Peter Drucker is perhaps the most influential writer and thinker about management in the past 25 years. His death in 2005 has done little to limit his influence. In fact, I am reading, with a leadership group, his book entitled The Five Most Important Question You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization. What we have found is that the answer to these questions demands a deep level of thinking and reflection. Drucker adroitly causes his reader to reflect on the heart of an organization and what drives it.
I recently discovered that a new book has been published entitled Drucker and Me: What a Texas Entrepreneur Learned from the Father of Modern Management. I have not read the book yet, but the book review sounds compelling. The review states that what these two men (Bob Buford and Peter Drucker) discovered was “when people share a common and compelling vision, anything can happen.
Proverbs 29:18 states that “where there is no vision, the people perish.” The opposite is also true: where there is vision, the people prosper. At COTHA we have spent a lot of time discerning the vision that God has given us. We prayerfully discerned that God had a reason he started COTHA. All of the things we do at COTHA centers on our purpose. Why do we exist? “We exist to be a biblically functioning church that violates the status quo with biblical truth and seeks to connect the disconnected to the COTHA family.” We see the mission field as starting at our door. The Katy and surrounding communities are full of people who are disconnected. At the very center of our heart is a desire that those who are hopeless could find hope through the same way we have, in Jesus Christ. At the very center of our heart is a desire that God’s kingdom could be experienced by those who do not know that God is real and wants all to come to know that truth and His love. Our vision leads us out of the building we worship in to carry the hope of the gospel wherever we may go. Our vision leads us to offer a free meal every Wednesday night to those who may need a little help. Our vision leads us to take mission bags with us to give to those who are homeless and are asking for help. Our vision is to reach even more people, those who may be nominally religious, with the great news that Jesus is not interested in religion, rules, regulations or rituals. He is interested in righting the relationship between people and God. This vision is compelling.What would happen if more and more people began to share this same vision? As Buford and Drucker found, anything can happen! May God continue to give us a heart for those who do not know or share the same hope. Let us go out of the comfort of our building and find them!