Will Mancini

Thanks to all the folks at the C3 Conference (Creative Church Culture) who quickly sent this video as it brought to mind Church Unique.  Ed Young Jr’s creativity is off the charts as usual, and this time he brings a video with a message close to my heart. Enjoy! He is the pastor of FellowshipChurch.com

It’s fascinating how the social sciences reveal what the Bible makes so plain. In a recent book entitled Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink unpacks what he calls “motivation 3.0.” What are the surprises? Basically Pink does excellence work explaining that the extrinsic motivators, like making more money, pale in comparison to intrinsic ones.  The three top internal motivators that he builds the book around are:

• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Purpose

Here is a nugget from the “purpose” chapter of the book, which of course, is the clarity evangelist’s favorite part. Pink discusses the power of words and quotes from management guru, Gary Hamel. 

Words matter. And if you listen carefully, you might begin to hear a slightly different- slightly more purpose-oriented dialect. Gary Hamel says, “The goals of management are usually described in words like efficiency, advantage, value, superiority, focus, and differentiation. Important as these objectives are, they lack the power to rouse human hearts.” Business leaders, he says, “must find ways to infuse mundane business activities with deeper, soul-stirring ideals such as honor, truth, love, justice, and beauty.” Humanize what people say, and you may well humanize what they do.

If we, as a ministry leaders, want to rouse human hearts, we must learn to drip words of purpose into a daily dialogue. As we do, we follow the legacy of Jesus himself and every God-breathed word in Scripture. The first three verses that come to mind are:

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. – Jesus Christ (Mark 10:45)

As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.”  Gospel of Mark (1:16-17)

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Apostle Paul (Philippians 4:8)

If you want to learn from others who are “delivering vision daily,” check out my post on Open Source Vision Casting. If you would like to probe the content of Drive a bit more (and if you like movies instead of books) check out this TED video on the subject.

Pastors who shape culture…

  #1  Don’t rely on systems and structure to the neglect of relationships

  #2  Value listening skills as much as speaking skills

  #3  See vision as a state of mind not a statement

  #4  Are motivated more by contextual faithfulness than appearance of success

  #5  Plant the church that the community needs, not the one idealized in their head

  #6  Create their own tools for ministry verses copycat programming

  #7  Lead by letting culture applies its own pressure verses persuasive force

  #8  Can articulate the DNA of their church without borrowing another leader’s words

  #9   Cast vision by interpreting and extrapolating experiences not attendance patterns

  #10  Focus more on practicing shared values than valuing best practices

Where did these thoughts come from? On my flight down to Dallas tonight, I was reflecting on time I enjoyed with a great friend in ministry last Thursday- Dave Saathoff, the senior pastor at Bandera Road Community Church, in San Antonio. He is doing some training for his staff and local church pastors next month and will be challenging leaders with the message,   “Don’t build a church, build a culture.” It reminded me of the working title when I wrote Church Unique which was “Ooze Vision- How Leaders Shape Culture to Guide Growth” These were the thoughts that came to mind as I pondered the distinction in leadership perspective and style.

Vision Sunday 2010 from Hillsong Church on Vimeo.

If communicating vision is important to you, then consider listening to this 25-minute vision casting experience with the attached evaluative tool.  What makes this Hillsong vision casting piece uniquely effective?

• The visual medium is fantastic
• It’s invitational tone is incredibly engaging
• The substance of life-change is palpable
• It’s kingdom driven rather than church driven
• But, the kingdom values don’t dilute the church’s  identity
• The testimonial “weaves” don’t  fragment the power of one visionary voice
  
• It forges bold newness and continuity with the past

 Before hitting play, here are two recommendations;

 #1 Listen to the entire 25 minutes in one sitting. I was moved the most at 22 minutes.

#2 Listen with the Vision Casting Spider Diagram from Church Unique. You may want to do this as a team exercise.

Team Exercise:

 Listen to the video as a team.  Write down the most powerful phrases, metaphors, and stories to you as they corresponds with the six elements of vision on the spider diagram. Discuss them as a team, and how your team can improve their vision casting skills this week.

More free resources from Church Unique

Like many leaders I want to lead a world-class team. But I don’t think you can without a core commitment to managing dreams. We talk a lot about managing people and we get specific by talking about their talents, personalities, resources, motivations and strengths. But what about their dreams? Are you as a leader so wrapped up in your own vision, that you don’t take the time to really see how the dreams of your top leaders, dovetail and intertwine with the organization?

Why is this important to me? Years ago I realized that my greatest convictions as a leader were formed not through postive modeling, but by the weaknesses of the leaders above me. Before starting my own ministry, I had served on many teams led by strong and effective leaders. But none of them demonstrated willingness or skillfulness in attending to my personal aspirations. Conviction created: I don’t want to be a dream-dumb leader.

Here is what I have learned thus far on my own journey toward managing dreams.

#1 Clarify your own dreams. You can’t have a meaningful conversation about the dreams of others without your own dreams clarified. In fact, so few people have ever really clarified their dreams, they will probably need you to model it as the first step of helping them access it.

#2 Connect your personal dreams to the organization’s vision. It’s very important that people see how organizations are vehicles to realize their personal dreams. Too many times, the agenda of the organization is something totally different from what your people daydream about. For some, “org-speak” even becomes a necessary evil. You’ll never hear it, but it is there and lives for years, totally disguised. You must manage the gap, and it starts by modeling it again yourself.

#3 Warning: If you can’t separate out your personal dreams from the vision of the organization you are leading, you may be too captive to the organization. I have been there myself and had to discover what I call a “healthy detachment.”

#4  Operate with a dangerous promise. I lead with the promise that if the vision I am leading toward is not in line with the dreams of my team, I will help them find a better fit in another organization. In the last 6 years at Auxano, I have helped two on my leadership team find more fulfilling roles. There is an important belief behind this promise for me. I believe that God is always going to provide for the dream-vision alignment, so if that alignment is no longer there, I WANT to help those people off the bus.

#5 Cultivate, cultivate, cultivate the conversation. My biggest disappointments in managing dreams come from assuming that its easy to have the conversation for my team members. The truth is, it is extremely difficult to foster this type of dialogue. It requires relationship, connection, authenticity, transparency, trust, etc. If there is fear, then game over. Hence back to imperative #4 above. Just remember you can’t just “have” the dream conversation, you must farm the conversation; plant seeds, provide water and tend to it.

#6 Start with satisfaction. Yesterday one of our teams met to talk about our direction and our next vision milestone. I started the time by asking each team member to describe which Auxano project, initiative or event gave has given them deepest sense of satisfaction. It was the best team time all year! This exercise does not automatically reveal dreams, but it creates a climate and provides clues for the ongoing journey of dream management.

#7 Be flexible and experiment. In the end people dreams cannot be realized if there is no organizational flex and flow. Only you can provide this. Also, you may need to operate with some tentative thoughts or aspirational probes. Don’t be afraid to tweak roles and responsibilities for a season. The best visionary organizations I have worked with are always willing to adapt leadership structure and key responsibility areas.

#8 Don’t let failures slow you down. Even in writing this post, I am more aware of my insufficiencies as a dream manager than anything else. But I keep pressing on.