Will Mancini

In the last few weeks, I have received several requests for summaries of Church Unique, from Ed Stetzer to the denominational leadership of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. At the same time, my recent post on knowing the one sentence summary of what you are reading, started some interesting conversations. So, on my flight to Utah for spring break, after my MacBook Air batteries died, I opened my Moleskin and wrote down my most important summary ever. It is a snapshot of Church Unique in 111 words. It is built with 37,  three words phrases, that may be linked to form a line of thought. 

Why did I write this? Three reasons: First, to help people see the full stream of content and catch the vibe of the book in less than 60 seconds. Second, to have fun with my own enjoyment of simplicity and clarity. Third, to outline a Visual Summary eBook that I want to provide for the book in the near future. 

PART ONE: RECASTING VISION

• God is big [and] 
• You are called [so] 
• Churches are unique [but] 
• Pastors are copycats [therefore]
• Vision is caged [because]
• Imagination is buried [and]
• Talk is cheap [so]
• People are stuck. 

PART TWO: CLARIFYING VISION 

• Clarity changes everything [but]
• Chaos is required [yet]
• Simplicity is beautiful [and]
• Focus is amazing [because]
• Movement is waiting.
• Jesus is clear [and]
• Legacy is speaking [so]
• Get clear now.
• Clarity starts singular [while]
• Glory is ultimate [and]
• Discipleship is given [so]
• What’s your part?

PART THREE: ARTICULATING VISION

• Clarity expresses fivefold [so]
• Solve a puzzle [and]
• Use a compass [and]
• Light a fire [and]
• Show the way [and]
• Hit the bulls-eye [then]
• Dream a little [and]
• Paint a lot [and]
• Mark your steps.

PART FOUR: ADVANCING VISION

• Movement is made [as]
• Soft stuff attunes [and]
• Hard stuff aligns.
• “Positive no’s” work [to]
• Bring people aboard.
• Don’t stop talking [until]
• Everything is integrated.
• Don’t stop believing [that]
• God dreams big.  

If you are reading a book (non-fiction), don’t continue until you know the singular reason why the book was written. This reason should reveal the problem that the book is trying to solve. The value of any book and all of its parts is tied to this double-barreled clarity: A singular what and a compelling why.

Why would I fire up a post on this topic right now?  Yesterday, Warren Bird of Leadership Network, asked me to do a conference call with a group of seminary students at Alliance Theological Seminary. They are going through Church Unique as a text. The first question I got asked is, “How would you state the purpose of your book in one sentence?” In all honestly the question bugged me a bit, because I went through great pain to provide the clear answer to that in the introduction. It revealed to me the reality that most people don’t connect their reading back to singular clear purpose, even when an author points it out clearly.

Here are the problems if you don’t know the purpose of the book and the problem it solves:

• You might be wasting your time on a book and topic of no relevance to you
• You might not appreciate the difference between books that are well written and poorly written
• You might misinterpret what is being said through the content of the book
• You might apply a solution to a problem that was not the problem the book addresses
• You might not appreciate the problems that the author experienced before you do

Well this might sound a little to anal to you, but for me, its about being clear.  There are more books out there that I could read in my lifetime, so its important for me to digest every book with intentionality. The two exceptions for me with non-fiction books are reading for entertainment or enjoying a biography for inspiration.

Just for fun, here is the singular reason I wrote Church Unique  (seen in the excerpt below). It is to challenge the reader to find their Church Unique- that is, to live a vision that creates a stunningly unique, movement oriented church.

The problem that the book solves is unpacked in the first four chapters of the book (below) and reveals the problems and pitfalls of two decades of “visioning.” The bottom line is that most work done under the banner of “visioning,” in the local church is a waste of time. How’s that for a problem statement?

• Unoriginal Sin – Neglecting Uniqueness
• The Fall of Strategic Planning – Obscuring the Essence
• The Iniquity of Church Growth – Caging the Kingdom
• Lost Congregations – How Churches Adapt to the Vision Vacuum

Here is the excerpt from the introduction:

Neue is a new quarterly journal by Relevant Media that just rereleased with a more readable magazine format and leadership savvy content. The tagline is “Ideas Shaping the Future of the Church.”  A very short article by Scot McKnight (his blog) was a particular jewel in this new issue. It doesn’t look like the content will be online anytime soon. Here are my highlights for the article Copycat Church:

In summary, Scot concisely and articulately connects the problem of copying methods and programs from other churches to a defining observation he has made in his career as a theologian and biblical scholar. He calls it his most important discovery of the last decade. In his own words:

For me the most important discovery in the last decade, of biblical and theological studies was two-fold: First, I realized that Jesus’s language was not sacrosanct for Paul and Peter and others.

 Second, I realized they were doing exactly what Jesus was doing. That is, Jesus wasn’t “imitating” anyone when he articulated the movement of God in terms of “Kingdom of God.”  He didn’t find this in Moses, or David, or Isaiah and restore it to its proper place, and the early Christian apostles didn’t “imitate” Jesus by expressing the Gospel with “Kingdom of God.”

The thrust of this article, carries the heartbeat of the ministry of Auxano and the book Church Unique: Every local congregation should think through their local context and their particular calling from God. And when they do, the articulation of their identity and direction will be stunningly  unique!  Scot’s emphasis is that even the inspired biblical authors didn’t copy each others words. Therefore, and even though we have the foundational revelation of Scripture, the Holy Spirit still creates new articulation of the Gospel through his people for different places and times. Here are some quotes from the article. 

• Imitation has its place, but one thing imitation doesn’t promise is results. Unfortunately a lot of church leaders don’t get that fact.
  
•  You can’t imitate Spirit-empowerment. You either have it or you don’t.
  
•  There is one thing that’s clear: There is no movement of God apart from God’s empowering Spirit.
  
•  The New Testament suggests that Spirit-empowered movements articulate the Gospel for a particular context for that day.
  
•  Spirit, context, Gospel, word. Those are the elements of a genuine movement of God.
  
•  The apostolic witness is the foundation of the Spirit-shaped truth of the Gospel. However, this does not mean that we simply puppet, or imitate the words of Jesus or Paul- for the New Testament does not do that itself.
  
•  What we need is less imitation and more discernment through God’s Spirit.

Thanks to all the folks at the C3 Conference (Creative Church Culture) who quickly sent this video as it brought to mind Church Unique.  Ed Young Jr’s creativity is off the charts as usual, and this time he brings a video with a message close to my heart. Enjoy! He is the pastor of FellowshipChurch.com