Will Mancini

In Church 3.0, Neil Cole discusses several catalysts for creating movement. One of them is called the “Surprising Proposition.”

First of all why would anyone want to go through life without a Surprising Proposition to share? If we belong to the infinite creator God, are being transformed into the likeness of the living Jesus, and are leading others into eternally significant ministry, wouldn’t it be natural to have a few bold ideas to guide your leadership?

Sure it would.

And, it’s more than worth the time to process, pray, dialogue, wrestle, sweat and figure it out. What is God calling you to do and what difference will it make in the world?

Remember that the Gospel is God’s Surprising Proposition and this message is at the center of everything. Now co-create with God and remix your ministry’s DNA and audacious vision for your time and place.

Neil gives three examples from Church Multiplication Associates in his chapter on the subject:

• “We want to lower the bar of how to do church so everyone can do it, and raise the bar of what it means to be a disciple so that everyone will do it.”
• “If you want to win this world or Christ, you’re going to have to sit in the smoking section.”
• “Bad people make good soil for the Gospel; there’s a lot of fertilizer in their lives.”

Here are a few of ours at Auxano:

• Clarity isn’t everything but it changes everything.
• God wants to do something cosmically significant and locally specific in your church
• If you vision isn’t stunningly unique, you probably don’t have one.

Now grab a journal page or a napkin and give your own a shot. What’s your Surprising Proposition? I would love to hear your ideas!

You can’t take your vision public until you’ve articulated your vision. Seems like that should go without saying, right? Kind of like the assumption that you’ve got to fill the pool before you’re going to dive in. But you’d be surprised how many churches and organizations have never taken the time to understand and articulate their unique calling from God. Or maybe you wouldn’t be surprised…because you’ve been a part of them before. Maybe you’re leading one right now.

I’ve been writing and speaking about assessing and articulating vision for years now, so I’m not going to try to summarize Church Unique here. Instead, I’d like to share a couple of pieces of my recent experience in leading Vanguard University through the Vision Frame process. Over a period of about nine months, I facilitated an assessment and articulation process for a group of Vanguard’s key leaders. Each month, we would spend a day or two together, wrestling with different aspects of their Vision Frame to more clearly articulate the unique mission God has given Vanguard. I was honored to work alongside these committed, passionate leaders who have dedicated their lives to Christian secondary education.

By using Vanguard as an example, I’d like to answer the question I am most frequently asked about the Vision Frame process.

Why does it take so long to articulate vision clearly?
Many people assume that clarity means simplicity. That’s not usually the case. The best kind of clarity—clarity that provides fuel for the organization—is only find by slogging through the complexity. Only after wading into the complexity of organizational history, internal dynamics, multiple priorities, personal callings, and, most importantly, listening for God’s voice together, can a leadership team emerge with unified clarity. If you just want a nice mission statement, you can do that in a couple of hours. If you want a fully-formed vision that fills your leaders with an unquenchable fire to do whatever it takes for the cause…it will take a big longer. You can’t microwave clear, compelling vision. Period.

With Vanguard, there were many complex issues that needed to be discussed openly and honestly in the process. We included key people from these different constituent groups (faculty, staff, administration, etc.) in the core team, but at significant points in the process, we needed to hear from the wider group as well. In order for us to be able to move forward confidently, it was absolutely critical to hear the voice of the larger group. And (this is important), we had to be willing to go back and make adjustments to the way we had articulated things based on their input. There are times when a leadership team must listen and adjust and other times when a team needs to set the direction clearly, inviting everyone to join in. A wise leader knows which is which and leads accordingly.

Do you see why it takes longer than you think to fill the pool with a clearly articulated vision? You’re going to need people to help you maintain the pool and invite others to jump into the pool in the future, so you can’t do it all yourself. Articulating vision clearly is a collaborative effort, not an individual task.

Vanguard’s Vision Frame
After months of work with Vanguard, here’s the result…their Vision Frame. Over the next few posts in this series about Taking Vision Public, it’ll be important for you to have their Vision Frame in mind so that you can see how all the different pieces work together and are built on this foundation.

