Will Mancini

As a leader or facilitator, never underestimate how you create an atmosphere, the moment you walk into a room you. One key question is, what kind of atmosphere does your presence generate? 

The answer to this question, must be attuned to who you are (being yourself) and the particular work that you do (for example, conflict resolution vs. strategy brainstorm). Given the fact that I tend to be a people-oriented initiator (“DI” on the DiSC, ENTP on Meyers-Briggs) and that I work in the field of vision, here is a description of the atmosphere I want to create:

• Engaging – creating positive connections with EACH person
• Thoughtful – being interested and not just interesting
• Expectant – modeling enthusiasm and confidence that God is at work
• Curious – reminding people that I bring questions before answers

Here are some of the practical facilitation steps I keep in mind when I work with teams.

#1 Set up early enough in order to  focus 100% on people when they come in. This seems like a no brainer but it’s easy to slip here. If  I’m distracted with tasks when people come in the room, the desired atmosphere dies quickly. 

#2 Greet each person in the room starting with the least important person, if there is any “hierarchy” present. (For example, children before adults, lay leaders before staff people, people who don’t know me before people who do know me.)  The dynamic here is that everyone feels more at ease when each person sees that everyone matters. I don’t start a meeting until I have shaken every hand with an eyeball-to-eyeball genuine greeting. Think about the “hierarchy” idea: What parent doesn’t appreciate you greeting their children first?

#3 Start interaction early and have everyone speak. I don’t like kicking off a meeting with a long intro by me or an extended prayer time. There is a time where people get to know me and there is a time for extended prayer, but not to kick things off. This strategy creates interaction, positive energy and let’s people know that I am there to listen more than talk.

#4 Pray passionately and expect God to show up. Even though I don’t start with extended prayer, I do start by clearly and strongly “leaning into God” confessing our utter dependence on Him and faith-full anticipation of His blessing. I always ask for supernatural wisdom, with James 1:5 as a springboard.

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?

Tim Schraeder is the director of communications of Park Community Church and he knocked it out of the park on a recent post entitled REWORKING Church Communications. The post was inspired by the book REWORK by the founders of 37signals. Among many bullets that you will want to read, he mentions the cardinal sin of church communications- “copy + paste.” Listen to what he says…

The cardinal sin of church communications is our use of copy + paste. I’m not going to do the original vs recycled argument, but will say this much: STOP IT!  Churches are notorious for copying. For some reason we feel we have permission and entitlement to copy, steal or imitate what’s not ours. Open source is great, learning from others is invaluable, but every church has a unique audience and importing what worked somewhere else might not translate in your context. You learn the most by doing things yourself. And, God is the author of creativity [Genesis 1:1], maybe if we spend some time with Him some if it can rub off on us.

But why is copying harmful? Again this quote is helpful:

The problem [with copying] is it skips understanding – and understanding is how you grow. You just repurpose the last layer instead of understanding the all the layers underneath. So much of the work an original creator puts into something is invisible. Be influenced, but don’t steal.

These last words are profound. I had to reread them several times. So much of my ministry is defined by the problem that people want to skip understanding in the vision process. As I like to say, people are addicted to product, but it’s the process that provides meaning. 

Here are some of the other bullets in this post:

• Stop Being a Communicator, Start Being a Curator
• Stop Sounding So Profeshional.
• Marketing isn’t a line in your budget
• Forget writing Press Releases.
• Say No by Default
• Good Enough is Fine
• Don’t Commit the Sin of Copy + Paste

In yesterday’s post I talked about the 6 signs of being stuck in the “more is more” program mindset called “Walmart thinking.” The solution to this common ministry problem is to develop a simple strategy for your church designed to connect people to Jesus and to others. Having a simple strategy promotes and protects the big picture of disciple-making. It also enables the church to live in a “less is more” reality. Think Starbucks not Walmart. 

If you are reading my blog, you have probably figured out that it is one thing to talk “simple church” and quite another thing to execute it.  Long before Thom Rainer decided to publish his student’s research project (His student was Eric Geiger and the book was Simple Church) the Auxano team had been working with a wide variety of churches to develop and maintain a simple disciple-making strategy.

What have we learned? Simplifying around discipleship requires ruthlessly consistent communication. 

The single greatest tool for ruthless consistency is what we call the Missional Map (mMap). The mMap is picture that shows how the church will accomplish its mission at the broadest level.  Just imagine if every regular attender’s experience at your church was saturated with a picture that points to discipleship. What if this picture trumped everything else in church communication? The benefits would be huge.

THE MISSIONAL MAP WOULD:

1. Connect the mission with a  few “best” ministries
   
2. Present Jesus and guide people toward life change in Him
3. Remove complexity and clarify a pathway of involvement
4. Limit time “at church” to release people to “be the church”
5. Filter which ministry ideas fit best and which ones don’t fit 
6. Build a climate of invitation that encourages new commitment
   
7. Shape a culture of Christ-following over program-consuming 

The daily work of discipleship is hard and messy work. So why not limit all the random, attention-draining and resourcing-depleting moving parts of your church that keep you from getting the basics done. Why not highlight the best ministries you can offer and show how they relate to each other for the purpose growing people in Jesus and for His mission in the world. This post is adapted from page 150 of Church Unique. To learn more about developing a Missional Map for your church, contact me through Auxano.
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