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Limit Your Limitations - 3 Essentials for Creating a Movement

In this fourth post on Take Seth Godin to Church I want to focus on Tribal Movement.  Consider using the questions in these posts for staff or volunteer meetings in the month of December.  Use the Advent season to see Jesus as the coming founder of a redemptive tribe called The Church. The previous two posts dealt with tribal passion and tribal leadership. 

In Tribes, Godin references Senator Bill Bradley who unpacks the anatomy of a movement with three essentials:  

1. A narrative that tells a story about who we are and the future we are trying to build.
2. A connection between and among the leader and the tribe
3. Something to do- the fewer limits the better

Here are some questions for each essential:

Future-building Narratives

• Every church has a creation story. How clear and developed is yours?  Can your team cast a shared, compelling vision based on your creation story?
• What is your most important priority right now as a church? What are one or two signature stories that help people understand and own that priority? 
  

Note: Creation stories and signature stories are discussed further in Church Unique. 

Leader-Follower Connections

• Where are lines of communication being blocked right now? Who is suffering the most from broken lines of communication?
• Is our greater barrier right now about tools and supports systems or about our attitudes as leaders?  How would our volunteers answer this question?
• Are we leaning into social media, or creating excuses and making jokes about why we don't engage it more?

Doing Without Limits

• What limits have we created that are unnecessary for connecting and releasing our people?
• Where have limits have been imposed or created that where never intended? 
• Where does our desire for control, lead to limits that really aren't necessary? 

Pastors are Tribal Leaders - 4 Things We Must Do

This is the third post in the Take Seth Godin to Church series.  Today I want to apply Godin's perspective about leading a tribe, to Jesus. As we do, I invite you to allow the life of Jesus shape your own identity as a leader. 

You may wonder why Godin's perspective is so valuable here.  Although he doesn't sit in the academy of carry credentials of a theologian, he is a language artist who knows people and knows the times.

Here are four ways pastors can model Jesus.  Each assertion is connected to a Godin quote and followed by some challenging questions. 

1:Embrace change-making. 

"Management is about manipulating resources to get a known job done. Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change that you believe in."

2: Repent of 'organizational loves.' 

"When you fall in love with the system, you loose the ability to grow." 

3: Initiate something.

"Initiative=Happiness"

4: Commit before its successful. 

"If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either. A big part of leadership is the ability to stick with the dream for a long time. Long enough that the critics realize that your going to get there one way or another…so they follow."

I have ordered these quotes intentionally. Reread them again to feel the progression.  

Think about Jesus' context as a religious factory. Think about how Jesus daily ordered his steps around his Father's voice and mission. Seth's definition of management can easily speak to the problems of church in America.  

•  How are we, spiritually speaking, tempted to manipulate resources to get a known job done rather than creating change that we believe in?

Jesus created waves for people who didn't just create systems as tools but sustained systems in order to nourish their identity. What sytems do you have as a leader and what is your relationship to them?  Do they serve you or do you serve them? How conscious are you of your system? 

• What aspects of your system, tempt you to "fall in love" with them?  What personal growth as a leader is your current system holding back?  What keeps you just "going through life" at the risk of "growing through life?"

There is always status quo.  What is it right now for you? I love the phrase "initiative = happiness."  It is certainly not a statement of truth, but an overstatement for insight's sake. Before a leaders is defined by anything, he or she is defined by initiative. Hebrews tells us that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him. Now think of how that joy and the culminating event of the cross was preceded by literally thousands of moments of initiative that were bold, gutsy, and downright heretical.  Start with mind-blowing act incarnation. Go to the norm-shredding engagement with the Samaritan woman. Take a boat ride for a near death experience and an indelible lesson in faith. I think pastors need a wake-up call to follow Jesus footsteps as radical initiators. 

• What initiative do you need to take in your leadership these days?  What happiness are you forfeiting as long as you shrink back from taking it?

The final Godin quote above rocks me to the core when I think of the church. We miss dreaming large, risking big and unleashing our imaginations because we want success before commitment.  Maybe the best next step to fixing this dynamic in our organizations is to name it and identify it in our own lives.  

• What does the church you are leading express commitment toward? Albeit subtle, how does the problem of wanting success before commitment manifest itself in your life?  What dream do you want to pursue that you have failed to give yourself permission to pursue because it is too bold for your current context?

Let's follow Jesus with greater clarity, conviction and courage. Let's keep moving away from church as program factory toward church as redemptive tribe. 

How Passionate is Your Tribe? - 5 Questions

Here are my three favorite Seth Godin quotes pertaining to tribal passion:

"Do you believe in what you do?  Every day?  It turns out that belief happens to be a brilliant strategy. Can you imagine Steve Jobs showing up for the paycheck? It’s nice to get paid, its essential to believe."

"Caring is the key emotion at the center of the tribe… Many organizations are unable to answer the question, “Who cares?" because in fact, no one really does.  If you don’t care - really and deeply care - then you can’t possibly lead."

"The organizations of the future are filled with smart, fast, flexible people on mission. The thing is, that requires leadership."

Because every leader in your church can be placed on a continuum of emotional ownership, consider these questions for team discussion:

1. Who are most passionate in our ministry? How did they get that way? How do we help more people catch the passion? 
2. What is keeping me from caring more?  When did I care about my mission the most?  Why then?
3. How can we make creating enthusiasm a part of our leadership development strategy?
4. What can I do today to encourage a leader down the continuum from common interest to passionate mission? How can I use Thanksgiving week to leverage this encouragement? 
5. Am I as a leader spending adequate time with other leaders so that passion can rub off?

