clarity evangelist

The New Clarity Evangelist Blog at WillMancini.com

if you have not made the jump to the new blog yet, please do so.  

Link here and subscribe.

Early Christmas Present - My New Blog

Auxano's creative team gave me an early Christmas present: a new blog and switch-over from Typepad to Wordpress. Thanks to Cheryl Marting our chief connections officer and James Bethany our creative director. 

Those of you who have subscribed via e-mail, the feed will transfer.

Those of you connecting via RSS will need to switch over (My apology for the inconvenience.)  

Please check out WillMancini.com. I would love to hear your thoughts!

Where Vision Begins by Mother Teresa

One of Auxano's navigators, Rich Kannwischer, just sent me this quote from Mother Teresa. We always talk about how unlocking the future is about going deeper with who we already are and what we already have. To understand how much a quote like this means to the Auxano team,you will enjoy Rich's e-mail subject line, "How can I not send you this quote." It needs no further introduction. 

In our efforts to listen to God's words to us, we often neglect what might be called his "first word" to us. This is the gift of ourselves to ourselves: our existence, our nature, our personal history, our uniqueness, our identity. All that we have, and indeed, our very existence, is one of the unique and never-to-be-repeated ways God has chosen to express himself in space and time. Each of us, because we are made in God's image and likeness, is yet another promise that he has made to the universe that he will continue to love it and care for it.  (Mother Teresa, Leadership, Vol. 10, no. 4)

Rich is the new Senior Pastor of one of the Presbyterian church's great pulpits- Saint Andrew's Presbyterian Church, in Newport Beach, CA. Read about Rich's experience prior to taking the helm of of Saint Andrews here.

Leading with a Mission Statement that Isn't Dumb

How many dumb mission statements do you hear like: Our challenge is to assertively network economically sound methods of empowerment so that we may continually negotiate performance-based infrastructures.

If you have been around church at all, you know that we are good at specializing in these "corporate hallmark cards" and "Air Supply-like rhythms." 

Yesterday, I spoke to church consultants from across the country at a summit in New Orleans with the Society of Church Consulting. I challenged them to consider a new approach to vision and strategic planning as outlined in Church Unique. Many resonated with my challenge. 

Ironically, while I was speaking, this article was sent before I got my hard copy of Fast Company. It is simply one of the best articles on writing a mission statement I have ever read.

The article entitled, How to Write a Mission Statement that Isn't Dumb is featured in Fast Company by Nancy Lublin, CEO of DoSomething.org

Church Jobs of the Future

My daughter and I practiced her spelling bee words as I drove her to school this morning. Abby is a 10-year old. On the drive home, I pondered what Abby might do when she grows up. Every now and again you hear that most of the jobs today will radically change within a generation.  Most of the jobs available to me today will not be for my 5th grader. 

So what does that mean for church? What new jobs are we likely to see?  How will the best practice staffing continue to evolve? 

If we look in the rear view mirror we can observe a few trends in the last decade:

• The shift from senior pastor to "lead pastor" in describing the point leader 
• The development of the "teaching pastor" and the increasing use of teaching teams 
• The emergence of the campus pastor with the growth of the multi-site movement
• The ongoing importance of all things technology and media forging into top leadership

As I continue to visit with churches and watch the horizon, I believe that the trends above as well as others will keep fueling change. What will this look like ten years from now? Here are four new pastoral titles for the church of the future. I will provide some initial thoughts now and drill down with follow-up posts. 

1. The Neo-itinerant - The Neo-itinerant is a strategic outsider who doesn't work for one church, but many. There are many, diverse forms of the neo-itinerant emerging and each type will likely bring its own title. (See my post on Trends in Church Consulting.) This is the way the Auxano ministry works.  We consider ourselves "navigators" as we leverage learning and bring specialized help as strategic outsiders in the area of vision clarity. 
2. The Truth Jockey (TJ) - As the teaching function separates more and more from the leadership function, expect the use of team teaching and multi-media formats to find their full expression in the Truth Jockey. Why can't a leaders mix the best teaching and the best teachers for his congregation's time, place and life-stage? 
3. The Community Catalyst - How will the small group functions as we know them today evolve? To understand the role of a community catalyst, think of the fusion between a barista, a personal trainer and a chamber of commerce help desk.
4. The Pastor of Story - As the organized church gets larger and more complex, and the organic expressions of church become more linked, we will need better "meaning-makers" who connect everything to the larger story of God, in a both a personal and local way. 

Again, look for the follow-up posts as I explore these roles in greater detail.  I would love to hear your initial thoughts and any creative new jobs that you have heard about or are thinking about. 

