clarity evangelist

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!

Great Prelaunch Vision Video on Local Predicament

Uncovering your Kingdom Concept is practice along the Vision Pathway to answer the question, "What can your church do better than 10,000 others." In defining this reality for each church we look closely at Place (Local Predicament), People (Collective Potential) and Passion (Apostolic Esprit). 

Jack Thomas is a church planter launching in urban Pittsburgh in May of 2010.  I not only love his cultural exegesis, but the succinct and quality way he is communicating his Local Predicament via video.

LifeStone Community Focus Video from Jack Thomas on Vimeo.

Deeper, More Challenging and More Inspiring

Max Lucado says that writing a book is like giving birth to barbwire. His words as a prolific author encouraged me through the pangs of writing Church Unique. 

But as hard as it is to write a book, the hardest thing to do afterwards is reading a poorly written one. Writing forces you to think differently about how you read. Recently, I have been excited about a few books, only to put them down, discouraged by a lack of coherent thought and skilled writing. 

That observation sets the stage for why I am posting a Church Unique endorsement from a particular pastor who is a great writer himself- Bruce Miller. Bruce pastors McKinney Fellowship and has written The Leadership Baton and Your Life in Rythm. Bruce leads with great thoughtfulness and discipline.  As a long-time protege of Gene Getz, he launched from Fellowship Bible Church in Dallas years ago to plant McKinney Fellowship- a church that grew to 2,000 in weekend attendance in 10 years.    

Today Bruce shot over an endorsement for which I am grateful:

Having read many books on church life, mission and strategy, I wondered if Mancini would offer anything new. He surprised me. Church Unique is outstanding. Frankly, at first, after a quick scan, I wrongly dismissed it as one more lightweight marketing/branding book.  In fact I was not sold on the need to focus on being a unique local church.

However, chapter after chapter took me deeper than I anticipated, challenged me more than I expected and inspired me more than I expected. Well done. I am convinced that we need to discover our uniqueness, clarify it and magnify it. Mancini’s Church Unique deserves a wide reading by thoughtful church leaders passionate for the cause of Christ.

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

The Focus Dilemma- Do you Lead a River or a Puddle?

Last night I navigated the roll-out of a church's Kingdom Concept with 70 of their core leaders. Some people were blown away by the focus and immediately recognized the opportunity to rally the entire church.  Other experienced a mental vapor lock. With bodies sitting calmly, their minds were violently stiff-arming the conversation.   

Why? Because focus requires limits. 

- "You mean were are not going to..."

- "But what about..."

- "Aren't we leaving out..."

The focus dilemma is the crisis that is created when we feel it's restrictions without seeing it's freedom and benefits. Ironically, it is the forced limitation that creates the power, the meaning, the opportunity.  A river without banks is just a large puddle. 

What's the good news of focus? Through the limitation we experience expansion. What banks have you chosen for your organization?  What channels momentum in your culture? 

Don't be surprised that the majority will never see the power of limitation. That seeing-ability is reserved for a unique subset of people.  If you are one of those people, rejoice.  For you have a special gift to lead and make a significant contribution in the world. What are you leading today- a river or a puddle?

Places to Push the Envelope on Vision

My speaking ministry has ramped up a bit with more people engaging Church Unique. Here are a few places I will be in the next 6 weeks. I will begin updating the blog more with events like these. The reason I speak is to push the envelope on vision. It's all about what God wants to do uniquely through you and your ministry.

• September 29: A Day of Clarity, Portland, OR
• October 12-13: Sticky Church Conference, San Diego, CA
• October 20-21: CB Plus ‘24’ Conference, Anderson, IN
• October 27: Cornerstone Conference, with WFX Charlotte, NC
• November 10: Society for Church Consulting, New Orleans, LA

Guiding Principles and Yogi Church

I have been transitioning from coffee to tea. Today the family was comparing two brands of green tea- Tazo and Yogi. The clear winner for us is Yogi.  I always enjoy reading the story and vision behind a product I like. In this case I found the Yogi Principles an interesting example of a defining core. 

As you read these principles, consider whether your life or your ministry could be summarized by a few values, guiding principles, or distinctives. The greatest obstacle to do this is having too many.  Oftentimes ministries will have multiple lists of statements with 6-10 things in each list. Remember, it is not as important what you call your core (be creative) as long as you boil it down to six or less ideas. In other words you don't want to have a list of both 8 guiding principles and 7 core values.  That's 15 things total which is 9 more than you should be stating.  Your vision will stillbirth if you don't distill.