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.

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.

Two Kinds of How

Each semester I take my children through a different kind of bible study or devotional model. This fall we are doing the S.O.A.P method developed by Wayne Cordeiro, and introduced to me through Ken Werlein.  If you haven't checked it out yet, I really like its simplicity and interactive, kid-friendly dynamic. 

This week we have been going through the first chapter of Luke. The narrative presents a fascinating contrast of response between two godly people.  In both cases, Gabriel the high-ranking angel of God's court, announces blessing and vision; first to Zacharias who is to be the father of John the Baptist and second to Mary, the future mother of our beloved Savior.  Both individuals reply Gabriel with a "how" question.  At first glance, the questions seem to be similar, but upon closer examination, they are radically different. Zacharias' "how" reveals a spirit of doubt and unbelief- "How shall I know this?" he asks, following the pronouncement of miraculous intervention. Mary's "how" is also saturated with curiosity, but with an important twist. "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" she replies.  

What's the difference in these "how" responses?  One is rooted in disbelief and requests more information before giving emotional commitment. The other assumes that the vision is from God and asks for clarification of the pathway ahead.

Two kinds of how.

The "visionary how" is filled with willing wonder.  It looks forward with humble passion and strategic curiosity. 

The "reluctant how" is gripped by a waivering wonder. It digs in with cautious pride and stubborn questioning. 

As I work with kingdom-minded teams every week to pursue God's vision, I continually encounter these two kinds of how people. 

What spirit fills your team and what kind of "how" marks your leadership?

 

Profound Partial Truths: Your Vision is Outdated Part 4

Two quotes related to vision have trafficked through the social media space in the last six months. These quotes support the position that vision is outdated. 

The first quote came from Sam Chand and picked up speed at Leadership Network's i3 conference in Dallas.  The quote is "Toxic Culture Trumps Vision"  Listen to Sam's fantastic podcast related to the subject here. 

The second quote is from Dave Gibbons who spoke at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.  His quote is "We need more relationaries not visionaries." 

Both of these quotes are profound partial truths.  In their context, these statements bring helpful insight. For example, Gibbons is really against the role of a visionary who is disconnected and out of touch with their followers.  He is not against being visionary.  

But as stand alone statements they reveal a subtle but powerful dynamic in church leadership circles today:  Our concept of vision is so weak and outdated we tend undermine and downplay it because all we have left is a "strawman."  Instead of living with a weak and outdated vision, I suggest that we need to define vision correctly.

Fixing Quote #1

The problem with Sam's quote is that we are left asking, "How do you fix a toxic culture?" Ironically, the answer has to start with vision!  Therefore it is more accurate to say real vision shapes culture. And what Sam should have said is "Toxic culture trumps the results of our  poorly conceptualized visioning processes" (Like borrowing a mission statement from North Point, or doing an old-school strategic planning process.)

Fixing Quote #2 

Again, Dave's statement that we need relationaries not visionaries is itself a statement of vision (ironically). Imagine for a moment where the church would be if we had all relationaries and no visionaries.  Now, I do get Dave's point as stated earlier.  But why not statement the real truth: We need visionaries who are strong relationaries. The first person who comes to mind now is Jesus not Mister Rogers- imagine that! 

Inspiration or Emulation? - How to Build Your Message

Anne Jackson's last three blog posts have been about how to build a platform.  She has wisely thrown out three counter-intuitive principles:

Don't Build your Platform, Build your Character

Don't Build your Platform, Build Relationships

Don't Build your Platform, Build your Message

My favorite imperative is the last one on building your message:

It sounds a little over-simplistic, I realize, but hear me out. If you’re anything like me, once something has implanted itself so deeply in your heart, you want to shout it from the rooftops.  I remember being 24 years old and intensely passionate about originality in the church. This was about the same time when a lot of contemporary churches were making sermon series parodies of popular TV shows and movies - incluidng my own church. Coming from a creative corporate background, and being a rule-follower, the copyright implications alone were enough to make me uncomfortable. But I also believed (and still believe) that there is a huge difference between inspiration and emulation, and so many churches were falling into the emulation category. 

Anne is right on here.  I have discovered that one of the greatest barriers in helping others find clarity, is distraction by the large platforms of others. Ultimately we copy rather than clarify.

Here are fantastic questions by Anne about building your message.  It's a process that involves more than "just passionately vocalizing it." You must continually ask yourself:

• “Why do I believe this?” 
• “What are the implications of the message?” 
• “What’s required of me to dedicate this season to this message?”
• “Is there a need for this message?”
• “How can I learn more about this and sharpen my own knowledge and passion?”

Can Do vs Called To

Andrew Patton of Covenant Presbyterian Church shared an exercise he is currently conducting with his staff.  As they define the Vision Frame, they are revisiting staff structure based on their strategy (missional map). In order to "leverage existing strengths" on the team, Andrew is asking the staff to reflect every three hours.  At the point of pause, each person makes a list of the things they have done in the last three hours and puts them into one of two columns- "can do" or "called to do." The the lists will inform staff team meeting over the next several weeks as the discern and refine how to best work together and move toward the sweet spot of their personal and corporate calling.