How do you know how bought into the vision of your ministry someone is?

That’s a real question every leader wrestles with as we walk into staff meetings, planning times and conversations with individual leaders and innovators in our ministries.  It’s on my mind this afternoon since I’ll be spending tomorrow morning with the amazing student leaders of The Gathering at American University.  They’re a relatively young leadership team and I want to know how bought in they are.

While my answer to that problem isn’t foolproof, it is simple and it’s effective.  Run the pronoun test.  Here’s how: listen when someone uses a pronoun to refer to your ministry.  Do they use “you or them”  or do they say “we or us”?  You can tell so much from that.  Someone who sits in a meeting and says “you guys really should….” isn’t bought into the vision yet.  But someone who says “we need to…” is more bought in than you might think.

Really simple, I know, but it’s a great way to take the temperature of a room.

Praying I hear a chorus of “we” and “us” at AU tomorrow!!