Will Mancini

Since I recently posted Craig Groeschel’s new values, I thought I’d share some common pitfalls when articulating values. Call it want you want: values, code, DNA, philosophy of ministry, etc.  Most attempts in ministry to articulate the core motives and driving convictions of the organization or movement don’t amount to much. Of course, our intent is  good, and we have a lot of energy the day they are written. But all to often, we simply populate another web page or birth some bullets for a membership class, without creating a tool that actually helps to shape culture. 

Why do values have so little value?

1. We have too many values. With every value your list, the gravity of you values weakens. If you have too many you have nothing. Your organization may value 10, 17, or even 50 things. The point isn’t to list them all, but to list the 4-6 that matter most. How many values have you spelled out?
2. Values are too generic. When a church regurgitates Rick Warren’s 5 Purposes, it has said nothing specific about the culture of your church. Don’t tell me that you value worship or fellowship or evangelism.  Go deeper. What drives how you worship or experience fellowship?  For example, does worship inspire wonder with the awe of God, or emphasize a personal authentic connection? Right now review your values and ask the question, “Which one of these could be said of every church in North America?”
3. Values are reactionary. Values should be the essence of what you stand for, not the reminder of what you don’t like. For three decades many of our statements have been littered with the terms “excellence” and “relevance.”  But do these terms really say that much about us? I recommend articulating what makes you relevant or what makes you excellent.  Keep pushing through until you get to the core. 
4. Values repeat doctrine. It’s important to be clear on your doctrinal belief system and these beliefs can and should influence your values. But values shouldn’t be limited by restating doctrine. For example you might believe in the authority of scripture or the priesthood of all believers. Again, free your values to show something more specific or in addition to the belief rather than just restating it. For example, one church stated the value of “Truth with Gentleness” to describe the manner with which they teach the whole counsel of God. How many of your values are redundant to doctrine?
5. Values aren’t actionable. Any value that does not give rise to a new thought, emotion, attitude or action is worthless.  I recommend creating a bullet list for every value as a running “demonstrated by…” list. Every team in the ministry can then flesh out the specific meaning and desired outcomes of the shared value in their context. If the code can’t “connect the dots” to  practice, then you won’t gain more than inactive intellectual assent. Are your values springboards for daily action? 
6. Values are too aspirational. If values represent more of what you want to be than what you are, you’ll immediately loose credibility as a leader. There is a time and place for vision, but that is different from values. Two-thirds of your values should be rooted in what you are today. What makes you great right now? Why will you win this week?  Again, don’t be afraid to have some aspirational content. But when you do, be sure to take the lead in sharing them as DNA dreams. Otherwise people will think that you’re smoking something.

So how valuable are your values? Could yours use refreshing? I would love to hear your thoughts or your example of re-articulated values.  After all, Craig Groeschel was man enough to refresh his.

Craig Groeschel knows the value of writing the unwritten. In a 3-part series on “Code,” he is sharing a fresh rework on why they do what they do. So far he has shared 9 of 13 deeply held convictions:

We are faith-filled, big thinking, bet-the-farm risk takers. We’ll never insult God with small thinking and safe living.

We are all about the “capital C” Church! The local church is the hope of the world and we know we can accomplish infinitely more together than apart.

We are spiritual contributors not spiritual consumers. The church does not exist for us. We are the church and we exist for the world.

We give up things we love for things we love even more. It’s an honor to sacrifice for Christ and His church.

We wholeheartedly reject the label mega-church. We are a micro-church with a mega-vision.

We will do anything short of sin to reach people who don’t know Christ. To reach people no one is reaching, we’ll have to do things no one is doing.

We will lead the way with irrational generosity. We truly believe it is more blessed to give than to receive.

We will laugh hard, loud and often. Nothing is more fun than serving God with people you love!

We will be known for what we are for, not what we’re against. There are already enough jerks in the world.

I tell leaders repeatedly, that great accomplishment is accompanied with great clarity. Groeschel didn’t get his vision from a book or a conference but from a God-led, God inspired process. If you didn’t think you had the time to foster conversations and carefully articulate your core code, then consider how much busier Craig should be too. Then consider the cause and effect. Maybe the commitment to processing clarity is one of the primary, dynamic, and systemic reasons for LifeChurch.tv’s effectiveness.  

The secret to processes for discovery or mastery is to avoid straight line thinking. There are two important times when making a “b-line” for something will hinder you. I use both of these diagrams frequently when I navigate the Vision Pathway. 

The first diagram I use is called the “clarity spiral.” I use it when for any visioning process to illustrate an important truth of process: In discovery, vital movement at the beginning of the process will feel indirect and therefore slow. This indirect movement includes steps of preparation, orientation, and perspective development. But with each process step, like a 4 hour collaborative meeting, the movement toward the center speeds up. The first two meetings take you only slightly close to point B, but in the last two meetings you can zip around pretty fast. I had one pastor validate the spiral by using the illustration of his kitchen renovation. He said it felt like his kitchen was a mess all of the time, until the end, when it all came together quickly. If you are leading a discovery processes, lead the journey and set expectations with the spiral . It will buy you the patience you need in the beginning. 

