Wayne Cordeiro, the Senior Pastor of New Hope Fellowship in Hawaii, first caught my attention when I heard him speak at the New Century New Church conference in 2000 in San Antonio, Texas, put on by Leadership Training Network. His words riveted me as he spoke of the need for clergy to see the potential of each and every person that God had placed within their care. His genuine manner and authenticity spoke to me of his great love for people and his desire that they be everything God wanted them to be. While at this conference, I purchased his first book Doing Church as a Team and was blown away as I read about a way of doing church where everyone was involved in making “the church” happen on a weekly or daily basis. I quickly implemented many of the principles of team building found within the pages of this book and was able to practically apply much of what I read. In fact, presently our church uses his model of team building that he wrote about in this book.
This book by Cordeiro, The Dream Releasers, certainly piqued by interest as I read the description of the book above the title: How to help others realize their dreams while achieving your own. This book is especially valid to me for a couple of reasons. One, in my role at Westover Church, I am responsible for creating the entire development process of how people are transformed along their journey of faith. This journey begins at the moment of driving onto our campus, till the moment of returning from a mission trip, and all the elements along the way. As I read this book, I could see how its contents would assist me in achieving the vision of what the life development process at Westover might look like.
Secondly, in my pursuit of this doctorate of ministry degree in transformational leadership I am now regularly reading books that deal with how both we as leaders and the people that we lead are transformed. Cordeiro clearly writes at the beginning of his book “This book is an unabashed, unapologetic invitation to be transformed. It champions a greater-love-has-no-man-than-this kind of commitment. Throughout time, God’s greatest men and women – led by Jesus Himself – all lived out this commitment.”[i] This sounds like something that I definitely want and need to read.
Cordeiro organizes the book into two key components: The power of a dream released, and becoming a dream releaser. His basic premise is that everyone has a dream – believers or non-believers alike. Everyone has been given a dream that has been woven within us at the moment of our creation within our mother’s womb. When fully embodied, Cordeiro writes that “Only God fully comprehends the difference a Dream Releaser can make in the eternal scheme of things.”[ii]
Throughout the book Cordeiro defines a Dream Releaser by telling stories of his past and his church. This helps ground what this person is in a reality that the reader can understand. He also uses powerful imagery and symbolism to describe the “dream” and the releasers of that dream.
I found this book to be similar in writing to the Purpose Drive Life by Rick Warren. However, the difference is that instead of looking at various components of a purposeful life, Cordeiro narrows his focus down to finding your dream and helping others find their dreams. These two key components form the basis of the entire book. As a result, there were times I felt that Cordeiro was repeating himself over and over again, however, the message he was speaking needed to be heard again and again.
A paragraph in the book that I found very interesting was when he writes:
“Our effectiveness in pursuing our dream will, to a large degree, determine our success in reaching our destiny. Without the willingness to chase it to the end, we can get lost, despite having maps in hand. This dream holds the key to our development, our personality and our divine assignment. By reaching our divinely purposed destination, we can change lives, transform churches and give new zeal to old, dusty existences.”[iii]
This was followed up by him writing, “Imagine if all the potential in our churches were released. Can you picture how that would change our world?”[iv] Yes I can picture that. I have pictured this for the last nine years and believe that as leaders, we have a responsibility to live and act in such a way that embodies and pursues the release of these people.
These two paragraphs are why I am pursuing my doctorate in Transformational Leadership. As I reach the destination that God has divinely purposed for me, then I hold the key to assist others in realizing their divine purpose and call. If all leaders would do this, then can you imagine what would happen? The world would be changed.
I believe that my studies are providing me the opportunity to reach toward my “divine purpose,” as Cordeiro writes. This is why my personal mission statement, as I have articulated it for my doctoral studies, is to “Inspire, resource and equip other leaders to reach their full potential in this life for Christ.” This book helps me to do this.
The key that this book holds is this: When you and I as leaders realize we have a dream, decide to pursue this dream and ask God to help us live out this dream, then our lives are changed forever. It’s as if, according to Cordeiro, we have a seed of God’s potential hidden within our lives. Just like one single redwood tree seed has “all the potential to produce, not only a single magnificent redwood, but also an entire forest of redwoods,”[v] so do we. As we live out this dream, then we must share our knowledge with others. When we do, he writes that “A single person’s fulfilled destiny can determine the eternal destination of billions of people.”[vi]
The problem is that we as leaders don’t see this. If we do, so often we choose not to pay attention or we’re not sure what to do with what we see. Why? I believe that many of us as leaders see the overwhelming obstacles that are associated with both pursuing our own dream and helping someone else pursue theirs. These obstacles are just too big for us to navigate over or around, and so we stop “dead in our tracks” and don’t do anything about what we know we should be doing.