Mission
Equipping students for a Spirit-empowered life of Christ-centered leadership and service.

Values
Truth – We pursue truth by knowing Christ who is Truth.
Virtue – We honor God by committing ourselves to the person and model of Jesus Christ.
Service – We develop our talents to their potential and discern God’s purpose for our lives.

Strategy
Cultivating the Spirit-empowered life in Christian experience and service
Promoting academic excellence that integrates faith and life
Providing professor-mentors in a dynamic community environment

Measures
Spiritual vitality
Academic excellence
Institutional health

As a part of articulating the Measures, we developed what we called the Vital 9, a grid of more specific mission marks in the life of each student. The Vital 9 were developed by placing the values on one side of the grid and the measures on the other side of the grid and describing the resulting attitudes and attributes that Vanguard wanted to see in each student.

This Vision Frame articulated the unique vision and approach of Vanguard, filling the pool with clear, refreshing water. That meant it was time to move on to the next step of vision-soaked communication…the tagline. We’ll cover that next time.

How do you effectively invite people to take an active part in your vision? This is a constant challenge for leaders of every organization I work with. The answer? Vision-soaked communication. Get clear about your vision, develop a palette of tools to communicate it, and then let it soak into and through every way you communicate.

This is what the best organizations in the world do so well. Apple. Starbucks. Target. Every piece of communication or interaction you have with these organizations is absolutely soaked in their vision, mission, and values. Just when you read the names of those organizations, colors and feelings were evoked inside of you, weren’t they? That’s the power of vision-soaked communication.

And, just in case you’re tempted to go here, this  approach to vision-soaked communication is not just about “secular marketing strategy.” These same principles fueled the way Jesus and his first followers used as they announced and demonstrated the Good News. “The kingdom of God is here!” they announced. And then they used all sorts of imagery and compelling language to tell more about what they meant…and they invited people to live in this new reality.

And although the communication tools at our disposal today look very different than they did 2000 years ago in the towns and villages of Israel, the ideas and the approach are still the same. How do we invite people into a vision that could change the world? I believe it’s a part of our calling as church leaders to wrestle with this question and find creative methods to share the message God has given us in the most compelling, grab-you-by-the-heart-strings, kick-you-in-the-gut ways possible. That’s why communication matters so much in the church.

Through a series of posts, we’ll look at six steps to vision-soaked communication. Here’s an overview.

Step 1: Fill the Pool – Articulating Your Vision

Step 2: Boil it Down – Developing Your Tagline

Step 3: Describe the Water – Crafting Your Key Messages

Step 4: Tap into the Thirst – Communicating the Big Why

Step 5: Break out the Hose – Leveraging Every Medium

Step 6: Drip, Drip, Drip – Talking Vision Daily

As we walk through these steps together, we’ll look at a specific example of an organization we recently worked with: Vanguard University. Although this series of posts will speak specifically about church communication, there are many parallels and, hopefully, a non-church example will help you to focus on the approach I’m presenting and not the specific language in each step. (Vanguard is a Christian university in southern California with a great vision for training and equipping Christian leaders.)

I truly believe that if you can learn to leverage the power of these six steps, your communication will be soaked with vision and your church will gain more momentum toward achieving that vision.

In the last month I have been evaluating a pretty big decision. One of those kinds where, for better or worse, my resting moments are flooded with pros and cons and “what ifs.”  Here are some things I have been been doing in the process of discernment.

#1 Keep it about the walk.

Whatever the decision, remember Jesus is walking next to you and your life belongs to Him. How will the decision affect your relationship with Him? This question alone should be the only one you need to ask. During this season, I have been reflecting on the pattern of big decisions in my life and relishing the memories of Jesus guiding me for 30 years. Prayer this way becomes more than an act, it’s an expression of long relationship.

#2 Don’t get advice, get better questions.

Getting advice is a no brainer. The real pursuit is getting better questions. You will have the top three or four people from whom you receive general wisdom. What about the next 15-20 who can give you special, very specific insight? With each person, ask, “What other questions do I need to consider about _________?” or “Here is an assumption I am working from, but what question am I not considering?” I have had some big explosions of insight by asking these questions.

#3 Create a tug-o-perspective-war.

It’s important to “mine out” the conflict and tension of the decision. I even imagine a tug-of-war of different perspectives. Who can you enlist to pull on the different sides by offering new perspective? Of course you’ll have to live with the internal battle in keeping the first and last “move” of this list in mind. In the last month I have different sides “winning” as I stack each side of the rope with new people offering new points of view.

#4 Travel in time, while watching time.

God gave you an imagination so that you could dream forward and exercise faith. While we can’t predict the future, you can play out your decision, and practice in your minds-eye the blessings and byproducts of your big decision. How does the decision change your life in the next year? In the next ten years? How will the tone of the hours of your day be affected? How will all of your key relationships be affected? The list goes on. Remember there are times when your creative mind is more active, like the fringes of sleep and hypnotic states, like taking a long shower or driving. I intentionally use these times. But remember to watch your time. Don’t make a decision to quickly, and don’t forget that some opportunities expire. You only have the lifetime of the opportunity to leverage the opportunity of a lifetime.

#5 Do the trust fall.

In the end, every decision is an act of trust. Remember that crazy thing you did at camp when you were a kid? You really didn’t know if your buddies were going to let you hit the ground for a laugh. But you did it. You let go. You trusted. The final act of the decision-making process is the moment of commitment. How does this act of trust feel for me? I simply tell God, “I have listened and discerned as much as possible and I am making this decision for you. If this is not the right decision, I trust you to show and to direct my path. Everything I have and I am belongs to you.”

Right now, everything you do or don’t do is guided by a set of underlying values. The same is true for your church. Culture-savvy leaders understand how to mold the invisible stuff of values to shape, like clay, the atmosphere, attitudes, actions and automated responses of their teams.

What if we were to x-ray the intuitive movements of  great values-based  leaders? What would we see?

What if we were to  make even more conscious our intentions towards culture-shaping leadership? What core practices would come to the surface?

Here are seven:

#1 Articulation: The first step of culture-shaping is to identify, name and define. That’s what it means to be human- bringing meaning through how we label and distinguish within the created world and within the world we want to create. You can’t mold in the real world what you don’t hold in the mental world. So, what are you holding? What are your top 3 or 4 culture-shaping aspirations?

#2 Imitation: You teach what you know, but you reproduce what you are. Your life is broadcasting and multiplying a values set. How is that values set being consciously transferred by you, even though the receiver may not know it?

#3 Mechanism: If you lead a team or an organization, you have the authority to create a shared experience or a roll-out a new process. Think of a mechanism as an event or process that clarifies, restores, aligns or attunes your people with an existing shared value. Think of this as a wake-up call that shakes up business as usual.

#4 Collision: Oftentimes values get clear and concrete at the very moment they are violated. Or it may be a time of testing or crisis that brings a “near violation.” Look for collisions in the past and potential ones in the future to rehearse and strengthen values. As a leader don’t be afraid to name when you missed a values-based decision or needed a realignment yourself. That may be the most important impression you ever leave.

#5 Decision: Consciously run your decisions, big and small, through the filter or your values. Most importantly combine this with “imitation” and walk through a conscious decision-making process with your team using your values. What decisions are you facing today? What are your biggest decisions in 2012?

#6 Question: Dialogue is one of the leader’s greatest tools. And dialogue works best with questions, not answers. Ask questions to clarify, to meddle, and to rethink. Pose questions for your team to answer. Specifically bring bold questions that force new thinking around the same values.

#7 Celebration: The most often cited culture-shaping activity is celebration. People repeat what’s rewarded. Make sure you take time for this. If this is one of your perpetual weaknesses, assign someone on the team to plan the moments that mark your church’s progress. Life is too short not to celebrate!