Leadership | Jason Vana

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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.

Becoming

October 18, 2010 in Leadership, Living our Faith with 1 Appreciated Comment

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been wrestling with this idea of who I am becoming. It’s something I’ve spoken about, something I challenged my leaders with and, since the Ignite Leadership Retreat, something I can’t get out of my head.

You see, I find it very easy to focus on what I’m doing for God. Messages that need to be prepared, students I need to minister to, trips to plan, resources to develop, fundraising, blogging, sending out ministry newsletters, leadership meetings, attending group gatherings, planning retreats, connecting and trying to grow this ministry….yea, there’s a lot to do.

Creating Vision

October 13, 2010 in Leadership with 1 Appreciated Comment

This past week, I met with a young man who is in the planning stages of launching a youth/young adult group in his church. It was a great time to connect with him, share ideas and give advice I’ve learned over the last eight years working with this age group.

During the course of our conversation, I asked him a pretty standard question: what did he wanted to see happen in this group – what were his plans or dreams for this ministry? It was an important question to ask, because the truth is:

Great leaders have vision.

Great leaders know where their organization or business is going. They are able to articulate what they are doing and, more importantly, why. They have taken time, wrestled with what could be, and are constantly looking ahead to where their organization can go and what it can do.