Will Mancini

If you watched my talk at the NINES online conference today, below are the free tools I referenced.

The Vision Frame Summary

The Vision Casting Spider Diagram

Download the Church Unique Visual Summary

Yesterday, I conducted a Church Unique workshop for 10 churches connected to ICF- International Christian Fellowship, headquartered in Zurich. ICF Zurich started in 1990 and now runs almost 3000 in worship at renovated factory in downtown Zurich. ICF Zurich is a one-of-a-kind church, especially in Europe, as it boldly presents the gospel with energy, creativity and culture-savvy leadership.

My favorite part of their Vision Frame is their six style statements. ND Strupler, who leads the movements church planting network shares them below as I put in on the spot outside of the church.

ICF Zurich – Our Style

• At the heartbeat of time: We constantly ask ourselves how church needs to be to attract people today.
• Excited about life: We are excited about life with God and have a positive attitude towards life.
• Experiencing fellowship: We treat one another with love and enjoy life in fellowship.
• Developing potential: We support people and help them to flourish and develop their full potential.
• Giving the very best: We give our very best for God. For we value quality.
• Nothing is impossible: We believe for God nothing is impossible.

If you are interested in learning more about effective church planting in Europe, please leave a comment and I will pass it on to ND.

I believe that every gospel-centered church should have a stunningly unique vision. Now it’s possible for church teams everywhere to have access to a guided process to discover, develop and deliver a clear vision.  The Church Unique Vision Kit is available and I am enjoying the stories from across the country. Here is a new promo video and a few friends who have been through the process.

Where are you on the journey? How can I help you?

No, you don’t need a cooler mission statement so you can call it a mantra. No you don’t need a better sounding slogan. You need to know what the heck your church or ministry is ultimately supposed to be doing and you need to state in a clear, concise and compelling way. This is a leadership statement to direct and integrate all of your thinking, speaking and acting. Let me repeat- this is a leadership statement, not a marketing statement.

Start leading today by doing one or more of these activities.

#1 Rewrite your mission on a sheet of paper as many times as there are words in it. Each time write a different word in ALL CAPS. Reflect on each word of the mission. (Note: If your mission has more than 20 words in it, its too long. Proceed to idea #7)

#2 Look at your worship guide from last Sunday. List all of the ministry opportunity categories that were promoted and force rank them with regard to how effective each is at fulfilling the mission. (Great to do as a team.)

#3 Write the mission real big on a white board or white pad in your office and see how people interact with it.

#4 Ask the next ten people you meet in your church office or church service  if they know the mission of the church. (Make it fun and tell them you are doing research for blogger friend.) Pay attention to their response. (And let me know what happened.)

#5 Do this exercise with a person you are eating lunch with: Write the mission on a napkin and ask them, “What does this mission mean to you?” Listen. Then ask them, “When, if at all, did this mission come into your conscious thought?” Listen again.

#6 Create a five minute devotional using your mission, finding an appropriate biblical text to share.  Use the devotional with the different groups you lead this week.

#7 Read this FREE chapter from Church Unique on mission. It’s called Carry the Holy Orders. If you need to re-articulate your mission statement, spend 30 minutes planning time and decision-making steps to get it done.

#8 Make a list of five people that you believe model the mission of your ministry. Send all five of them a quick note to say something like, “Thanks for living the mission. You inspire me!”

#9 Write your personal “shadow mission.” What tends to drive you practically? What tends to drive your church practically? Go ahead and really write it out. (For example, a shadow mission might be, “We want to draw bigger crowds every Sunday with great teaching and worship.”  Compare and contrast the shadow mission with the real mission. Repent. Share this with other leaders.

#10 Spend time in prayer with you leadership team using your mission. Create time and space to pray through the mission and each word of the mission.

Dennis Easter is a friend of mine who is deeply rooted and widely connected as a catalytic leader in the Foursquare Church. As a Church Unique Certified denominational leader, he appreciates all things vision and passed along this great quote from Steve Pavlina:

“If you aren’t yet at the point of clarity, then make that your first goal. It’s a big waste of time to go through life being unclear about what you want. Most people wallow way too long in the state of “I don’t know what to do.” They wait for some external force to provide them with clarity, never realizing that clarity is self-created. The universe is waiting on you, not the other way around, and it’s going to keep waiting until you finally make up your mind. Waiting for clarity is like being a sculptor staring at a piece of marble, waiting for the statue within to cast off the unneeded pieces. Do not wait for clarity to spontaneously materialize—grab a chisel and get busy!”

My favorite line is, the universe is waiting on you. What phrase struck you the most?