clarity evangelist

The Payoff of Carving Out Time for Vision

I ran into this simple but powerful post of 27-year old Sean Chandler. He is a student pastor in Round Rock, Texas that has been thinking about vision lately.

Imagine waking up one day to do leadership training and realizing that, "I had not articulated any of the basic ideas that are in my head." (Don't be surprised Sean as most leaders don't.)

But why not? Sean writes:

"Its far easier too...

• do business as usual
• focus on weekly tasks
• bog down in details
• keep a system with no direction or accountability...

...than it is carve out time in your schedule to develop a vision, cast the vision, and apply that vision to every single ministry, program, responsibility, and volunteer in your organization.

Well, it's easier in the short run. In the long wrong it leads to more work, discouragement, confusion, volunteer problems, and lack of results.

Vision requires intentionality, but the payoff is efficiency, momentum, inspiration, etc.

Great thoughts Sean- every word you chose packs a punch. Read his full post 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.

Top Ten Things Church Hoppers Say

While my mind is on CAVE dwellers from yesterday's post, I thought I would pass on this top ten list I saw on Josh Reich's blog, a young pastor in Tuscon. Below is his post on a book by Bob Franquiz entitled, Zero to Sixty. It has a chapter on Church Hoppers. Here is how to spot a church hopper and what they mean (my favorite is the last one):

   1. “But my old church…” This usually means they want your church to be like their old church.

   2. “I just need time to be fed.” This means, “I don’t want to do anything. I’m here just to sit and see what I can get out of this church, so don’t expect me to serve in any way, shape, or form.

   3. “I’m looking for a church that teaches the Word.” This means, “I’m looking for a church that dispenses lots of information without challenging me to do anything.”

   4. “We came here because we are looking for deep teaching.” This usually means their last church focused too much on actually obeying the Word. They want a church that just talks about the Rapture, the Second Coming, who the Hittites were and the identity of Theophilus.

   5. “I should know my pastor.” This means, “In my last church, I got to know the pastor, but when the church grew, and the pastor couldn’t have dinner with us every Tuesday night, I left and came here.”

   6. “We want a church that’s focused on discipling people.” This means, “I want a church that’s focused on me, not people who are lost.”

   7. “I wish you wouldn’t focus so much on what people need to do.” This means they don’t like commitment, they don’t like to be told the Bible actually tells them how to live and follow Jesus. They want to come to church, live in their sin and have no one tell them this is wrong.

   8. “I wish you wouldn’t talk about money.” This is the best way to tell a pastor “I don’t give.”

   9. “My old church/pastor was…” The way people come to your church is how they will leave. If your first conversation with them is all about their last church and pastor, that is how they will leave your church and how they will go to their next church.

  10. “Pastor, I’ve been talking to a lot of people and they all say…” Translation:  “Me, my spouse and my mother think…” If they start this way, 99.9% of the time they have no one else who thinks this way, it is just the best way to complain. If someone has a complaint and uses this line with me, they need to list all of the names or my best assumption is they talked to the same person 10 times.

Are CAVE Dwellers Holding Back Your Vision?

C.A.V.E. dwellers are people Consistently Against Virtually Everything and they are alive and well in most churches. In fact a recent study by a Gallop guy named Albert Winseman says that 17% of the average church is made up of these "actively disengaged" people. 

The troubling observation for me is that church leaders get so accustomed to these people, they take them for granted and live with toxin in culture rather than dealing with it. I am often asked to advise on tactics- worship or small group or technology best practices.  Leaders look for right answers to advance their vision.  The newsflash is: If you don't know how to deal with CAVE dwellers it doesn't matter how good your tactics might be, because there will always be an enthusiasm drag and energy drain holding the vision back. 

Winseman in his book, Growing an Engaged Church, advises. "Your job as a leader is not to placate the actively disengaged.  It is to create and grow disciples." His answer is to focus on the engaged- don't get distracted trying to please the squeaky wheels! 

But ignoring these negative folks is not enough. Great leaders know how to dialogue with wisdom and grace until one of two things occur.  Either disengaged people must convert and eventually become contributors or they must leave (in an effort to find somewhere else they CAN engage.)

It's the leaders choice to let people sing off key, or to bring beautiful harmony into the world.  

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?