One Question to Improve Your Cause
Do you lead a cause or an organization? “Wait,” you answer, “I lead both!” In that case let me ask it a different way:
Do you lead an organization with a cause, or a cause with organization?
There’s a big difference.
In an “organization with a cause,” leadership prioritizes the organization itself ahead of the cause for which the organization exists. From vision and strategy to systems and budgets, everything leans toward building and preservation of the institution. The value of “order” is placed ahead of need for “progress.” Despite the presence of a God-honoring cause, the sharp edge of a dynamic mission and risk-taking spirit grows dull. Eventually, a blunt point on the arrow of purpose stops penetrating the world and taking new distance.
Leaders don’t feel this “frog-in-the-kettle” dynamic. The cause cools over time. It dilutes without notice, because the organization has a large life of its own. Keeping the organization going feels good. It validates our success in the eyes of others. We can be impressive leaders when leading an organization with a cause.
In a “cause with organization,” however, the leadership’s emotional commitment to the organization itself is always subordinate to the emotional commitment to the cause. Decisions are made rigorously around expanding the cause-outcomes. Vision is visceral. Self-preservation is not even on the radar, because death-in-dramatic-attempt is more attractive than life-in-playing-it-safe.
In such a state, organization is not neglected. It’s important because it’s a platform for and instrument of the cause. But it refuses to take a life of its own. The organization is always changeable, rearrange-able and negotiable.
We usually only see this beautiful dynamic early in the life of new cause, like a church plant or social sector initiative. With success it doesn’t take long before the organization-cause equation reverses. Early on, leaders go for broke. Once established, we do anything to keep the organization from going broke. Risk is “immature” and “irresponsible.” The gravity of our nicety wins the day. Loosing the benefits of the organization hurts more than not taking new ground for the cause.
So what does a leader do to keep the cause first?
The answer always lies in the heart of the top 3-5 leaders in the organization.
- How does the leadership team embody the cause?
- What keeps them awake at night?
- What is winning the tug-of-war between safety and risk in their collective soul?
- How many times do personal benefits invisibly weigh-in with decision-making?
Ask these questions for yourself. Then ask these questions as a team. Identify the first places that each team member is susceptible to “organization-before-cause”
Commit to a new action together that firmly models and reinforces a “cause-before-organization” commitment. Improve your cause with one question this week: What are you leading?
The Church as Redemptive Tribe: 6 Ingredients
One year ago, I blogged a 7 part series that I thought was worth revisiting on the application of Seth Godin’s book, Tribes, to church leadership. Because I picked up the pace of writing since that time, many have started following my blog after this series was posted. The six ingredients of a redemptive tribe are passion, leadership, movement, communication, focus, and greatness.
Post #1: Take Seth Godin to Church: Here I introduce the series, challenging readers on how they apply the information they read from books. I set up the driving question of the series: Are you managing a program factory or are you leading a redemptive tribe?
Post #2: How Passionate is Your Tribe – 5 Team Questions: In this post I talk about the first ingredient of a redemptive tribe: Passion. I include some practical team questions. Every leader in your church can be placed on a continuum of emotional ownership. How do you increase their passion?
Post #3: Pastors are Tribal Leaders – 4 Things We Must Do: This post brings the second ingredient, leadership, to the forefront with four imperatives for every local church pastor. I pull my favorite quotes from Godin and spend more time on the fourth “must do:” Committing before its successful.
Post #4: Limit Your Limitations: The third ingredient of a redemptive tribe is movement. Here are some incredible questions to think through as a team about your story, your communication, and your unintended barriers to doing more as a church.
Post #5: The Essential Lesson of Tribal Communication: The fourth ingredient of communication brings us to a one primary application. What is the most principle for us to apply?
Post #6: Stop Trying to Reach Most People: This provocative little post had the highest hits in the series last year. I think you will enjoy the counter-intuitive principle here on tribal focus, the fifth ingredient.
Post #7: Your Church Was Made to Be Remarkable: The final post discusses greatness as the sixth ingredient of a redemptive tribe. Jesus is the most remarkable human to walk the planet. The gospel is the most remarkable message ever communicated. Now look at four quotes from the book through the lens of being a remarkable church.
I hope you enjoy this series and use it with your team. If you benefited from the extended series, please let me know.
