Will Mancini

It happens every week. I talk to church leaders who think the answer to reaching more people with the gospel and growing more people toward Christ-like maturity  is adding more ministry stuff.  You name it: more staff, more programs, more events, more buildings, more, more, more. I call it “Walmart thinking” because the basic strategy is to put more stuff on the shelf in hoping to attract more people. 

The good news is that when the “7-day-a-week-church” strategy that worked in the 80s rolls around again, your church will be ready! 

Here are the six signs that your church is suffering from this “more is more” deception:

#1 The church is stuck thinking that more programs translates to more life change

#2 The church is deceived by the myth that people want more choices

#3  The church inadvertently thinks that time at church equals spiritual maturity

#4 The church can’t say no to their peoples’ ideas even when the ideas are ineffective

#5 The church allows immature, knowledge-centered spirituality to dictate program offerings

#6 The church contains more religious consumers than growing followers of Jesus

Never forget the cardinal rule of being the church on mission: Programs don’t attract people, people attract people. Most likely your church doesn’t need more things to do. It needs a few things it must do, defined by a clear, simple strategy. This post is adapted from page 150 of Church Unique.

Jarrett Stevens recently moved to Chicago to start Soul City Church. I have enjoyed getting to know Jarrett and his story a bit through his participation in our Vision co::Lab.

A few years ago, Jarrett moved from Willow Creek to lead 722, a singles ministry associated with North Point Community Church, formally spearheaded by Louie Giglio. When I found out that Jarrett was responsible for leading 722 to close its doors, I couldn’t resist a phone call and short interview. I had one question in mind.  How would a strategic bunch of folks, connected to strategy maven Andy Stanley, shut down a ministry?

Here are some notes I made from the interview. Below is Jarrett’s announcement to 722 in 2008.

BACKGROUND

• After Louie Giglio, our team was tasked with taking 722 to the next level
• Louie was incredible communicator and they did great worship
• There was a strategic choice to not offer 722 specific serving opportunities and small groups
• 722 started as a singles ministry but ended up attracting people 16-46 years old

INITIAL LEADERSHIP

• Clarified our vision to reach single folks in the city
• Asked college and high school students to get plugged into their OWN ministry (who wants 30 year olds at their highschool?)
• Half our audience dropped in one night
• Moved to Buckhead campus, better version, although radically different
• We continued with the same basic format of worship and teaching

DISCERNING THE NEED TO STOP

• After a year run, things didn’t take off like we had hoped
• We wanted to reach people that Buckhead church wasn’t already reaching
• We had become more of an alternative service to the weekend without realizing it
• If we can’t be radically unique and absolutely critical, we wondered why we should exist

THE DEFINING MOMENT

• We finally asked two questions as a team
• Q #1: Do you think that 722 is doing what only it can do to reach people that no one else is reaching?
• Q #2: So is there any reason to continue what we are doing now?
• We all concluded that we didn’t want to give our lives to an option.

THREE GREATEST LEARNINGS

• Engage a prayerful process about shutting down the ministry
• The best thing we did was to quit doing what we had always done hoping it would offer different results
• Our greatest challenge as leaders is we can’t see quitting as winning

In the last few weeks, I have received several requests for summaries of Church Unique, from Ed Stetzer to the denominational leadership of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. At the same time, my recent post on knowing the one sentence summary of what you are reading, started some interesting conversations. So, on my flight to Utah for spring break, after my MacBook Air batteries died, I opened my Moleskin and wrote down my most important summary ever. It is a snapshot of Church Unique in 111 words. It is built with 37,  three words phrases, that may be linked to form a line of thought. 

Why did I write this? Three reasons: First, to help people see the full stream of content and catch the vibe of the book in less than 60 seconds. Second, to have fun with my own enjoyment of simplicity and clarity. Third, to outline a Visual Summary eBook that I want to provide for the book in the near future. 

PART ONE: RECASTING VISION

• God is big [and] 
• You are called [so] 
• Churches are unique [but] 
• Pastors are copycats [therefore]
• Vision is caged [because]
• Imagination is buried [and]
• Talk is cheap [so]
• People are stuck. 

PART TWO: CLARIFYING VISION 

• Clarity changes everything [but]
• Chaos is required [yet]
• Simplicity is beautiful [and]
• Focus is amazing [because]
• Movement is waiting.
• Jesus is clear [and]
• Legacy is speaking [so]
• Get clear now.
• Clarity starts singular [while]
• Glory is ultimate [and]
• Discipleship is given [so]
• What’s your part?

PART THREE: ARTICULATING VISION

• Clarity expresses fivefold [so]
• Solve a puzzle [and]
• Use a compass [and]
• Light a fire [and]
• Show the way [and]
• Hit the bulls-eye [then]
• Dream a little [and]
• Paint a lot [and]
• Mark your steps.

PART FOUR: ADVANCING VISION

• Movement is made [as]
• Soft stuff attunes [and]
• Hard stuff aligns.
• “Positive no’s” work [to]
• Bring people aboard.
• Don’t stop talking [until]
• Everything is integrated.
• Don’t stop believing [that]
• God dreams big.  

I was excited to see this free resource designed to equip leaders with practical theological tools. Scott Thomas created a this condensed and well designed guide to Wayne and Elliot Grudem’s book, Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know. The link to the description of the resource is here, and the link to the full color, 91 page eBook is here.

If you are reading a book (non-fiction), don’t continue until you know the singular reason why the book was written. This reason should reveal the problem that the book is trying to solve. The value of any book and all of its parts is tied to this double-barreled clarity: A singular what and a compelling why.

Why would I fire up a post on this topic right now?  Yesterday, Warren Bird of Leadership Network, asked me to do a conference call with a group of seminary students at Alliance Theological Seminary. They are going through Church Unique as a text. The first question I got asked is, “How would you state the purpose of your book in one sentence?” In all honestly the question bugged me a bit, because I went through great pain to provide the clear answer to that in the introduction. It revealed to me the reality that most people don’t connect their reading back to singular clear purpose, even when an author points it out clearly.

Here are the problems if you don’t know the purpose of the book and the problem it solves:

• You might be wasting your time on a book and topic of no relevance to you
• You might not appreciate the difference between books that are well written and poorly written
• You might misinterpret what is being said through the content of the book
• You might apply a solution to a problem that was not the problem the book addresses
• You might not appreciate the problems that the author experienced before you do

Well this might sound a little to anal to you, but for me, its about being clear.  There are more books out there that I could read in my lifetime, so its important for me to digest every book with intentionality. The two exceptions for me with non-fiction books are reading for entertainment or enjoying a biography for inspiration.

Just for fun, here is the singular reason I wrote Church Unique  (seen in the excerpt below). It is to challenge the reader to find their Church Unique- that is, to live a vision that creates a stunningly unique, movement oriented church.

The problem that the book solves is unpacked in the first four chapters of the book (below) and reveals the problems and pitfalls of two decades of “visioning.” The bottom line is that most work done under the banner of “visioning,” in the local church is a waste of time. How’s that for a problem statement?

• Unoriginal Sin – Neglecting Uniqueness
• The Fall of Strategic Planning – Obscuring the Essence
• The Iniquity of Church Growth – Caging the Kingdom
• Lost Congregations – How Churches Adapt to the Vision Vacuum

Here is the excerpt from the introduction: