Will Mancini

Sometimes the real problem is not the problem. And this year at Qideas the real content was not the content. What do I mean? When you line up dozens of speakers on various topics for an immersion learning event, often the patterns and perspectives bring the richest insight. If you are not familiar with Qideas, check it out, and more importantly, the learning event from which Q was adapted- TED. Here are my moleskin reflections on the flight home:

#1 The day belongs to the sound bite savvy. At Q there is a visible timer, and speakers have 18, 9, or 3 minutes to share their idea. Two lucky people get an entire 36 minutes. Some people made fun of it, some people ignored it and some people aced it.   The bottom-line is that some 3-minute presentations where unmistakably more powerful than 36-minute ones. Taking the time to refine and articulate your ideas is critical. If you can’t deliver the entire message in 20 seconds, you’re not ready to give it at all. 

#2 Cross a boundary to birth a passion. The conviction that fuels a life of significant service is often birthed at a “boundary crossing.” You know when you have experienced a crossing like this (ethnic, social-economic, etc.) because you never see life the same: the short-term trip to Haiti, adopting a child, really befriending someone of a different race or sexual orientation. The list goes on. At Q you’re drenched with pleas for social action from nuclear arms to Tom’s shoes; from to “do good” coffee, to fathering the fatherless. While I appreciate the value of their cause-orientation, I think the effectiveness of involving people is found wanting. For example, many people passionately push the “boundary crossing” that marked their own soul, rather than helping people see their own boundary opportunities.

#3 Grow your mind by deconstructing your ideas. One highlight of Q was watching Brian McLaren and Scot McKnight dialogue on some hot theological topics.  Much attention was given to the definition of the gospel. One problem as leaders, is our ability to live with tons of packed assumptions in the words that are our most important words, like “gospel” or “salvation.” To deconstruct these words, is to trace the layering of ideas that hundreds of years of history and culture form.  In addition we can scrutinize our own life history to better understand why we believe what we believe. For example, McLaren challenged the audience by asserting the Old Testament idea of  salvation as NOT including the notion of eternal life. McKnight, reminded us how easy it is to take our understanding of the gospel out of its narrative context for the people of Israel.

#4 The bigger the context the better the insight.  The speakers who added the most value have some contextual expansion to leverage. The greater context may be geographic (world perspective), historical (bringing time-forged insights on a single topic), or specific combinations of technical disciplines.  The problem with expanding you context is that it always challenges the stasis our your current perspective.   

What’s my take-away?  These are my four questions:

• Where have I not taken time to sound-bite my most important ideas?
• What is the next boundary that God wants me to cross?
• What are the most common words in my leadership and what assumptions do they contain?
• How can I enlarge my context to bring more insight into my calling? 

At the Exponential Conference last week I made a new friend- Scott Williams, a campus pastor at LifeChurch.tv. I knew of Scott from his blog, BigisTheNewSmall.com, which is ranked on Kent Schaffer’s Top 100 Church Blogs. We had a great time talking about church consulting, the culture at LifeChurch, his new role at Vanderbloemen Search Group, and finally blogging. So I asked, “What are your secrets?” 

He shared three things:

#1 Find your voice.  This insight is huge, but many bloggers don’t intentionally cultivate their voice.  I find that voice comes from one of three places: 1) your content specialization, 2) your unique perspective from life experience,  or 3) your raw personality. There is always a blend of these three ingredients, but one defines the others; one is the top of the triangle. Scott blogs about a lot of stuff and can cover lots of angles from family, to church, to social media, to leadership in general. So his voice is really determined by his personality. You see why very quickly when you spend time with Scott and catch it immediately from his blog title. What does BigisTheNewSmall mean- read it here. Scott is energetic, fun, and very insightful and it shines through his blog.

#2 Contribute consistently.  Okay, you’ve heard that before. What struck me was a simple illustration he used. He said,  “What would you read more- a good newspaper that came every day, or a great newspaper that you were never sure was coming?” That sold me more on the consistency argument. The most helpful thing I have ever heard on consistency was when Seth Godin wrote, “I blog regularly not because I have to, but because I get to.” Boom! Is you blog a calling or a chore? 

#3 Drip in Content on Social Media.  If you haven’t heard this yet, it really is a secret. Scott makes a connection of his voice with social media once every 5-6 posts. They key here is not jumping out of your voice but finding the overlap, the sweet spot. For example, my voice is defined first by content expertise around clarity and vision. My number one post in the last 6 months is one on the clarity overlap with blogging, The Christian Blogger’s Dilemma and What to Do About It. Think about that for a minute, and consider the implications for yourself.

