Will Mancini

Due to the responses and retweets to the “Outdated Vision” post, I will follow-up with a few further thoughts.

A pastor of a prominent church responded via twitter to indicate that his church was in the 2% exception of my estimate that 98% have “outdated vision.” The truth is he may very well be in the 2%, but the immediate evidence offered doesn’t support it.

His evidence was a mission statement that didn’t pass the test. On a positive note, the mission wasn’t literally photocopied from another church. His problem is generi-vision. Leaders, please hear me: We are so used to Life in Generica, we don’t even see how unoriginal we are any more. Hence we lead with a false sense of vision.

One obstacle to seeing your own Life in Generica is focusing on accuracy. You can be accurate (and biblically so) and still generic. As we live in the generic we tend to photocopy without realizing it. That is, we tend to move toward convergence of what we know and see already rather than imagining a different, better future.

To illustrate, here is a mission statement for a church. “Our mission is to make disciples.”

Simple, biblical and accurate, right? Correct! But what does it really say about this church or this church’s future. Not much.

The key is being accurate AND specific. Vision becomes vision the more specific it becomes. We need more detail, and high definition! Look for some follow-up posts on “Leaving Generica,” and remember that this problem is why I wrote Church Unique.

Over the last few years I have enjoyed attending and speaking at conferences.  Yet staying on mission for me means having to miss some. Now with twitter, you can have an entirely new experience of attending a conference virtually. In fact I have found a new reality that twitter creates, enabling a preferred experience to watching a conference on DVD.  I call this new reality an Emotional Resonance Spectrum (ERS). Right now I am attending Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit virtually using the hashtag #TLS09. If you are not familiar with twitter click here. 

As a clarity evangelist, I can't think of anything more important to be clear on than the gospel. In the book Church Unique, I play with the idea of "10 words or less" when articulating the most important stuff of church life and church vision. The best leaders can and must communicate their biggest ideas in short, simple ways.  

I was excited therefore, that Demian Farnworth, who blogs at Fallen and Flawed, asked 12 fellow bloggers to articulate the gospel in 10 words or less.  The biggest ideas possible, and the grandest story ever told, put to as few strokes on the keyboard as possible. He asks us to consider this "micro-theology, petite-worship, and nano-sermons."  Here are the results: 

“Jesus’ death and resurrection completes God’s plan to redeem mankind.” Don Dudley, You See Dry Bones

“Christ’s blood seals God’s promise to reconcile us with Him.” Eric Ruhnow [Who Tends the Fire]

“Jesus’ blood calls, converts, cleanses, cures, carries the once condemned.”Abigail [abigail's leftovers]

“Blood-bought covenantal intimacy with God for sinners through Jesus.” Daniel Wilson [Desire for Spiritual Growth]

“Repent of your sins / trust in Christ alone for salvation.” Devotee of Francis Turretin [Thoughts of Francis Turretin]

“Christ’s death: rescued from self-made destruction, adopted as God’s child.”Emily Schankweiler [A Sacrifice of Praise]

“Restoring all things by the life and death of Jesus.” Nathan Bliss [bliss]

“Whole world sorted, put right, made friends again through Christ.” Andrew Jones [Tall Skinny Kiwi]

“Christ died for our sins, was raised and is Lord.” Trevin Wax [Kingdom People] quoting Martin Luther.

“Man must repent and believe in the Lord Jesus.” Michael Patton [Parchment and Pen]

“Be sick. Be loved.” Jon Acuff [Stuff Christians Like]

“Adoption through propitiation.” Kevin DeYoung [DeYoung, Restless, Reformed] quoting J. I. Packer

I was just coming off a study break with lots of stuff ready to post, when a new friend named Gordon Marcy sent me a link to this article.  Gordon is a guy dedicated to building media platforms for kingdom impact (and will hopefully be joining us for the Houston Vision co::Lab starting in Sept.)