Will Mancini

Thanks to the early adopters, innovators and everyday visionaries who are jumping on the Open Source Vision Casting opportunity via twitter.  Using the hashtag, #visiondrip people can share simple ideas of how to keep vision in the daily mix. Join in by searching the #visiondrip on twitter for ideas you can use, and please take the time to share one of your own. If you have heard of twitter but don’t know what a hashtag is click here.

Remember, those of us leading need the ideas that a few minutes of your reflection might bring.

How do you present a church vision? The answer is simple: Everyday

No doubt many of you are thinking about vision at the dawn of 2010. So I would invite you to reconsider vision delivery in 2010.

This post is a follow-up from Drip Vision Today.  The post recommended 5 things you can do in less than 5 minutes to communicate your vision in practical ways.  It led to some interesting conversations that I think present one of the most dynamic opportunities for the art of vision casting- open source vision casting.

Here is my story and my invitation. The day I wrote the Drip Vision Today post, I had a few spare minutes in the airport, and came up with five ideas relatively quickly. I then encouraged you to write your own little nugget:

• What is simple way you can drip vision right now?
• How can you re-communicate today, the things that matter most to someone else; a team, the church, or to yourself?
• Think daily, think practical, think viral.
• Think of vision casting in tennis shoes, not coat and tie.
• Think of a vision moment today, not a vision night once a year

What if just 100 people share 5 of their best ideas.  What about 1000 people sharing 5 ideas? Why shouldn’t we have thousands of ideas at our disposal from people across the globe? Imagine kingdom folks helping other kingdom folks uncork their biggest and best ideas. Imagine releasing vision from our “stuck on paper” practices to culture-shaping, life-giving moments that flow like a stream through daily ministry.  The rest of us need the immediate ideas that are coming to your mind right now as your read this post.

Here’s how to do it.  Using twitter, share your idea for dripping vision or a positive experience dripping vision using the #visiondrip hashtag.

Stevie Dunn was the first off the line to use #visiondrip. Thanks Stevie!

I encourage leaders to invest a lot of time assessing, aligning, and articulating vision.  But at the end of the day it doesn’t mean squat if it doesn’t deliver. How about taking cues from the postman to deliver vision daily! 

Here are 5 things you can do today- any one of them will take less than 5 minutes:

Ready, set, act now.  Stop reading about vision and drip it. 

If you have fun with this exercise, why not tweet about it and/or tweet your own ideas for dripping vision using the #visiondrip hashtag. 

If you have never met Max Lucado, words cannot describe the authenticity and humility of the man. That’s remarkable given the fact that he has sold more books than any Christian author in history only to be topped by the Bible itself. If I could capture it in one sentence I would tell you that in ten years of consulting, no client ever prayed for my children by name while giving thanks at lunch, except Max.

Perhaps the foundation of character I experienced made his wisdom even more dear to me. Toward the end of our conversation I sought his personal advice in discerning the role of writing in my ministry.  Keep in mind that at the time, I was pushing through the most difficult part of Church Unique. Two years later I now see writing and toolmaking as a core part of my ministry.  Hear is what Max said:

Max reminded me that after all his success, that each book is like giving birth to barbwire. Nevertheless anyone who writes should remember five aspects of potential impact.  (Even though our context was book writing, I apply these points to blogging and toolmaking as well.) 

#1 Writing allows the reader to digest the information on their time, at their pace. Max contrasted this to the long consulting meetings I was conducting at the time, highlighting the extreme limits of face time influence. Max literally said, “Will what if I could only learn from you from 11:00 pm till midnight three times a week. There would be no way to do this on your consulting schedule.

#2 The average book is read by more than two different people as it is passed on or left to be picked up by someone else.  This interesting little stat reminds you that influence is larger than just the number books sold or hits on your blog.

#3 Since leaders are readers, books tend to move among and be digested by people of influence. At this point in the conversation with Max I am thinking that these points as stand alone observations are common sense. But as he continued to share all five the combined weight of them was impressive.

#4 Influence through writing transcends time and place. Today I am talking with people who want to join the Auxano team in Australia. Why? Because of my writing.  I am reminded now each day of the powerful wisdom of this simple observation. Your writing will go to places you would never wander, even if you lived 500 years.

#5 Writing forces you to “polish” the articulation of your best thoughts for others.  The fact is that you have great thoughts that others need to hear. But while they rumble around your brain they are at best 80% developed. Max used the metaphor of a jeweler who shows off his finest gems in a glass case.  The glass case of your ideas is your book (or blog, tool, etc.). 

What’s your personal mission, your passion or your contribution to the world? How might the lasting impact of writing fit into that life purpose?

Seth Godin writes with a dash of bravado and his overstatements are both playful and insightful. But on the topic of communication, he delivers what he calls “the essential lesson” and it’s not exaggerated.

“The essential lesson is that every day it gets easier to tighten the relationship you have with the people who choose to follow you.”

If you have even dipped your toes in the world of social media, you know that this is true. The question is what are you doing about it?

Consider some interesting facts from my last week regarding twitter alone:

• While at Chilis, my 16-year old son showed me people tweeting close by on Google maps from a new app.
• Todd Wilson of Exponential, personally invites speakers to tweet about the conference 7 months in advance with 70 pre-written promotional tweets.
• Last night I watched the pre-recorded service video of Matt Chandler because a friend tweeted it.  I saw this the same day his congregation did as I continue to praying for him.
• While at my home church yesterday, I tweeted two of my favorite quotes from the service.
• I talk to dozens of people every week who tweet about the book Church Unique.
• Twitter “lists” is a new function that is making it easier to meet and organize people to follow.
• After the Houston co::Lab on friday, two participants initiated follow-up direct messages that I was able to reply at a convenient time.

The list could go on and twitter is only one of many tools to communicate. Last night, I played team SWAT on Halo (a popular online XBoX game by Microsoft)  with 7 people at a time among the other 6,000 global game participants at that time. We could talk with one another while we played.  I also enjoyed 30 Thanksgiving photos of my nephews and nieces sent to me via Shutterfly.

The point is that Godin’s “essential lesson” is sitting there with crystal clarity begging leaders to act. So the big question today is:

What are you doing to tighten your connection with people who follow you?