Will Mancini

In Church 3.0, Neil Cole discusses several catalysts for creating movement. One of them is called the “Surprising Proposition.”

First of all why would anyone want to go through life without a Surprising Proposition to share? If we belong to the infinite creator God, are being transformed into the likeness of the living Jesus, and are leading others into eternally significant ministry, wouldn’t it be natural to have a few bold ideas to guide your leadership?

Sure it would.

And, it’s more than worth the time to process, pray, dialogue, wrestle, sweat and figure it out. What is God calling you to do and what difference will it make in the world?

Remember that the Gospel is God’s Surprising Proposition and this message is at the center of everything. Now co-create with God and remix your ministry’s DNA and audacious vision for your time and place.

Neil gives three examples from Church Multiplication Associates in his chapter on the subject:

• “We want to lower the bar of how to do church so everyone can do it, and raise the bar of what it means to be a disciple so that everyone will do it.”
• “If you want to win this world or Christ, you’re going to have to sit in the smoking section.”
• “Bad people make good soil for the Gospel; there’s a lot of fertilizer in their lives.”

Here are a few of ours at Auxano:

• Clarity isn’t everything but it changes everything.
• God wants to do something cosmically significant and locally specific in your church
• If you vision isn’t stunningly unique, you probably don’t have one.

Now grab a journal page or a napkin and give your own a shot. What’s your Surprising Proposition? I would love to hear your ideas!

Leadia was just announced by Leadership Network and it will rollout to the world tomorrow at the online conference, The NINES.  What exactly is Leadia? In short it’s “leadership + media-” It’s a short digital book, combined with embedded video, audio and social media. Check out the intro video:

I have been working with the LN team on it for the past couple of months as a contributor of one of the first four Leadia Experiences. Here is my take on why you are going to love this innovative app.

#1  It’s a totally new genre that’s more fun and more effective than other ways of learning

#2  The experiences are less than 10,000 words so you can interact with them in one sitting

#3  The learning is customized and expandable allowing you to go deeper if you want

#4  New and diverse content will come from a broader range of authors

#5  The content costs less than a book and lots of ebooks

#6  It’s downright fun because use you can be surprised as you go through the experience

#7  It’s great for individual or team use.

I will be sharing about my contribution (FLUX: Four Paths to the Future) once Apple approves it for publication within the Leadia app.

Before jumping into this third post on “Vehicles for Vision” I want to remind you that it’s useless to talk about vision delivery if you are a little foggy on vision. Don’t feel bad if you are- it takes attention, time and work, but the payoff is infinite.  Here is the tool you may want to use to nail down the identity and direction of your ministry- we call it the Vision Frame.

Now…

Is it possible that there is one vehicle of vision that is literally a missing link? For practical purposes, yes.

The missing link is the leadership pipeline as the second vehicle for vision.

Why? The answer requires a bit of explanation.

Remember, because it’s easy for a pastor to rely on preaching alone to deliver vision, they can miss the more important vehicle of the church’s connecting environment. We dealt with this challenge in the first post.

Now, let’s say that you agree that vision should be delivered through small groups or whatever version of group life that your church serves up. The big question is then, “How do you lead through the volunteer leaders who facilitate and guide group life?” The question reveals why a leadership pipeline is the missing link. It’s impossible to conceive of using your connecting environment as a vehicle for vision if you don’t have a linkage or some mechanism to make your connecting environment leaders carriers of the vision. Strangely, this leadership development piece is missing in most churches.

The quick test of wether or not you have this in place is a few simple questions:

• When was the last time every leader in your church gathered for training and vision casting?
• What does your church do to build a leadership community identity among all leaders?

Again, when I ask these questions, I often receive a blank stare.

We miss this important ministry of leadership development for two primary reasons.

First, pastors are taught study scripture, preach, and maybe even lead small groups. But most pastors are NOT trained in how to develop leaders.  As a result pastors can focus entirely on DOING the ministry rather than RAISING UP others to do them ministry. (The purpose of this post in not to argue for the basic, nuts and bolts Ephesians 4:11-14, but it may be worth revisiting the text.) Second, if your church has a few decades of history, you have existing structures and decision-making processes that simulate “leadership” but don’t function as a “leadership pipeline.” That is, increasing numbers of leaders are not multiplied and mentored through a process in which the vision and DNA of the church is transferred.

So here is a set of questions to get you thinking about what a leadership pipeline might look like:

If you had to rely on your small group leaders or class facilitators alone to deliver the vision…

• How often would you get this group together?
• How much time would you spend with them?
• How much time as a group vs. one-on-one?
• What kinds of things would you do together?
• How would you model the vision with them?
• How would you teach them to model the vision?
• How would you train them to communicate the vision?
• How would you pray for these people?
• How would you measure their progress?
• What tools and support would you provide?
• What ongoing questions would you ask them?

In the end, you will never multiply your ministry if there is no dedicated time and process for leaders sharing the vision with other leaders. And this is unfortunately a missing link in American evangelicalism.

If you would like more information on this subject, Aubrey Malphurs and I wrote a book called Building Leaders on how to build a leadership pipeline for your church.

The title of this post came from one of our Church Unique Visual Summary readers. He was able to boil down his review to four words. “Amazing design, profound content.”

Yesterday Auxano sent an announcement that the Visual Summary will be FREE through July.

Sign up for  exclusive Auxano content.

Download the summary.

I am grateful for Eric Geiger, and how he can help your church. As the co-author of Simple Church, Eric and Thom Rainer’s writing has had a significant impact on the church in North America.

But Eric is not an author first, but a leader. He was navigated growth from 1200 to over 6000 in worship attendance at Christ Fellowship in Miami as an executive pastor. In addition to his primary work at Christ Fellowship, Eric now serves as a navigator with Auxano. Imagine spending 6-9 months with a ministry design coach like Eric! Here is a post on his blog where he tells his story. As you check out his story, here is an insight into his thinking at Christ Fellowship. The tool is called the Strategy Book- check it out.

Though God has taken us on distinct journeys, Will Mancini and I share common passions birthed from similar God-given burdens. We long for churches to understand their unique identity so they can most effectively bring transformation to their communities, believe a church must be absolutely clear on mission and strategy, and abhor complex programming and directionless sub-ministries that pull a church in a plethora of contradicting directions.

While Will has pleaded with leaders to not settle for “photo-copied” vision, I have challenged leaders to be careful of a “schizophrenic” direction that results from multiple yet varying philosophies that subtly but inevitably erode at the power of a single direction. In other words, we have shared essentially the same message.

Will founded and leads Auxano (from the Greek word which means growth) to help church leaders navigate growth. I am excited to be a part of the incredible team as a “navigator.” On my “day off” from Christ Fellowship, I come alongside a church leadership team once a month for a 6-9 month process to bring clarity around mission, values, and strategy. I am currently in month three of the journey with a great church outside of Philadelphia. The content and insight we provide through Auxano, I believe, is also making be a better leader for my context. So I am very grateful.

Because of my primary role at Christ Fellowship, my time is very limited and I will only be working with a select few churches a year.

If you are a senior/lead or executive pastor who would like more info about working with Eric, email me here.