Will Mancini

A few days before my 40th birthday I was thinking about a quote that has guiding my life for the last 25 years.  I read somewhere that I can’t remember the idea that in the
first half of your life, the opportunity of every situation is found more
in what you learn than in what you give.

Hmmmm…what does that mean now that the first half of my life is over?  For some reason, I take comfort (maybe too much comfort) in the fact that I still get to learn more than I give. It throws me back to understanding my life as a stewardship.

The next thought that crossed my mind, was “What are the other ideas that have guided my life and work the most.” In 90 minutes I had written about 70. I was surprised that I could list that many, so I boiled it down to 40 and thought it might be fun to tweet them throughout the day. I figure the rest of the twitterville could put up with my extra tweets for one day! You can see the tweets and people’s ERS (emotional resonance spectrum) by searching #40at40.

Also thanks to Brock Sawyer for typing them up on his blog here.

Here are the top six:

1. Clarity isn’t everything but it changes everything.
2. Jesus was totally clear about his origin, his mission, and his destiny.
3. In the first half of your life, the opportunity of every situation is found more in what you learn than in what you give.
4. The rest of your life will be in the future, so prepare for it now.
5. The most important question I have ever discovered is, “What is God up to?”
6. Imagination if more important than knowledge – Einstein

The rest of the list contains my personal, family and Auxano mission; the quote that lead me to write Church Unique and some of my favorite one-liners as a church consultant. Have fun and let me know your favs!

I just received a blog post from a leader who is considering working with Auxano. The team is talking a lot about identity and culture in their church and one of the staff sent this post around entitled, “The dirty little secret about the top leadership” from the Center for Creative Leadership.

What is the dirty little secret? In many
organizations the top leadership can’t clearly define their value proposition. Here are a few excerpts from the full post here.

• So, I ask, “what is the direction of the company?” We are inundated with direction and vision statements that would all serve as good examples of what my high school civics teacher called ‘glittering generalities.’ They are well-meaning, but often sound just like every other company’s vision statement.

• For these statements to become more than lovely aspirations something is missing. So what’s missing? What’s missing is clarity about the identity of the organization, its character.

• If we know who we are and what we are becoming, the people of the organization can make intelligent choices about the investment of their time and energy. So many vision statements read like imperial dreams: to become the best…the biggest…the leading…. They can be overly involved in promises of performance. They’re too pie-in-the-sky to have much effect on the majority of workers. They’re not personal enough.

• It is the job of the senior leadership of the organization to model and give voice to the organization’s identity. As they do, people throughout the organization understand what actions are worthy and what are not (ethics). Workers at all levels can believe in the vision, because they identify with the organization and they adopt that identify as their own (execution).

• Identity stays the same no matter what’s happening in the market.

• And, as we know, people live up to (or down to) who they think they are. It’s the job of the senior team to walk and talk the identity of the organization.

• Does your organization have a clear sense of who you are as an organization? If it does, the executive leadership is on the ball.

Uncovering your Kingdom Concept is practice along the Vision Pathway to answer the question, “What can your church do better than 10,000 others.” In defining this reality for each church we look closely at Place (Local Predicament), People (Collective Potential) and Passion (Apostolic Esprit).

Jack Thomas is a church planter launching in urban Pittsburgh in May of 2010.  I not only love his cultural exegesis, but the succinct and quality way he is communicating his Local Predicament via video.

LifeStone Community Focus Video from Jack Thomas on Vimeo.

While my mind is on CAVE dwellers from yesterday’s post, I thought I would pass on this top ten list I saw on Josh Reich’s blog, a young pastor in Tuscon. Below is his post on a book by Bob Franquiz entitled, Zero to Sixty. It has a chapter on
Church Hoppers. Here is how to spot a church hopper and what they
mean (my favorite is the last one):

1. “But my old church…” This usually means they want your church to be like their old
church.

2. “I just need time to be fed.” This means, “I don’t want to do anything. I’m here
just to sit and see what I can get out of this church, so don’t expect me to
serve in any way, shape, or form.

3. “I’m looking for a church that teaches the Word.” This means, “I’m looking for a
church that dispenses lots of information without challenging me to do
anything.”

4. “We came here because we are looking for deep teaching.” This usually means their
last church focused too much on actually obeying the Word. They want a church
that just talks about the Rapture, the Second Coming, who the Hittites were and
the identity of Theophilus.

5. “I should know my pastor.” This means, “In my last church, I got to know the
pastor, but when the church grew, and the pastor couldn’t have dinner with us
every Tuesday night, I left and came here.”

6. “We want a church that’s focused on discipling people.” This means, “I want a
church that’s focused on me, not people who are lost.”

7. “I wish you wouldn’t focus so much on what people need to do.” This means they
don’t like commitment, they don’t like to be told the Bible actually tells them
how to live and follow Jesus. They want to come to church, live in their sin
and have no one tell them this is wrong.

8. “I wish you wouldn’t talk about money.” This is the best way to tell a pastor “I
don’t give.”

9. “My old church/pastor was…” The way people come to your church is how they will
leave. If your first conversation with them is all about their last church and
pastor, that is how they will leave your church and how they will go to their
next church.

10. “Pastor, I’ve been talking to a lot of people and they all say…” Translation: “Me, my spouse and my mother think…” If they start this way, 99.9% of the time they have no one else who thinks this way, it is just the best way to complain. If someone has a complaint and uses this line with me, they need to list all of the names or my best assumption is they talked to the same person 10 times.

C.A.V.E. dwellers are people Consistently Against Virtually Everything and they are alive and well in most churches. In fact a recent study by a Gallop guy named Albert Winseman says that 17% of the average church is made up of these "actively disengaged" people. 

The troubling observation for me is that church leaders get so accustomed to these people, they take them for granted and live with toxin in culture rather than dealing with it. I am often asked to advise on tactics- worship or small group or technology best practices.  Leaders look for right answers to advance their vision.  The newsflash is: If you don't know how to deal with CAVE dwellers it doesn't matter how good your tactics might be, because there will always be an enthusiasm drag and energy drain holding the vision back. 

Winseman in his book, Growing an Engaged Church, advises. "Your job as a leader is not to placate the actively disengaged.  It is to create and grow disciples." His answer is to focus on the engaged- don't get distracted trying to please the squeaky wheels! 

But ignoring these negative folks is not enough. Great leaders know how to dialogue with wisdom and grace until one of two things occur.  Either disengaged people must convert and eventually become contributors or they must leave (in an effort to find somewhere else they CAN engage.)

It's the leaders choice to let people sing off key, or to bring beautiful harmony into the world.