Maybe 'vision' isn't all its cracked up to be?

There's a text hanging in my office that is a powerful leadership text. It's Psalm 103:7 "He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel." I was a young leader when a wise and godly leader shared it with me - emphasizing the difference between Moses being told of God's ways and the people only being told of God's deeds. This is leadership, the wiser leader told me - knowing the ways of God.
Not long after that wisdom was shared with me ...... Christian leadership guru's emerged onto the scene and the word 'vision' became the driving word in leadership. 'Without it things will perish' was often preached. 'If you don't know where you're going you'll end up nowhere' came in a close second preach. Vision as a word and concept has held sway over much Christian leadership for the past decade and more.
But this blog wants to put a question mark over that leadership philosophy. Maybe 'vision' is not what it was/is all cracked up to ....and I've often cracked it up to be lot!

Vision is very much about where we are going. Its a linear word. It produces 5 year strategy papers, plans and 'how to' manuals. Vision is held out there and then everything lines up behind it.
But maybe therein lies a problem. More a clash. A clash of cultures. Our culture, our context is less and less a linear context. Much has been made of this in the tiring debate between modernity versus postmodernity; between systematic theology versus narrative theology; between meta-narratives versus paradigms ...but why has it not crossed over into the philosophy of leading?

Maybe I'm too much living in my paradigm, but the drive to vision - cast it, plan around it, staff for it, budget to it, is getting tired. it seems to be being moved to the back of the line. In its place is a moving to the center the concept of values.

Vision is about where we are going; values are about being.
Being is the new going.

Of course,values were always meant to be under-girding vision. But did they?

Maybe I'm too much of an existentialist (in the good sense). Were humans called to this linear, always moving forward existence? Or were humans called 'to be'. Does the emphasis on vision not drive us to miss today and miss what it is to be human? Is being human not about living in the present?

'Moses knowing the ways of God' ...is more about values than about vision - surely!

Here's how we're seeing it these days. If a church is all about values that reflect the heartbeat of God ......then acting on those values alone will lead you into the future more than wrapping a vision around it.

In the old vision way ...you got the value and then you cast a vision of what living with that value might look like in 5 years ....and here's the steps to make that happen.

In the new way ...you just live with the value and let God morph whatever God wants to morph!

Is this a subtle semantic adjustment - maybe ...but it feels more than subtle. It feels like its placing the right thing in the right place and not allowing it to be squeezed to a lesser place because of something more compelling, more organised, more strategized.

Its trying to be more about the ways ...rather than the deeds.