Will Mancini

One of the best tweets that I received this year was the quote, “Are you going through life or are you growing through life?” This quote forces me to consider the areas of development in my life in which I am tempted to coast.

One of the those areas is my ability to empower and release others. While I constantly aspire to empower others, I am constantly amazed at the conditions of my heart that hold me back.

In 2004, when Aubrey Malphurs invited me to co-author Building Leaders, my favorite chapter to write was The Challenge of Empowerment. It is still my favorite chapter because it is the heart-building, character-shaping nature of empowerment that is hardest to realize. I recently reread the chapter and felt thoroughly rebuked by my own words.

I thought you might enjoy a free copy, as an opportunity to refresh your own commitment to empowering others this upcoming year. But don’t read it unless these four heart challenges ring true with you.  The summary chart below gives you an appetizer of the chapters content, questions and exercises.

#1 Empowerment increases he scope of unknown ministry outcomes.

#2 Empowerment requires a sacrifice of short-term ministry efficiency.

#3 Empowerment requires giving away authority that previously provided the basis of personal ministry success.

#4 Empowerment necessitates close support and authentic community with other leaders.

Before engaging this post, please know that I want you to reach as many people as possible with the gospel of Jesus for the Glory of God.  The challenge is simply a matter of how. Here is the Tribes quote I would like you to consider:

Almost all growth that’s available to you exists when you aren’t like “most people” and when you work hard to appeal to folks who aren’t “most people.”

We often talk about the downside of trying to be “all things to all people” through an organizational approach to ministry that leaves us “nothing to anybody.”

Seth Godin introduces another way of looking at the same tension, by using the phrase “most people.” In a nutshell he shares that tribes have dramatic results when stop trying to reach “most people” and can focus on their strength, their niche and their unique vision.  

Even strategic church leaders can slip into a subtle desperation of wanting to reach “most people” and miss the opportunity to leverage their strengths to reach more people. Again we run into the dynamic, counter-intuitive principle that focus expands. 

Its that simple- do you want to reach “most people” or more people? 

• How are the people in the community God has given you to reach not like “most people?”
• How are you and your team not like “most people?”
• How does your ________________ limit you from reaching “most people?”  Insert in blank: Church building (or lack of), programs, worship style, denomination, etc.
• Look at the ministry of Jesus.  Was he always trying to reach “most people?”
• Consider the four Gospels. Why are there four? Was each one written to “most people?”
• How would you summarize the people you are best at reaching with five words? 

Note: Some of these question are not easy and may lead to very robust conversations. Engage the dialogue and work through to clarity.

Seth Godin writes with a dash of bravado and his overstatements are both playful and insightful. But on the topic of communication, he delivers what he calls “the essential lesson” and it’s not exaggerated.

“The essential lesson is that every day it gets easier to tighten the relationship you have with the people who choose to follow you.”

If you have even dipped your toes in the world of social media, you know that this is true. The question is what are you doing about it?

Consider some interesting facts from my last week regarding twitter alone:

• While at Chilis, my 16-year old son showed me people tweeting close by on Google maps from a new app.
• Todd Wilson of Exponential, personally invites speakers to tweet about the conference 7 months in advance with 70 pre-written promotional tweets.
• Last night I watched the pre-recorded service video of Matt Chandler because a friend tweeted it.  I saw this the same day his congregation did as I continue to praying for him.
• While at my home church yesterday, I tweeted two of my favorite quotes from the service.
• I talk to dozens of people every week who tweet about the book Church Unique.
• Twitter “lists” is a new function that is making it easier to meet and organize people to follow.
• After the Houston co::Lab on friday, two participants initiated follow-up direct messages that I was able to reply at a convenient time.

The list could go on and twitter is only one of many tools to communicate. Last night, I played team SWAT on Halo (a popular online XBoX game by Microsoft)  with 7 people at a time among the other 6,000 global game participants at that time. We could talk with one another while we played.  I also enjoyed 30 Thanksgiving photos of my nephews and nieces sent to me via Shutterfly.

The point is that Godin’s “essential lesson” is sitting there with crystal clarity begging leaders to act. So the big question today is:

What are you doing to tighten your connection with people who follow you?

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?

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.