As I read Yogi's principles I could help thinking of a retranslation for the local church. So enjoy both lists:

Yogi Tea Principles

• Tasting great is essential but not enough
• We think before we blend 
• Health is found in nature
• Creative combinations can optimize what nature has to offer 
• Whenever possible we work with wholes not parts 

Yogi Church

• Great worship is essential but not enough
• We think before we program 
• Health is found in community 
• Creativity and innovation can optimize what church has to offer  
• Whenever possible we lead the whole church body not just parts

Life in Generica: Your Vision is Outdated Part 2

Due to the responses and retweets to the “Outdated Vision” post, I will follow-up with a few further thoughts.

A pastor of a prominent church responded via twitter to indicate that his church was in the 2% exception of my estimate that 98% have “outdated vision.” The truth is he may very well be in the 2%, but the immediate evidence offered doesn’t support it.

His evidence was a mission statement that didn’t pass the test. On a positive note, the mission wasn’t literally photocopied from another church. His problem is generi-vision. Leaders, please hear me: We are so used to Life in Generica, we don’t even see how unoriginal we are any more. Hence we lead with a false sense of vision. 

One obstacle to seeing your own Life in Generica is focusing on accuracy. You can be accurate (and biblically so) and still generic. As we live in the generic we tend to photocopy without realizing it. That is, we tend to move toward convergence of what we know and see already rather than imagining a different, better future. 

To illustrate, here is a mission statement for a church. “Our mission is to make disciples.” 

Simple, biblical and accurate, right? Correct! But what does it really say about this church or this church’s future. Not much.  

The key is being accurate AND specific. Vision becomes vision the more specific it becomes. We need more detail, and high definition! Look for some follow-up posts on "Leaving Generica," and remember that this problem is why I wrote Church Unique.  

Proof that Your Vision is Outdated

Your Vision is Outdated. How do I know? 

Well I don't really. But if the last 10 years of consulting has taught me anything it's that the way we think about vision has needed to change, and yes, even for our most effective leaders in the church. So from my experience, I am really only about 98% sure that you vision is outdated. 

OK, I want you to prove me wrong, so here is the proof test.

Pick a phrase, a statement or some words that represents the most important aspect of your church's vision. We'll call that your "vision nugget."  Now run that nugget through this multiple choice answer list.  If you can answer "non of the above" then you prove me wrong.

My vision nugget is:

A. So generic it does not differentiate my church from any others. (genera-vision)

B. Being used by another church and I picked it up at a conference or in a book (copycat-vision)

C. Locked inside of a long strategic planning notebook and I couldn't think of it (caged-vision) 

C. Totally unique, but I came up with it all by myself (ego-vision)

D. The same one I had at my last church (double-vision) 

E. Now being used by a younger staff person who planted a church in our area (di-vision)

F. None of the above

If you proved my wrong, I want to know! 

What Pastors are Saying about Vision Co::Lab

I finished up my first pilot group of churches going through Auxano's new offering- we call it the Church Unique Vision co::Lab. This process for churches was birthed by increasing hunger of leaders who read Church Unique and don't want to settle for mediocre vision. Many of them are in churches that can't afford onsite consulting, but want more than reading the book. The double colon of the co::Lab stands for a COntinuous & COllaborative lab environment. 

What I love about the below comments, is that they speak to the strenuous coaching the co::Lab puts you through. The experience is not for the light of heart.  

The Church Unique Vision co::Lab sessions didn’t hand us a compelling vision. For us, the benefit of the process is that it forced us to work. It pushed us through a “tunnel of chaos” that we wouldn’t have pushed ourselves through otherwise. It asked all the right questions that exposed the weakness in the clarity of our vision. It required all of our energy, praying, thinking, digging and dreaming. In the end I found it wasn’t just immeasurably helpful for our church but it was immeasurably beneficial for me. - Brian Barr,  Church Planter, One Life Church

Although the Church Unique Vision co::Lab was challenging, the push is worth the investment. Now I am more confident about what the Lord has called and gifted our church to do in our unique situation. How freeing and rewarding to be released from the “comparison game” with other churches.  The co::Lab partnership has helped to align us more with God’s plan for us- and I will be grateful for the rest of my ministry and the rest of my life. – Carl Etchison, Senior Pastor, Grace Crossing 

Going through the Vision co:Lab has been a powerful experience for our key leaders. During our discussions, it has been amazing to see how God has imparted clarity to our leaders as to what God is doing and the uniqueness He has given us as a church. With that comes an unleashing of power because now we have key people coming alongside us rather than doing their own thing. – Darren Tidwell, Church Planter,  Life Point Church    

Keep in mind that we have several co::Labs launching in the next six weeks: Chicago, Charlotte, Houston, Denver, and Portland. Also, I will be doing a pilot process for a virtual co::Lab especially for you guys who are 3+ hours drive from an airport!  For more info click here.