I believe that another issue associated with this is that becoming a dream releaser of another is just too difficult. It will require us to step out of our comfort zone and work hard at dealing with messy people and things. This will demand a huge amount of effort and energy on our part, many times, much more than we are willing to give. We would rather go about our day, answering emails, talking to a few people on the phone, accomplishing the items on our “to do lists” so that at the end of the day, we can check off what we’ve accomplished.
Being a dream releaser is much more dynamic and dangerous. It involves transferring the focus from self to others. It requires that our days be flexible so that we can be ready when people might need us. It demands that we take time with people and make the person we’re with at that very moment in our day, the most important person that we could be with at that very moment in our day. Most of us spend time with people and all the while thinking about more important things that we could be accomplishing if we were just finished with this secondary appointment so that we could get to the really important stuff. I have to be honest. I consider myself an equipper of people and this is my reality at times.
When are we going to realize that spending time with people, especially those people that God has put in our sphere of influence, IS the most important thing that we could be doing with our time. When are we, as leaders of staff, going to realize that the most important thing that our staff could be doing is influencing the lives of another person, rather than producing programs or paperwork that shows that they are working. Now we’re getting to the real issues aren’t we?
Before staff can become dream releasers, then leaders must be transformed themselves so that they can allow for the staff to be transformed and hence change the very ways that they lead in the church. Cordeiro is saying that the most important thing that leaders in the church can do is influence people so that they can live a life in pursuit of their dreams. This is transformational leadership.
However, there are some things that get in the way. Cordeiro writes that there are some “dream killers”[vii] that unless we are leaders help “coach” others to both identify and deal with, their dreams will be lost along the way. As leaders, we have a responsibility to deal with these “dream killers” in the lives of the people that we coach. He identifies eight potential “dream killers.” They are:
1. Unproven Character
2. Pride
3. Impatience
4. Ingratitude
5. Incorrect ability
6. Unbelief
7. Unresolved Sin
8. The Inability to Act[viii]
Each of these “dream killers” must be identified, confronted and dealt with before we can achieve the dream that God has put in our hearts as leaders, or help others achieve their dream. As I read these eight “killers” I thought of my own life and how each of these has played a part in trying to destroy my own dream. If we as leaders allow these things to stop us from moving toward our own dream, then we will never be able to coach someone else to move beyond them toward their dream. Cordeiro says that these are the things that stop people from achieving their dreams and these are the things that stop us as leaders from helping someone achieve their dreams.
Therefore, what I conclude from Cordeiro is that I must do two things. First, I must effectively confront the “dream killers” in my own life and move beyond them. Unless I do this, I will never be able to release the dreams of another person. Second, I must become a good steward of the keys that God has given to me to release the dream of someone else. He describes these three keys as:
1. Stewarding Influence
2. Stewarding Authority
3. Stewarding Problems
What he means by these three keys is this.
“The final step in your becoming a Dream Releaser lies in your ability to be trusted. You must become a steward of the keys God commends to you. Your faithfulness with this trust will dictate both the breadth of your mantel and the strength of your legacy. Just as talent can be either invested or consumed, so too keys can either open a door or lock someone out. These keys come with options. They will test your ability to make wise, selfless choices – the greatest test of all.”[ix]
Each of us as leaders has influence, authority and problems that we deal with. As dream releases, we must be trusted to handle our influence, authority and have the courage to tackle the problems in the Kingdom of God with integrity. Once we do so, then we will be dream releasers. Cordeiro ends with this paragraph.
“What the Family of God urgently needs today are individuals who resonate with the heart of the Father, men and women who take great joy when others win. Their joy arrives when they accept the privilege of helping someone open their gifts and see their dreams take flight.
God extends to you His likeness. He extends to you His invitation. Dare we trust Him for His promises? Nudge a dream into flight. A whole generation awaits you.”[x]
[i] Page 21
[ii] Page 18
[iii] Page 33
[iv] Page 33
[v] Page 29-30
[vi] Page 31
[vii] Page 97
[viii] Pages 99-132
[ix] Page 134
[x] Page 179
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