Will Mancini

Jeff Harris of Grace Point Church in San Antonio provides a six-minute overview to their leadership community of their Kingdom Concept and refined mission.

This is what it’s about: a clear  simple mission with the substance of serious reflection behind it. Right after I watched this video, I dreamed of a day when pastors at conferences don’t announce or asked how many attenders they have at their church, but rather, they ask, “What is your Kingdom Concept?” 

Jeff is one of Auxano’s navigators. As a full-time pastor he takes one church at a time through Church Unique’s vision pathway. Jeff is one of the most passionate and strategic missional leaders I know.

As I put the polishing touches on some of the Church Unique Vision Kit stuff, I am a reviewing 4 reasons why simple design equals vibrant growth. I think of these reasons as a two-sided coin. One side is the benefit to the individual, the other is the benefit to the organization, and in particular the staff and leaders who guide it. Each statement shows the benefits to me and us respectively.

A simple ministry design or “strategy” at your church means:

#1 Fewer choices for me, and simpler structure for us. Why do we think that people want more options today? They want the best, right options and don’t have time to waste. Why do we allow our ministry nuts and bolts, including communication to be so cluttered? 

#2 A clearer pathway for me and real synergy for us. Wouldn’t you like more people engaged in your church? You think you have communicated the “how” to them, but the fact it is, it is still more fuzzy for them than you realize. What would happen if the staff had a really clear game plan that redefined how they can work together?

#3 Better quality for me and focused energy for us. Would you like to immediately and dramatically increase the quality of your best ministry environments? How would people respond if you did?

#4 More life for me and less activity for us. Are your best people at your church just flat at tired? Are you? Why do we insist at having more stuff, when Jesus really isn’t calling us to run programs? Is it possible that less ministry activity really could mean more abundant life and more healthy followers of Christ? 

If these ideas peak your interest, let me know by leaving a short comment and I will post more on this section or e-mail this portion from Church Unique to you. Thanks!

When I was on staff at Clear Creek Community Church, we brought in some consultants who eventually “dropped the ball” with regard to our expectations. In the midst of dealing with the problem and the disconnect on deliverables  they did an excellent job listening and re-calibrating expectations with us. What I learned that day as a solution to a problem I have embedded proactively and preemptively into most of my own consulting with Auxano.  I call it the “Expectations Exercise.” It’s incredibly simple and profound.

Here’s how it works. Usually in a collaborative environment, there are people with different levels of exposure to me and why we are in the room. In addition, people always have varying opinions. So I never start a long-term relationship without requiring every person around the table to state their expectations- their hopes, their dreams, their fears- for our journey together. (I give them an out if they honestly have no expectations.) I will listen, and then summarize their thoughts on the whiteboard. I then keep these ideas before us during the process. The exercise accomplishes three things:

1) It gives me huge insight into their perspective as we begin together.

2) It provides content to stokes the flames of “why we are here” in the middle of a longer engagement when people might loose perspective.

3) It clarifies the scorecard and allows me to mark progress and celebrate wins through the consulting engagement.

Use this exercise and you’ll be glad you did.

One of the most common questions I have been asked is, “What is the best way for
any church to understand how its vision can penetrate and influence the culture
of the church?  In Church Unique I presented the Integration Model that introduces a tool that will help you accomplish just that.  This is not a systems theory model, rather a conversation starting point intended to develop a lifestyle of visionary leadership. It is built by looking at the church through five
perspectives:

• Developing Leadership – How will you use your vision to recruit leaders, develop leaders, structure people, and divide your attention among the right leaders? 
• Intentional Communication – Are you giving your people the language to share your vision through thoughtful intentionality in the complex discipline of communications? 
• Duplicatable Process – What processes are in place that takes your vision beyond what you can do and deposits the vision into the reproducible habits of the entire body? 
• Compelling Environments – How do the environments at your church avoid being an end in themselves, and instead create a means to achieve your vision? 
• Conscious Culture – How living the vision and speaking into the church's culture are powerful tools for building contagious passion in your church's culture?

To help you live out your vision, Auxano Insights will go deeper into each of these perspectives over the next 5 months. Subscribe to follow the conversation.  

It’s two weeks away – I hope to see you there.