Like a discovery process, you also can’t follow a straight line  in a mastery process.  This simple idea was drilled home in Set Godin’s little book gem called The Dip. Here is the picture from the book. The premise is that you can’t move directly, via straight line, from a basic state to a mastery state in any category. You actually have to go through a season or stage where greater effort yields less results. I call it the tunnel of chaos. It is critical to anticipate this stage to know when enduring the dip is worth it or a waste of time. Any good coach appreciates the dip and the role of encouragement, support and direction to guide someone through it.

Where can you use these drawings this week, or this month in your leadership?

I recently posted why every church is in transition. The next natural question is how do you lead in transition? While leading change is real work,  I think that most leaders make it more difficult than it has to be. Why? The single greatest problem in leading change has to do with the source of meaning in the organization. If you can keep your eye on the ball of meaning, then leading and experiencing change is a whole new ball game.

Here is one principle to focus on: If you want to lead change, change the common denominator first. Think of the common denominator as the most-likely, most common, source of meaning for people every day. The common denominator in your organization today is most likely “the how.” By “the how” I mean  how I, as an individual, get things done, and how we, as an organization, get things done.  The immediate challenge presented with this source of meaning is that “the how” must change to stay viable.  Therefore we want to anchor meaning in something deeper than the “how.” And there are at least three alternatives: what, why and where. (What are we ultimately doing? Why do we do what we do? Where is God taking us?) Properly understood and articulated these can and will sustain a timeless sense of shared meaning.

Therefore your four big roadblocks to leading transition are the four reasons why “the how” is so persistent, even addictive in becoming the deepest source of meaning. Consider:

1. The oppressive, automatic dailyness of “the how”
2. The concrete nature of “the how”
3. The personalities and relational connection within “the how”
4. The tendency to affirm and recognize “the how”

For all of us, “the how” stares is in the face daily almost forcing us to find meaning from it and the patterns, comfort, relational connections, and successes it creates.

But ultimately meaning is waiting to be discovered, found, nourished and celebrated in the what, the why and the where of the organization, not the how. Make no mistake, when vision is clear people are usually more than glad to change “the how.”

A recent consulting engagement provides a stunning illustration of “the how” as a common denominator.  While working with a church in Rochester, NY, I learned about Kodak’s massive decline in the last decade as a global juggernaut in film-based photography. At their peak, Kodak had 82,000 people in Rochester and had 85% of the world market share in film-based photographic imaging products. Now they have 7,000 people in the city and less the 20% of market share. The simple reason boils down to the problem of “the how” as common denominator. Ironically, they were the ones to invent and even patent digital-based photography methods. But the shear momentum and hubris of “the how,” that is,  making images using film, eclipsed the future of making images any other way. Rather than inventing and then leading the new day of photography, they invented it, only to let others to develop the future.

What if every day Kodak employees had been reminded:

1. Our “what” or our big idea is capturing image (and nothing else)
2. Our “why” is beauty, and cherishing human memories, and making image capture accessible to all.
3. Our “where” is doing whatever it takes in innovation and research to lead the world’s ability to capture images.

You can see very quickly how much meaning is creating without having to mention “the how” of film-based processing.

On Tuesday, the Atlanta co::Lab kicked off in typical fashion, talking about our need to reimagine vision & steer clear of thinkholes.  In this first session we do an engaging life map exercise where each church presents a “tradeshow” display of where they’ve been and why they’re at the co::Lab. Given the amazing diversity in the room, one unmistakable dynamic really struck me- every church is in transition.

What’s true of this unique subset of leaders is true anywhere. If you haven’t named it yet, transition is the new normal for the church. Transition is ubiquitous.

Consider these 8 mini-snapshots of transition from the co::Lab churches. Which one do you relate with?

 2 year-old church running 65: ”The first two years we were focused on doing. Now we want to focus on being; we want to start envisioning a new future that’s not running on a hamster wheel.” 

150 year-old Presbyterian church running 250: ”We have set sail for change and we are too far ahead to go back.  But while we’re off shore, we’re not exactly sure where we are going.”

 10 year-old community church running 2500: ”We have always been on mission but how we manifest that mission is different at this size; we need clarity how to do that.”

 25 year-old Southern Baptist church running 220: The team drew a picture of an old church building with the steeple removed. The steeple was replaced with tree growing from the roof.  The caption said, “We are a re-plant in an existing church.”

 0 year-old church with 2 planters: These guys are building their core team and currently have 5 (including girlfriends and wives). At the top of their life map they wrote the word “UNKNOWN.” How’s that for transition?

 1 year-old church running 30: ”We are transitioning from building a stable theological core to focusing outward on cultural engagement.”

 13 year-old church running 1200: “The last two years was a season of pruning and navigating the “train wreck” of an attractional-missional collision. We are now sensing a new day of fruitful mission, but not sure what it will look like.”

40 year-old church running 1300: “We are above average in too many things, pulling in different directions.” The picture of activity without progress was conveyed as a large, new interstate and mix-master, but with no signage. These guys are ready for directional clarity!

Why is transition normative? Our time and place in human history baptizes us with change in many ways:

•  Massive economic shifts
• Communication & technology revolution
• Proliferation of mirco-cultures (increased diversity of age, ethnicity and consumer preferences)
• Declining influence of the church in the West
• Increased diversity of emerging church models

And the list goes on. What kind of transition are you navigating? 

On Good Friday it is interesting to note that our Savior’s leadership was riddled with transition. The climax of which is death, preceding resurrection, preceding ascension.