Will Mancini

I recently shared a favorite Einstein quote in one of my posts. It became the seed to a session entitled Normalizing Absurdity that I will be doing at Leadership Networks Innovation Cubed Conference in January. Check out their post on it here.

I spent the day with 20 other consultants discussing Drucker’s five organizational questions. My favorite part of the day was Bob Buford’s personal thoughts on the life and legacy of Peter Drucker.

Buford’s respect for Drucker is immense. He called him “the smartest human being alive” and described Drucker’s impact in his own life using a parenting metaphor. Bob shared that the consummation of Drucker’s influence could be found in the preface of a book and that the preface is no longer in print. The name of the preface, written in 1974 is “Alternative to Tyranny.” The idea behind the title is that without the social sector- organizations that exist for positive outcomes of life change – we are left with only government and for-profit sectors. The thrust of the preface, according to Buford, is that if these are the only forces at work in society, then tyranny is inevitable. The alternative to tyranny then, is the strengthening of the social sector. The recognition that it is the non-profit world that can uniquely “rescue society” signaled a shift in emphasis and importance of the social sector for Drucker in the last 30 years of his life. It was from this perspective that his friendship with Buford was forged.

Buford noted an important observation that Drucker about the church. Basically, he felt that the emergence of the megachurch at the end of the twentieth century was the most significant development in the social sector.

Here is an interesting Businessweek article on Drucker.

Have you ever heard of Puritan theology blended with the seeker church movement? Many folks ask me about my home church these days. When I am not consulting I attend Clear Creek Community Church in League City, TX, a seeker church with a reformed Baptist twist. Our teaching pastor Yancey Arrington, just finished a series called “Tapout,” the term used for one opponent giving up in a MMA fight. His work was heavily influenced by John Owen, a puritan thinker who focused his life work and writing on sanctification. The combination of these two themes explodes with energy and defines what I love about my home church. Here are a few nuggets about our uniqueness:

• A Seeker church does not have to mean a “watered down” church. This straw man has been kept alive for years. Upon closer examination, there are many theologically robust teams that have chosen to target unchurched populations. Clear Creek speaks to people far from God with a high view of sin.

• Focus expands. Clear creek has always targeted 35- year old males. Does this exclude people? Absolutely not! Rather it includes everybody within the influence of a 35-year old male who begins a transformational journey of full devotion with Jesus. Clear Creek is filled with more 60 year-old men and more 20-something women than most churches, because their focus expands. This clearly defined target totally flavors their communication- before the “Tapout” series (obviously a male targeted metaphor) they did a series called “Man-up: Overcoming Male Passivity.” Do you think women liked that series?

• It isn’t for everyone. Being focused and pursuing a specific God-given vision frees people to leave who do not resonate with the vision. Recently a good friend and staff member of the church announced that he was leaving. In talking with him it’s abundantly clear that God has birthed a new idea in his heart. Being clear about your Church Unique brings freedom for everyone.

I always encourage churches to discover their Kingdom Concept by answering, “What can our church do better than 10,000 others?” For Clear Creek it’s simple: They glorify God and make disciples through a culturally engaging, weekly-patterned, gospel presentation designed to capture the attention of 30-something unchurched men.

I spent four hours with ten methodist church planters on thursday morning. I started the time by asking them to articulate their most pressing challenge. Half of them were in their first eight weeks after launch. The clearest common thread was the challenge of moving guests to core. One planter mentioned that after only a couple of months he was accumulating folks but didn’t know who was really on the team and who could really be counted on.

What is the key in calling people to commitment and cultivating real stakeholders? I challenged these planters with a quote from Einstein- “If at first the idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it.” I asked if their vision stretched the minds and hearts of their core and even their guests when given the chance to share. I asked if the could passionately explain why their church is different and why it will make a difference. I believe a bold, extravagant, unique, God-centered vision is critical to muster heroic sacrifice and radical contribution to get a plant off the ground.

Too often, leaders ask people to do petty, trivial projects in the name of Jesus and we wonder why we get trivial commitment. Or we set up a new church initiative with no compelling differentiator- why should someone drive past a more established church with better ministries to come to the new church plant? Jack Trout, the marketing guru says, “Differentiate or die.” My parting thought to these planters was an adaptation of Einstein- If you want to move guests to core, call them to a compelling vision- be absurd or don’t be at all!

Ed Stetzer of Lifeway Research asked Perry Noble of NewSpring Church “What advice would you give to churches in America? What elements would you say are a must in any church?” Perry’s answer included two elements. The first thing is a focus on Jesus. The second element is posted below:

“Number two, don’t try to be anything except who God called you to be. Maybe God didn’t call you to go multi-site. Maybe God called you to one location. You need to be completely content with that. Maybe God called you to go plant churches instead of doing video venues. You need to do that.

Maybe God told you to do video venues and plant churches. You need to do that. You don’t ever, every need to feel pressure because another church somewhere else in America or somewhere else in the world is doing something to think, “Oh, wow, we have got do that.” Our call as a church is to do exactly what God called us to do. In the book of Revelation chapter two and chapter three Jesus gives seven different messages to seven different churches.

If he wanted every church to be the same he would have just said, “All right. Here is my message to every church and it is just the same.” But he addressed seven churches specifically and said, “Here is what is going on with you. Here is what is going on with you. Here is what is going on with you.” I just think that each church has a unique DNA that it needs to focus on. The gospel should be central, but the strategy and the structure of the church should be completely open to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

To see the entire interview, click here. To see the passionate response of Kenny Corn (where I originally found the excerpt), click here.