On a recent post, Revisit Your DNA, I was asked by Kevin Rossen if it’s worth even stating values. I wish this was a silly question, but it’s not. It’s easy to run into weak examples of values articulation and more importantly, feeble efforts at developing leaders. In such a context it is worth examining the whole idea.

Placed in context of vision and clarity, values, or what I call missional motives, define 1/5 of the equation. Of five things we must be clear on, the question of “why we do what we do” is critically important. I think of values as springboards for daily action, the glue of the team, and collective soul of the church. Why should you state what you value?

1. Enable your ministry to do more of what it does best
2. Define the basis of good decision-making in order to release leaders
   
3. Free your church to say no to things other churches do
   
4. Connect people emotionally to the stuff that never changes
5. Facilitate change easier because the core ideals are clear
6. Attract more people (staff, leaders, members) who share your motives
7. Filter out people who don’t share your values (blessed subtraction) 
8. Demonstrate God-honoring unity AND collective personality
9. Increase trust by making what’s most important more concrete
10. Create enthusiasm because everyone knows “why we are going to win”

The technical definition of values in Church Unique is “shared convictions that guide decision-making and reveal the strengths of the church” Remember, a river without banks is just a large puddle. What matters most in your church or ministry?

Four days at Exponential 2010 brought  hours of speaking, listing to great talks and countless conversations with thought leaders, network leaders and pastors from many tribes.  Here are my four top reflections. 

#1 There is a huge difference between church planting and movement cultivating (and some still don’t get the difference.) The most important positive change in ministry in North America is not just the increasing interest in the practice of church planting, but the increasing emphasis on the practice multiplying movements, of which, church planting is one step. It’s very easy to plant a church without engaging in ministry that multiplies. Two newly released books that will clarify the difference are Viral Churches by Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird and Exponential by Dave and Jon Ferguson. I am truly excited to see God at work to make the reality of multiplication more clear and accessible to leaders. 

#2 The most acceptable idol in ministry today is missional service. This idea was stirred  by a comment by Matt Chandler. I will paraphrase it: “Transformation comes through our relationship to Jesus, not through our engagement  in mission.” Anytime good things happen in the name of Jesus, the good thing can eclipse Jesus. Right now, altruism is in and much activity is happening in the name of “external focus,” “missional communities” and social justice. Let’s beware of thinking too highly of our own goodness or allowing the Martha in us to work out the Mary in us.

#3 Great partnerships are important for great accomplishments. The testimony of Exponential itself is one of amazing growth through partnerships. I was impressed with how may networks and denominations made Exponential an internal gathering time (the Auxano team did as well). But this didn’t just happen. It was carefully engineered by Todd Wilson who didn’t target church planters as the primary audience but church planting network leaders. Everywhere you looked it was possible to spot a partnership in many different forms that you would not necessarily see at other conferences. What was modeled by the conference was discussed as content as well. In particular I liked Billy Hornsby’s talk on the Five Relationships for Movements. The fifth kind of relationship he lists is a partner, defined as “groups that want to identify with your idea and are ready to promote it or even finance it.” 

#4 Evangelical churches still exist in a vision vacuum. Most of our momentum in ministry today is still driven by personalities, crowd dynamics and great facilities, not vision. For example the church that hosted the conference had vision posters up all over the place, but if you asked the volunteers about the vision of the church, all you got was a deer-in-the-headlights stare. I talked with two pastors both from different very large, rapid growing churches. They were quick to say, “We are doing better with clarity that we ever have.” Yet with a very simple clarity test, it was fairly obvious that these assertions were misguided. Of course this touches my holy discontent, so I tend to see it readily. And I am grateful that for the continual hunger and amazing response from pastors who see the opportunity of clarity tools like the Kingdom Concept and Vision Frame. We ran out of Church Unique twice at the conference.

The last two days I spoke for a total of 7 hours at The Exponential Conference in Orlando. It started with Pre-Conference track where I walked through the four-fold Vision Pathway. Then I spoke in the Reproducing Movements track with Alan Hirsch, Dave & Jon Ferguson, Billy Hornsby, Greg Surratt and Efrem Smith.

I opened the talk with two movement killers:

• CONTROL (Leadership Issue)
• COMPLEXITY (Organizational and Communication Issue)

I then summarized how we must overcome “thinkholes” and frame clarity to achieve one of THE essential ingredients of reproducing, movement oriented vision:

•  EGOLESS CLARITY

I am grateful to Matt Erikson who did a fantastic job capturing some notes from this talk and very complete notes from the PreConference. 

Here’s one thought that I contributed to the conversation on reproducing movements:

Reproduction and Imitation Don’t Mix. It takes so much conviction and courage to lead a movement that reproduces that if you aren’t thinking your way through your own DNA and unique model of ministry it just won’t happen. The fountainhead of every great movement was a moment of original, God-inspired clarity.