Will Mancini

Warning: This post will challenge some of your assumptions about vision in the church.

Across the North American church landscape this year, many pastors will articulate a vision and compel people toward a preferred future that is weak. It’s very nature will be lacking in biblically rugged, God-saturated, deeply compelling content. Note that I said the vision will be weak; not bad and not wrong. What do I mean by this comment? The three kinds of weak vision I want to clarify are lacking potency because they are more of a means to an end that we often realize. Therefore they are missing the end-game, the bigger deal, the ultimate move. “Means” is not the meat of vision casting. For example, if General Electric wants to “Bring Good Things to Life,” they don’t show you the blueprint of the dishwasher.

Now a pastor may quickly assent to the fact that that the three kinds of vision are indeed means to a greater end. But afterwards he will practically and experientially guide his people with a lower aim.I have seen it hundreds of times. So what are the three kinds of weak vision?

• A building is a weak vision. We intuitively get this. We know the building is a “tool” to accomplish the “bigger mission.” Yet, in the daily grind of raising money in our capital campaigns, its easy to appeal only to the consumeristic impulse of the congregation. A building is a means to something.

• Going multisite is a weak vision. The move to multisite is the most relevant kind of weak vision today. The number of multisite churches is accelerating, and the average size of a multisite church is decreasing. It is safe to say that multisite is the new normal. And for good reasons. But ask a pastor about the vision driving the multisite, and you might be surprised how little they have to say. Multisite is a means to something.

• More people in worship is a weak vision. The third one is connected to the first two. Indeed you may think it is the substance of the first two. We are building a building to what end? More people of course! We are going multi-site to what end? More people of course. Now don’t get me wrong. I think every church should be reaching more people and multiplying disciples. And more people, more building and more campuses are all important features of the vision. But by themselves they are weak. More people is a means to something.

Allow me to illustrate  a strong vision with my home church, Clear Creek Community Church in Houston. Our vision is what I call a “gospel saturation” vision. We have adopted a 500,000 population area that we refer to as the “4B” area. (From the beltway to the beach; from Brazoria county to the bay.) One of two people in this area are “nones;” that is they have no faith affiliation whatsoever. In the next 15 years, our vision is for each of the these 500,000 people to be one degree away, relationally speaking, from an invitation into a gospel-centered, missional community. With this summarized substance of the vision, we can now see how buildings, multisite campuses and more people are means to a full picture, high-definition vision.  We see the need for ten campuses and know that three campuses will anchor the ten with more significant buildings. But those pieces aren’t the purpose themselves. Why is it critical important to show buildings, multi-site and more people as means and not ends?

• First, focusing on means unintentionally amplifies the self-promoting motives of church leadership. An ends-based vision, in contrast, connects the idea of “bigger” to the broader redemptive motives of God.

• Second, highlighting the means only incurs emotional connection indirectly through the personal contact to and relationship with a church leader. In other words, I don’t get excited about a mean-based vision unless I am friends with he pastor who is casting it. Ends-based vision, on the other hand, accelerates emotional connection directly with the picture of the future, not the person talking about it.

• Third, means-based vision is ultimately a church-centric idea. Therefore people let the “pastor and staff” be the owners of it. Ends-based vision, however, distributes the accomplishment of the vision to each one, every day in the congregation. The real vision must be a life-centric idea, not a church-centric one.

I know all this talk of “means” and “ends” sounds a little nerdy. (The engineer in me!) But I hope it connects you back to the simple leadership model of Jesus.

Want to read more about strong vision: Check out “The Church List for the Rest of Us.” It’s called the Unique 19 and it is 19 amazing stories of vision that are not based on church size.

All ministry is communication intensive. It follows that story-telling and understanding the nuances of story will help any leader in the daily ebb and flow of communication. Use these story types to do an inventory on your own “range” of utilizing of stories as a leader.

CREATION STORY

I am not referring to the first book of Scripture but to the genesis of the organization itself. If you are a pastor, you should know more about the creation story of your church than anyone on the planet. What are the circumstances—passions, problems, and people—surrounding how the church got started to begin with? Mastering the richness of the creation story will help in two major ways. First, it will hold insight into the unique culture of the church and therefore future decision-making and vision. Second, your mastery of the story itself will bring tremendous credibility with people when initiating change.