Vision Exercise: 18 Questions for Demonstrating Values
When leaders shape organizational culture, they reflect and reinforce values as the things that matter most. Values are often articulated poorly or misapplied in the local church setting. In fact several writers, including my friend Alan Hirsch, see little value in values because so much of what is articulated in the church is “all talk.” But great leaders don’t abandon the idea of values. Rather, they mine out the actionable and demonstrate-able of their culture’s core identity. And remember, values are one of the five aspects of the Vision Frame that you want to have developed.
In order to show the meaning of values, take one value at a time and run each through these 18 questions as a team. You might consider having one person on team doing some pre-work on a particular value. When I work with teams I generally recommend recording 6-8 of your top “demonstrated by” ideas after each value. This will help other leaders appreciate and “live into” doing more of what your church does best.
Value being discussed: _________________________________
- How might this value be demonstrated in how I communicate each day?
- How might someone lead a planning or small group meeting to better reflect the value?
- How might I integrate this value into decision-making processes?
- How might this value influence budgeting process?
- How might this value influence the way I work when I am by myself?
- What is the single greatest thing I can do daily, although unseen by others, that would reinforce this value in my life?
- How might this value affect my time allocations? (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.)
- How might this value influence how I spend time with others?
- How does this value get rewarded?
- How do we celebrate this value together?
- How do we talk about it when people “step over a boundary” with this value?
- What practices need to be created, removed or changed to reinforce this value?
- What strategies need to be created, removed or changed to reinforce this value?
- What policy needs to be created, removed or changed to reinforce this value?
- Which one time catalytic mechanism would most dramatically display our organization’s commitment to this value?
- How do we ensure that this value gets talked about regularly and how often should the conversation occur?
- How do we hold peers accountable to this value?
- What other value in the organization creates the most tension with this value?
People are Talking about the Field Manual for Missional Vision
I ran into Marian Liautaud with Christianity Today last week. She made the remark, “Gosh it seems like Church Unique is staying active as a book.” She meant it as a compliment which I gladly received. But part of me wanted to scream, “That’s because it’s not a book! It’s a field manual for vision.”
I am grateful for the daily e-mails and feedback I get from my heros. My hero is the everyday pastor living out the mission of Jesus. At some point they want to articulate really, really well, their unique calling. Many get charged-up to think that God has given them the stewardship of a vision FOR Him and FROM Him.
Here are a few recent comments I received. First is a pastor from Arizona:
I’m a Sr. Pastor in Tucson, AZ. Over the past 6 months, the leadership of our church used your book as a tool to reshape our vision. It’s been a great success. I recently preached two messages to our church describing what’s next for us. Overwhelmingly, the church is behind it and we’re making adjustments to reach our community. The vision map we created has seemed to be most helpful. People understand their role, and they are excited about it. I just wanted to thank you for sharing your knowledge. The book helped us tremendously. Our church is unique, and it’s clear to see through our vision articulation.
Another Pastor from Idaho…
Church Unique has been a great book for stoking conversation and bringing clarity to the mission of individual churches.Maybe its just the way my mind works, but the illustrations and processes just make sense to me. I just started another round of using Church Unique to help our leaders grab hold of the unique opportunities God has given to us.
What gets me pumped up is the fact that Church Unique is not a book, but an on-ramp to process. A journey of prayer and discernment; a voyage of dialogue, collaboration and risk taking!
I also just heard from a pastor in Kentucky. He is working through the book with 8 other pastors all hammering out their vision together, though the virtual peer learning groups represents churches in five states. I love it!
How is your process going?
Clarity 101 for Outreach Magazine
Links for Two Articles I've Recently Written For Outreach
I am grateful for Lindy Lowry at Outreach Magazine and her interest in publishing topics related to vision and clarity for church leaders. Recently they published:
A feature article on Vision as The Indespensable Element in the Nov/Dec issue. I was really hoping that Bill Hybels was getting old enough that they might put my picture on the cover. No chance, as Bill is aging pretty well! Here is a link to the original article. that builds from chapter four of Church Unique.
A follow-up original article entitled, “Why Your Church Needs a Vision Frame” can be read in it’s entirety at Outreach.
In addition, Brian Orme has done an excellent job launching ChurchLeaders.com (an Outreach Magazine website) and is a great collection of top blog content from many different church leaders. I am grateful for his including my content including two features in October: 7 Checkpoints to a Great Guest Experience. and 10 Power Principles of Church Strategy. You will definitely want to check out these great tools if you haven’t already.
