Leadership and Vision
Vision, leader(ship), and goals are words often used to identify or describe Christian organizations.
In the case of Mandate, to make this personal, vision is the expectation, shared by the entire team, of what we think God wants us to accomplish.
The leader is someone God brings to team who can share the vision, help the entire team accept it as their own, and guide them towards making the vision a reality.
Since vision is sometimes a fuzzy concept, the goals are specific, measurable outcomes which lead to the realization of the vision.
Wow, that sounds a bit dry and academic. Sorry about that. But keep on reading.
Over Mandate’s 20+ years, God has provided three leaders to take the position of Executive Director. I’m not going to name names here, but do want to highlight the leadership roles of these three.
The founder of Mandate was a man with a lifetime of cross-cultural experience. He was able to foresee the necessary changes in missionary methods needed to bring the message of Christ into areas where traditional missions could not go. With the help of others who could catch his vision, he was able to build a new type of organization around our first written vision statement.
To lead mission agencies and churches worldwide in partnership to place their people in key locations in order to reach the least-reached people of the world according to the Great Commission by providing to provide highly qualified personnel to serve in the areas of health, education, enterprise development, appropriate technology and economic development.
Through his decade of leadership, this pioneer established Mandate and led workers into India and Nepal. In the process, he helped other agencies and churches unselfishly pool their personnel and resources to effectively pursue both vision and goals. His final leadership role was setting the example for an orderly leadership transition, which brought in . . .
The man who became Mandate’s second Executive Director was hooked by an e-mail which began, “We’ve been waiting for you.” This man also had many years of missionary experience, including establishing churches among unreached tribal groups and home office administrative and leadership roles. He fully embraced the vision and Mandate model and helped streamline the purpose statement.
We are working to grow God’s kingdom among the least reached peoples of the world through the relationships and proactive witness of development-oriented Christian professionals.
And, in an even more succinct purpose statement:
Serve the people, build His Church.
During his leadership, Mandate moved from the two original countries of service into Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar.
Over the past three years, Mandate had developed and carried out a plan to bring in a new leader in 2019. This led to a newest Executive Director being appointed by the Board of Directors earlier this month. Younger than those who’ve gone before her, with both organizational and cross-cultural experience, she is poised to expand Mandate’s draw in the U.S. and outreach overseas. She and the entire Mandate organization believe that God has called and gifted her to lead us into the next decade and beyond.
Our new Executive Director will take this page next week to share more about herself and express some of her goals for the future. Having heard these goals directly from her, I know you’ll be thrilled to read them here. So, please come back next Friday, March 29, and help us look into the future.