ACTION STEP: Write a one-page, 2-minute creation story talk. If you have any gaps in your knowledge interview people in your church until you know more than anyone else.

SIGNATURE STORY

A signature story relates to any milestones or hand-of-God moments after the creation story. Obviously a church with more history will have more signature stories. These accounts show off strengths of the church and God’s hand in it’s history. I look for signature stories when discerning a church’s Kingdom Concept (What can your church do better than 10,000 others). These stories reveal the values and mark the high-water line of God’s activity and unique journey for each church. Use the signature stories the same way as the creation story: celebrating God’s goodness, explaining decision-making and guiding change.

ACTION STEP: Make a list of 3-5 possible signatures stories in your church. Ask key leaders to do the same and make a master list of the top 5.

FOLKLORE

Folklore stories are simply ones that are worth being told and retold. While there may be overlap between the first two of the list, folklore often focuses on the life change journey of individuals. Even though everyone has special stories of God’s transforming work in their lives, folklore shows off, in brilliant detail, the mission or strategy, a value or life mark, from the church’s articulated DNA (Vision Frame). Folklore often embeds a moment of modeling—like repeated prayer, gospel conversation or invitation toward an unchurched friend—that reflects “the win” we are striving for as a congregation.  Imagine a church planter who sees a convert grow with unusual intentionality to become a key leader in the church. This story could model the pattern that we hope to see repeated over and over.

ACTION STEP: Identify 3 stories from individuals in your church that you know could never be shared too much. Ask another leader in your church to capture all of the details of the story in a 2-page, 5-minute summary.

HORIZON STORY

Now we turn our attention of story-telling to the future. Think of the horizon story as time-machine window where you tell people what God is going to do. It may have a lead in like, “What if…” or “Imagine…” Tell me a story of what the church will be like in one year. How about three years? When crafting this vision casting story, its important not to be presumptuous. To guard against that make sure you show what we call the “God smile,” that is, remind people that this is God’s idea not yours.

ACTION STEP: Prepare a 2-minute story to tell someone what your church will look like in one year. To give yourself freedom, don’t worry about sharing it with anyone— you may or may not. But practice thinking about the future feel of a story.

THE GOSPEL

The centerpiece of all story-telling is the Gospel. It is important to define every other story in relationship to the grand news of God’s intervention in our world and our lives through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. You may wonder, “This is a given, so why would you mention this as an organizational story.” First, I am surprised by how many congregations are stuck in a  shallow appreciation for the Gospel’s ongoing presence and power in daily life.  Second, as you master story as a leader, you won’t want to develop and practice the other story types to the neglect of the Gospel. Rather let the Gospel develop you as you integrate it into all story-telling.

ACTION STEP: Grab a copy of Center Church by Tim Keller and study the section on “Atonement Grammars.” This is one of the most helpful summaries I have ever seen.

TEACHABLE POINT OF VIEW

The last two kinds of stories have to do more with the personal life of the leader. A teachable point of view, a term coined by Noel Tichy in The Leadership Engine, is the story that surrounds a personal leadership learning. Informal leadership development happens best when an experienced leader, in relationship with other leaders can unpacks stories of why the do what they do. Where did this conviction come from? What led me to develop this skill? Why did I make what seemed to be a counter-intuitive decision? The more that you have thought about your leadership’s teachable point of views, the more often and intentional will be the transference of wisdom in your leadership culture.

ACTION STEP: Take 20 minutes and write down your top 10 learnings as a leader. Write down a few bullet points and begin to flesh out the story behind the learning.

CONVERSION STORY

The last story is the perhaps the most obvious, but I did not want it to go unstated. In my own leadership life, I have failed the most at rehearsing, in my leadership, the story of my own journey with God at its very beginning. Maybe that’s because it happened when I was in eighth grade. That seems pretty distant from the “important” leadership work of today. How many people on your leadership team know the details of how you trusted Jesus and how you grew in affection for the Gospel? Using your own conversation story as a leader is important for at least three reasons. First, it will keep you humble. Second, it’s a personal help to keep the Gospel at the center of all stories. Third, it will model for people the importance of sharing a personal testimony.

