Effective leaders get their team to buy into their vision. Read Luke 5:1-11.

As Jesus began His public ministry He started speaking to larger and larger crowds. At one point Jesus was speaking near the Lake of Gennesaret and as the crowd grew in size and pressed in on Him, Jesus got into a fishing boat at the water’s edge and asked Simon (later known as Peter), the owner, to put out a little from shore. Free from the press of the crowd, Jesus sat in the boat and taught the people.

The effective leader reminds their team regularly of the mission. Read Mark 13:1-37.

Jesus was in Jerusalem prior to His crucifixion. As He and His disciples were leaving the temple the disciples drew His attention to the beautiful stone work in the temple. This opened the door for Jesus to help His disciples understand more about what would happen in the future to usher in the Kingdom of God. Right in the middle of talking about the birthing pains to establish the Kingdom i.e. wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes, etc., Jesus refocused His disciples on the team’s mission. Verse 10 says, “And the gospel must first be preached to all nations.” In His leadership role Jesus often called attention to the vision of God.

A leader’s vision must always be credible—in the good times and when things get difficult. Read Mark 8:31-33.

Throughout His ministry Jesus inspired His team with His vision for both the present and the future. He consistently described the character and conduct that would define the citizens of the Kingdom of God. His vision energized His team to leave everything they had to follow Him. His team applied the skills, talents, and resources acquired over a lifetime to see Jesus’ vision become a reality. They believed that if Jesus’ vision became a reality the world would be a more desirable place. Even when Jesus talked about His death and the very difficult things that lay ahead for Him, He did it as part of His overall vision.

Building effective teams takes both action and patience. Read Matthew 16:13-20.

During His public ministry Jesus chose 12 men that would be closest to Him and in whom He would invest tremendous amounts of time in a mentoring process. He was able to able to be with these men 24 hours a day for nearly three years. The Bible chronicles His mentoring relationship and we find there were times when He needed the patience to explain even the simplest illustrations and other times when Jesus challenged His disciples intellectually.

Leaders effectively communicate vision when they use terms, examples, and word pictures that their audience can understand. Read Matthew 13:1-52.

Jesus was a master teacher. In His public ministry He often had crowds with varied backgrounds; some educated, some illiterate, some leaders, some laborers, some religious, some agnostic, some who preferred to work with their hands, some who worked with their mind, some honest, and some who did not know what an honest day’s work was. In chapter 13, Jesus uses a style of communication that effectively cast a vision for the Kingdom of Heaven which created a longing in the heart of virtually everyone in the crowd. Jesus’ use of parables and word pictures did not trivialize the profound truths about heaven but captured the imagination and heart and riveted His hearers’ attention on the kingdom He proclaimed.