretty surreal moment in ministry.

Ignite at Monmouth College was hosting our once a month All Campus Worship night. It’s a pretty big event for us. Our students send out emails to the other Christian groups on campus. One of our leaders will prepare a short devotion. My buddy, who has been a worship leader for the last 10 years, prepares an hour worth of worship songs with the students he’s training in worship ministry. We get there early, set up the sound system, rotate between who will flip lyric slides, have people stand at the door to greet, and one of the leaders will come up at the end to lead the group in prayer.

Needless to say, it’s a pretty awesome, but time consuming, event.

And last night, I wasn’t there.