ACTION STEP: Create a one-page, 2-minute conversion story testimony. Practice sharing it with one person a week, asking the other person to share their conversion story.

Prof died today but his ministry continues to expand through the lives of over 13,000 students that were impacted over his 60 years of teaching at Dallas Theological Seminary. While working on a tribute, I first reflected on the sticky ideas that he planted in my mind through teaching and embedded in my heart through modeling. All but one quote below is straight from memory. There are literally hundreds more…

DISCIPLESHIP

• You cannot impart what you do not possess.
• You can impress from a distance, but you can only impact up close.
• If you cannot be accused of exclusivity, you are not discipling.
• You teach what you know, but you reproduce what you are.
• You never graduate from the school of discipleship.
• When God measures a man he puts the tape around the heart, not the head.
• Jesus never discipled one-on-one.

INFLUENCE

There are many things in life you “can do” for God. And the more success you have, the more opportunities will come. (You will know more people, you will have more resources, etc.) But most opportunities are distractions in disguise. Therefore find the one thing you “must do” for God.

• You focus on the depth of your relationship [with God]; let Him determine the scope of your ministry
• A good leader has a compass in their head and a magnet in their heart.
• Spend the rest of your life doing what God prepared you to do.
• The secret to concentration is elimination.
• Nothing is more common that unfulfilled potential.

SCRIPTURE

Many of us want a word from God, but we don’t want the Word of God. We know enough to own a Bible but not enough for the Bible to own us. We pay the Bible lip service, but we fail to give it “life service.” In a world where the only absolute is that there are no absolutes, there is little room left for the authoritative Word of God as revealed in the Bible.

• The Bible was written not to satisfy your curiosity but to help you conform to Christ’s image.
• The goal is not to make you a smarter sinner but to make you like the Saviour.
• Put the cookies on the bottom shelf (talking about making teaching accessible to everyone).
• Dusty Bibles lead to dirty lives.
• It’s a sin to bore people with the Bible.
• Christian education is a bomb with a long fuse— it takes a while to go off.
• Our problem is that we are in the Word but not under the Word.

PROCESS

• Most people don’t think, they just rearrange their prejudices.
• Your strengths develop your confidence; your weaknesses develop your faith.
• My greatest fear is not your failure, but your success.
• If you want to use your testosterone to grow hair, that’s up to you.

Vision Room Overview from Auxano on Vimeo.

Every great leader is relentless at unpacking the five irreducible questions of clarity. I use a Vision Frame as a teaching and communication tool to help leaders continually keep clarity before them and their team. This year I plan to post more examples of completed Vision Frames from churches across the country.

Check out examples in my blog now by typing “Church Unique Snapshot” into the search box in the upper right-hand corner.

Learn more about the Vision Frame.

NORTH POINT COMMUNITY CHURCH VISION FRAME

Our Mission

… to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

Our Strategy

… to create environments where people are encouraged and equipped to pursue intimacy with God, community with insiders, and influence with outsiders. This is also known as the foyer, living room and kitchen progression. See the visuals here.

Our Values

… the 7 core values are posted here.

The Five Faith Catalysts (We call these mission measures on the Vision Frame)

1. Practical Teaching
2. Providential Relationships
3. Private Disciplines
4. Pivotal Circumstances
5. Personal Ministry

Because Andy is so intentional I admire the way he keeps the Five Faith Catalysts in front of their people. Here are two examples that are great benchmarks to learn from. The first is how he introduces them to new believers. The second is how they create a unique website to support sermon series on the Five Faith Catalysts.

The FIRST EXAMPLE  is Starting Point: Check out how the the Five Faith Catalysts are introduced into small group material for new believers and “new to church” folks in this piece by Andy called How Do People Grow

The SECOND EXAMPLE  is the Five Things God Uses Website: Check out the media, notes and curriculum at this tool that supports the sermons series on the Five Faith Catalysts here. If you want to learn more about these, be sure to pick up Andy’s book, Deep and Wide.

I hope this inspires you to “frame up” the four sides of your church’s DNA. Also, if you have completed your Vision Frame recently, I would love to hear about it!