Personal mission is the intersection of your spiritual gifts and heartbursts for strangers. Wise leaders invest their extra leisure time to revisit and focus their personal mission IN LIFE (not just their leadership vision for the church).

Summer is actually not the best time to refine and explore your “heartbursts” for strangers because culture itself is in “vacation mode”.  You may not find the cross sector leaders with whom you need to talk about demographic trends and emerging needs since they, too, are on holiday. And even if you lurk and listen to the distinctive publics in any given zip code you may not get an accurate read on their issues and questions.

Summer is a good time to explore and discover spiritual gifts. This is because have more than one spiritual gift, and at different stages of life the Holy Spirit will beckon you to exercise one over another. It is also true that the Holy Spirit gives you new gifts that you never had before … whether you want them or not. Moses was given a gift of communication even though he never had before, and certainly didn’t want it now! Similar stories in scripture abound. Maybe you should read them this summer.

The broader point is that you will never get anywhere casting a vision for the church if you don’t have up-to-date clarity about your personal mission in life.