I leave you with a final thought from Dan Pink, author of Whole New Mind: "The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind - creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers." He describes these people as "artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, and big picture thinkers." 

40 Top Thoughts on Clarity at 40

A few days before my 40th birthday I was thinking about a quote that has guiding my life for the last 25 years.  I read somewhere that I can't remember the idea that in the first half of your life, the opportunity of every situation is found more in what you learn than in what you give.

Hmmmm...what does that mean now that the first half of my life is over?  For some reason, I take comfort (maybe too much comfort) in the fact that I still get to learn more than I give. It throws me back to understanding my life as a stewardship. 

The next thought that crossed my mind, was "What are the other ideas that have guided my life and work the most." In 90 minutes I had written about 70. I was surprised that I could list that many, so I boiled it down to 40 and thought it might be fun to tweet them throughout the day. I figure the rest of the twitterville could put up with my extra tweets for one day! You can see the tweets and people's ERS (emotional resonance spectrum) by searching #40at40.  

Also thanks to Brock Sawyer for typing them up on his blog here.

Here are the top six:

1. Clarity isn’t everything but it changes everything.
2. Jesus was totally clear about his origin, his mission, and his destiny.
3. In the first half of your life, the opportunity of every situation is found more in what you learn than in what you give.
4. The rest of your life will be in the future, so prepare for it now. 
5. The most important question I have ever discovered is, “What is God up to?”
6. Imagination if more important than knowledge – Einstein

The rest of the list contains my personal, family and Auxano mission; the quote that lead me to write Church Unique and some of my favorite one-liners as a church consultant. Have fun and let me know your favs!

Do You Provide Clear Identity or Glittering Generalities?

I just received a blog post from a leader who is considering working with Auxano. The team is talking a lot about identity and culture in their church and one of the staff sent this post around entitled, "The dirty little secret about the top leadership" from the Center for Creative Leadership.

What is the dirty little secret? In many organizations the top leadership can't clearly define their value proposition.  Here are a few excerpts from the full post here.  

• So, I ask, "what is the direction of the company?" We are inundated with direction and vision statements that would all serve as good examples of what my high school civics teacher called 'glittering generalities.' They are well-meaning, but often sound just like every other company's vision statement.    

• For these statements to become more than lovely aspirations something is missing. So what's missing? What's missing is clarity about the identity of the organization, its character.  

• If we know who we are and what we are becoming, the people of the organization can make intelligent choices about the investment of their time and energy. So many vision statements read like imperial dreams: to become the best...the biggest...the leading.... They can be overly involved in promises of performance. They're too pie-in-the-sky to have much effect on the majority of workers. They're not personal enough.

• It is the job of the senior leadership of the organization to model and give voice to the organization's identity. As they do, people throughout the organization understand what actions are worthy and what are not (ethics). Workers at all levels can believe in the vision, because they identify with the organization and they adopt that identify as their own (execution).

• Identity stays the same no matter what's happening in the market.

• And, as we know, people live up to (or down to) who they think they are. It's the job of the senior team to walk and talk the identity of the organization.

• Does your organization have a clear sense of who you are as an organization? If it does, the executive leadership is on the ball.

10 Profound Lessons from the Catalyst Godfather

I was glad to see Chuck Swindoll get the legacy award at Catalyst today.  He just got off the stage and truly engaged the young audience. It was fun to watch the crowd "surprised" by the wisdom and humor of this ministry giant.  It really exposes our taste for trend. We have little patience and appetite for seasoned ministry perspective at our conference pep-rallies.  

Chuck is a giant, and I have been close enough to him to validate that he lives the top ten lessons that he shares. I first met Chuck while at Dallas Seminary, and had the privilege as a young consultant to be his vision navigator during his fourth year at Stonebriar Community Church.  Stonebriar, planted in Frisco in far North Dallas, had 700 people at its first public worship and grew by 1000 people each year for the first four years. As I mentioned in Church Unique, Chuck's big idea is "joy."  His mission is to encourage all people to pursue a lifelong, joyous relationship with Jesus Christ.  

