Will Mancini

For a decade I have averaged a new conversation a day with a church leaders about vision. Yesterday, I talked with a fast growing church of 2000 in northern CA. The day before, I spent 2 hours with another fast growing church of 1200 in Houston. The day before I talked with plateaued churches in the Lutheran and Methodist tribe.

Over time, my calling has shifted to guiding one church at a time through the visioning process to creating tools to help all pastors and leaders rethink vision. The starting point for “rebooting the hard drive” on vision is the problem of “unoriginal sin,” the title chapter that opens Church Unique. In that chapter I identify six Thinkholes as outlined in the chart below. The price of being stuck in a Thinkhole, is missing the unique calling and beautiful potential that God is raising up in each local body of believers.  

A thinkhole represents the quicksand-like dynamic where vibrant thinking gets sucked beneath the surface to suffocate and disappear from view.  I often imagine that Indian Jones-like scene where every second matters in escaping the devouring quicksand. Use the chart below as evaluation tool with your team (A rating scale is in the first column.) If you haven’t yet, consider grabbing a copy of Church Unique.

My daughter and I practiced her spelling bee words as I drove her to school this morning. Abby is a 10-year old. On the drive home, I pondered what Abby might do when she grows up. Every now and again you hear that most of the jobs today will radically change within a generation. Most of the jobs available to me today will not be for my 5th grader.

So what does that mean for church? What new jobs are we likely to see? How will the best practice staffing continue to evolve?

If we look in the rear view mirror we can observe a few trends in the last decade:

• The shift from senior pastor to “lead pastor” in describing the point leader
• The development of the “teaching pastor” and the increasing use of teaching teams
• The emergence of the campus pastor with the growth of the multi-site movement
• The ongoing importance of all things technology and social media forging into top leadership
• The birth of missional communities by themselves, and in harness with megachurches

As I continue to visit with churches and watch the horizon, I believe that the trends above as well as others will keep fueling change. What will this look like ten years from now? Here are four new pastoral titles for the church of the future. I will provide some initial thoughts now and drill down with follow-up posts.

1. The Neo-itinerant – The Neo-itinerant is a strategic outsider who doesn’t work for one church, but many. There are many, diverse forms of the neo-itinerant emerging and each type will likely bring its own title. (See my post on Trends in Church Consulting.) This is the way the Auxano ministry works. We consider ourselves “navigators” as we leverage learning and bring specialized help as strategic outsiders in the area of vision clarity.
2. The Truth Jockey (TJ) – As the teaching function separates more and more from the leadership function, expect the use of team teaching and multi-media formats to find their full expression in the Truth Jockey. Why can’t a leaders mix the best teaching and the best teachers for his congregation’s time, place and life-stage?
3. The Community Catalyst – How will the small group functions as we know them today evolve? To understand the role of a community catalyst, think of the fusion between a barista, a personal trainer and a chamber of commerce help desk.
4. The Pastor of Story – As the organized church gets larger and more complex, and the organic expressions of church become more linked, we will need better “meaning-makers” who connect everything to the larger story of God, in a both a personal and local way.

Again, look for the follow-up posts as I explore these roles in greater detail. I would love to hear your initial thoughts and any creative new jobs that you have heard about or are thinking about.

I leave you with a final thought from Dan Pink, author of Whole New Mind: “The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers.” He describes these people as “artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, and big picture thinkers.”

Before my transition to coach-consulting in 2001, I led several different ministry areas at Clear Creek Community Church. An unexpected season of leading the children’s area engaged my love for vision around the importance of serving children. What I learned through this season has changed my life forever. I believe that children’s ministry is THE golden opportunity for these seven reasons:

#1 The Golden Heart: Children model the ideal kingdom participant. Each of the gospel writers record that stunning moment when Jesus rebukes the disciples and tenderly engages some young children (Luke 18:17). In the face of self-importance, Jesus shockingly points to a child as the model for how to enter the kingdom. Maybe serving children holds unexpected benefit for Christian maturity?

