Will Mancini

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!

One of the best tweets that I received this year was the quote, “Are you going through life or are you growing through life?” This quote forces me to consider the areas of development in my life in which I am tempted to coast.

One of the those areas is my ability to empower and release others. While I constantly aspire to empower others, I am constantly amazed at the conditions of my heart that hold me back.

In 2004, when Aubrey Malphurs invited me to co-author Building Leaders, my favorite chapter to write was The Challenge of Empowerment. It is still my favorite chapter because it is the heart-building, character-shaping nature of empowerment that is hardest to realize. I recently reread the chapter and felt thoroughly rebuked by my own words.

I thought you might enjoy a free copy, as an opportunity to refresh your own commitment to empowering others this upcoming year. But don’t read it unless these four heart challenges ring true with you.  The summary chart below gives you an appetizer of the chapters content, questions and exercises.

#1 Empowerment increases he scope of unknown ministry outcomes.

#2 Empowerment requires a sacrifice of short-term ministry efficiency.

#3 Empowerment requires giving away authority that previously provided the basis of personal ministry success.

#4 Empowerment necessitates close support and authentic community with other leaders.

Oral Robert’s death at the age of 91 on Tuesday this past week caused me to reflect on the 3 months of my life that I lived a stone’s throw from Oral Roberts University (ORU) in Tulsa. I was taking a short break from studies at age 21 between my time at Penn State and Dallas Theological Seminary.  Working for Dowell Schlumberger, I moved to Tulsa to attend their global training center for field engineers.  Every day I drove past that huge gold tower which at the time, and from my perspective, represented the failed vision of a Christian who came from a dramatically different evangelical camp than my own. (The huge City of Faith Medical and Research Center in 1991 was a vacant building, closed in 1989 after the highly publicized 8 million dollar crusade of 1986.)

But I share all of that as a backdrop to my greatest learning from Oral Roberts. While living there I developed a band of friends who attended ORU. The primary thing I remember is a vibrancy of faith and an integrity of character that outshone many of my less charismatic brothers and sisters.  During those months, their lives slowly began to transform my negative perceptions of ORU especially when I drove by the glittering landmarks. What I learned is:

#1 The integrity of the people surrounding your vision will go along way to validate it.

But years later and after many turns that brought me to be a “professional visioneer” there is a second learning that I appreciate even more. Perhaps that’s because it lies at the root of my own holy discontent- that so many Christian leaders take the path of least resistance by “borrowing” the vision of others.  In this regard Oral Roberts was a giant. His sole passion was executing his life calling directly from the voice of God.  Again, whatever your theological convictions, consider the broadest implications of this idea from a visioning standpoint. Oral Roberts reminds us that:

#2 If your vision does not reflect the voice of God toward you, it is but an echo toward someone else.

Listen to what Oral Roberts said before his death:

“After I’m gone, others will have to judge how well I’ve obeyed God’s command not to be an echo but to be a voice like Jesus,” the statement said. “As far as my own conviction is concerned, I’ve tried to be that voice with every fiber of my being, regardless of the cost.”

Even at the founding of ORU, he wanted his students to hear God’s voice. Here is his vision that God gave him:

“Raise up your students to hear My voice, to go where My light is dim, where My voice is heard small, and My healing power is not known, even to the uttermost bounds of the earth. Their work will exceed yours, and in this I am well pleased.”

However your own faith journey interprets the contribution of Oral Roberts, I will always be impressed by my taste of integrity and his undeniably unique kingdom vision.  Read the CNN story.

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. 

Perry posted today on Seven Reasons Your Church Plant Might Fail. It’s a fantastic post and I wanted to add two observations. First, three of these are directly related to vision. (And the rest are strongly tied, but indirectly related to vision.) Second, these apply to more than church planting situations.  For example, I see a church plants that might start off strong with photocopied vision, but during later growth stages, say years 5-10, things begin to putter out.

What are the three ways your vision might fail?

1) Reaction

2) Imitation

3) Accommodation

Here are 3 of Perry’s 7 statements to church planters. You might mail if…

#1 The church is planted out of bitterness rather than a divine calling. This is the common problem of reaction. Many churches react in subtle ways, like when they communicate their core values.  Want proof.  Look at your own church’s set of values.  I bet you might find “excellence” and “relevance.” These are usually statements more about what you aren’t than what you are.

#2 The leadership has a desire for imitation rather than seeking revelation. Obviously this is a constant rally cry for me – no imitation vision!  You were born an original don’t die a carbon copy. Here are Perry’s thoughts:

We’ve seen it before…a group of guys go to a conference and see a church…and then come back to their community and try to be just like the church they saw at the conference.  There is NOTHING wrong with receiving inspiration and ideas at a conference…but when one church tries to be just like another one in every area…then I believe the leaders are spending way too much time studying methods rather than the Scriptures.  God calls every church to be unique in some sort of way…and that will never be found if the leadership isn’t desperately seeking God for His direction.

#3 The leadership allows the vision to get highjacked in order to keep everyone happy. Again, accommodation can happen for any leader at any time.

Read all Seven from Perry