My favorite learning experience with Chuck was a small think tank with Greg Mott at Houston's First Baptist. I remember thinking: here is a 70 year-old church planter meeting with a 30 year old senior pastor of a 70- year old church. Chuck's humility and his command of Scripture is always amazing.  In fact he is one of the most humble and teachable pastors I have ever worked with.  That's why I especially appreciate his 10 lessons from 50 years of ministry:

1. It’s lonely to lead
2. It’s dangerous to succeed
3. It’s hardest at home
4. It’s essential to be real
5. It’s painful to obey
6. Brokenness and failure are necessary
7. Attitude overshadows actions
8. Integrity eclipses image
9. God’s way is always better than my way
10. Christlikeness begins and ends with humility

Take a NINES Intermission- A Guide for Knowledge Junkies

While the NINES is new, the feeling of being drenched by an information fire hydrant is not. As I watch folks tweet and celebrate and whine about this blast of kingdom wisdom, I wanted to share a few thoughts to guide your learning experience. Consider taking a 5 minute intermission to reflect now.

What we are aiming for is not the picture of a child playing and splashing in the hydrant’s water-works. There is no learning there. We are looking for the leaders ability to sip from the hydrant (without loosing your lips!) 

Three things can drive your knowledge junkie “drenching” over a learning leaders “drinking”

1) Omission Paranoia.  This problem has come with the cultural phenomenon of hyperchoice.  We are constantly provided with so many options and so many evolutions of improvement with products, services, and everyday choices, that we can live overwhelmed and not even recognize it. If you are an opportunistic person like me, the problem can be worse. Eventually, an unsettled spirit creeps its way deep within our soul.  The result?  We live paranoid that we are going to miss out on one of the options, the “right angle” or the “winning choice.”  Attending the NINES is pure hell if you have omission paranoia. Don’t worry about what you will miss.  Drink and ingest what is meaningful when you can.

2) Hidden Jealously.  One of my mentors, Howard Hendricks used to say, “You focus on the depth of your relationship with God and let God determine the scope of your ministry.”  If you’re like me, there is a little commentator inside your head when you see 70 plus speakers get platformed in a cool venue like the NINES. We wonder what we would say, how they got invited, yada, yada, yada. With these conversations in your head you really can’t drink well.

3) Photocopied Vision. If you follow me you know that this is my continual burning platform.  The longer I look under the hood of ministry teams across the country the less I am surprised by the clarity vacuum. Please know that most leaders are missing some clarity and the more you’re lacking the harder it is to sip from the hydrant. Why? True clarity provides a frame or filter through which to evaluate everything. (I call it a Vision Frame.) Robust clarity actually makes learning more aggressive and meaningful, because you continually cull out or highlight content based on the needs of your vision and strategy. You know when this “personal calling filter” is working when you can skip chapters in a book or hit pause on a NINES presenter without a second’s thought. 

What’s the answer to these challenges? They all push me back to Jesus.  Battle omission paranoia by resting in God’s goodness and sovereignty.  Repent of hidden jealously. Take time and create margin to refine your ministry vision and understanding of God’s call on your life. A potential action step: In the next few weeks I will be hosting a virtual Vision co::Lab for this purpose. It’s the polar opposite of the NINES. Instead of spending 8 hours with 70 leaders spend 24 hours of vision coaching with a small group of 8. More info here.

Missional Renaissance Notes from #Leadnet

Here are Reggie McNeal's highlights from the Leadership Network today. (twitter hashtag is #Leadnet) The Missional Renaissance Leadership Communities (LC) is a 2 year process where 10-12 teams from across the country gather for hard core collaboration, strategy development and accountability. I am here with Gloria Dei Lutheran church who is currently walking through Auxano's Vision Pathway. 

Reggie on the Missional Church

• Until we see the church as a who and not a what, we will be stuck and will not become missional.
• Missional definition: "The people of God partnering with God in his redemptive mission in the world" 
• The church in the NT is never smaller than a city. 
• The church doesn't have a mission, the mission of God has a church. 
• A great question to engage people- "How can I ask God to bless you today?" 
• God created us to cut us in on the deal of world redemption.
• We are tired of the thinking, "If we fix the church we will be able to impact the world." 
• In discussing the joy, surprise and new openness of someone who goes on a short-term mission trip, Reggie asks, "What if we saw our whole life as a mission trip."  

 Reggie on Apostolic Leadership (AD 30 Leadership)

• Reggie prays, "Lord help us to know what you have put in our backpack, so we know what road to be on." (I love that quote BTW with regard to Church Unique.) 
• Reggie prays, "Lord, help us to be captured by what captures you." 
• "Imitate me" is not hubris, it is the height of accountability.  Apostolic leaders go first and ask others to follow." 
• Apostolic leaders have the stink of Jesus on them.
• Apostolic leaders have five qualities: Visionary, Listeners, Risk-takers, Developers, Glad when others win (Kingdom-minded)
• Five actions to become more apostolic: 1) Face your fears, 2) Lose control, 3) Retool, 4) Reallocate your resources, 5) Go first!