#2 The Golden Years: Childhood is the most effective window for responding to the gospel. Eighty percent of people receive Christ between the ages of 4 and 14. Enough said.

#3 The Golden Glow: Children have a longer life to serve Christ and accomplish more for God’s glory. If you had a candle to burn for a nice romantic evening, would you choose the one that’s three-quarters used up, or would you choose a brand new candle? (It makes you wonder why generally speaking,  our children get so little attention in ministry leadership!)

#4 The Golden Baton: Serving children plants the gospel into the next generation. Yes, the gospel is always one generation from extinction. You choose if the race is all about your short window to live or the enduring story of global redemption.

#5 The Golden Gate: Winning a child is a gateway to winning the whole family. I can’t tell you how many redeemed families I have seen on the beachhead of a child’s testimony. And yes, the more our culture idolizes their children, the more we can leverage this negative tendency for the gospel.

#6 The Golden Moment: Children’s lives are moldable and full of teachable moments. There is nothing like the moment of awe and insight, when  child learns or asks a genuine question. Play and plant in the rich soil!

#7 The Golden Crown: Serving children has a unique significance which leads to special blessing. In Matthew 25-31-46, Jesus shares the parable about serving, “the least of these.” It’s apparent that “the least” include people of some status or need where they cannot repay if they are served (hungry, sick, imprisoned, estranged, poor) Children, though not listed explicitly, certainly fit this list by virtue of their inability. I believe that serving children brings an unexpected treasure of blessing.

This post is dedicated to my beautiful fiancée, Romina Andreotti, who spent the last year serving 12, 2-year old children at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. Those kids are the most fortunate kids on the planet and I am grateful for her model of love and service that nourishes my own spirit.

The Sticky Teams Conference this year will be a great line-up in one-of-a-kind conference venue. Here’s what’s in store:

• Larry Osborne and Chris Mavity know how to create a culture of accessibility. The focus is on the exchange of seasoned wisdom where you can really hang out together.
• Sticky Teams is one of Larry’s best books. It sets the stage for  team-building content, that is concentrated like nowhere else.
• North Coast will be hosting at their new building which was thoughtfully designed after the venue/multi-site concept was refined. It is rare to find a facility investment of this scale built around venues. One of my favorite North Coast  mantra’s is “Leaders like it big, but people like it small.”
• I will be doing a Church Unique Workshop on Organic Vision to be followed up by a San Diego Vision co::Lab hosted by North Coast. I can’t wait!
• Register early and they are doing a “Three for Free” incentive
• The bottom line: No photocopied vision here, only great folks at a great venue wanting to serve you, your team and your vision well.
• Almost forgot- you won’t want to miss Chris Brown at Monday night’s after party. 

I initially read this post by Rhett Smith (Rhett fuses leadership and counseling insights) because he used a term that intrigued me when he said, “Leaders are only as ’successful’ as their level of differentiation.” Here are a few nuggets from the post, that I think connect directly to leading with clarity and vision. His post was sparked by the book, A Failure of Nerve, by  Edwin Friedman 

• Differentiation is simply ability to “stand on one’s own two feet”, rather than be emotionally fused, or enmeshed with others
• We are all susceptible to being fused with others, but pastoral leadership can have the inherent danger where pastors often get their sense-of-self from others (i.e. congregants, staff, etc.)

When a leader leads from a strong sense of self, and I would add with clear direction and calling from God, you can see effectiveness of leadership in the following contrasts:

• Concern for one’s personal growth rather than obsessed with technique
• Matures the system rather then bettering the immediate conditions
• Is fed up with the treadmill of trying harder rather than focused on the treadmill
• Seeks enduring change rather than eliminating surface-level annoyances
• Adapts toward strengths rather than adapting toward the weak
• Has a universal perspective rather than a reductionist perspective 

In addition to the obvious application to church leadership, these ideas help me appreciate the day of Memorial as an American citizen. We stand on the blessed ground of freedom, because of the perspective, strength, and enduring change provided by sacrifice of many who led without a failure of nerve. My gratitude is heightened by the exposure to the History Channel’s America: The Story of Us. I highly recommend it.