Will Mancini

A pastor and friend of mine, Rick Duncan, is a guy who leads with clarity. He recently passed the baton of lead pastor at Cuyahoga Valley Church (outside of Cleveland) to his protege to focus even further on leadership development and missions.  As a guy bent on intentionality he shared this clip from the movie Hugo that he watched with his family last night. It’s a fun little piece that points to God’s divine design and the role for EVERY PERSON.

Including you.

Here is some of the dialogue of Hugo Cabret:

“A broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do… Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose… it’s like you’re broken… I’d imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn’t be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.”

May this little clip inspire to know more clearly, and live more deeply the one-of-a-kind purpose God has for you.

And thanks to Rick. Be sure to check out his blog.

Your favorite posts on my blog have often come during the New Year window. And I always enjoy creating new content at this time year just for you.

Here are some top posts from my last five years blogging. All of these were created from a New Year planning perspective:

Clarity 101: Goals, Vision, Planning…Blah, Blah, Blah

I wrote this post because people often misunderstand the importance of 30,000 foot, bigger picture clarity before jumping into the daily stuff. AND so much content focuses on the daily stuff.

Church Vision and Strategy Trends

In 2011, I wrote a post that is just as relevant two years later. This post was subsequently picked up by most leadership magazines and online blog aggregators including ChurchLeaders.com and Pastors.com

11 High-Impact Planning Ideas for Senior Pastors

I wrote this post to give some practical ideas to lead pastors. Have you seen it? What are you planning to do new in 2013?

Taking Vision Public: Six Steps to Vision Soaked Communication

This is actually a robust series that I wrote for New Years last year. It is useful for any pastor, but especially those have any responsibility for church communications.  Be sure to read through each post in the series. And, why not send to a friend who is specifically involved in church communications!

Happy New Year my ministry friends!!!  As always, thank you for taking time to swing by the blog.

Every great leader is relentless at unpacking the five irreducible questions of clarity. I use a Vision Frame as a teaching and communication tool to help leaders continually keep clarity before them and their team. This year I plan to post more examples of completed Vision Frames from churches across the country.

Check out examples in my blog now by typing “Church Unique Snapshot” into the search box in the upper right-hand corner.

Learn more about the Vision Frame.

NORTH POINT COMMUNITY CHURCH VISION FRAME

Our Mission

… to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

Our Strategy

… to create environments where people are encouraged and equipped to pursue intimacy with God, community with insiders, and influence with outsiders. This is also known as the foyer, living room and kitchen progression. See the visuals here.

Our Values

… the 7 core values are posted here.

The Five Faith Catalysts (We call these mission measures on the Vision Frame)

1. Practical Teaching
2. Providential Relationships
3. Private Disciplines
4. Pivotal Circumstances
5. Personal Ministry

Because Andy is so intentional I admire the way he keeps the Five Faith Catalysts in front of their people. Here are two examples that are great benchmarks to learn from. The first is how he introduces them to new believers. The second is how they create a unique website to support sermon series on the Five Faith Catalysts.

The FIRST EXAMPLE  is Starting Point: Check out how the the Five Faith Catalysts are introduced into small group material for new believers and “new to church” folks in this piece by Andy called How Do People Grow

The SECOND EXAMPLE  is the Five Things God Uses Website: Check out the media, notes and curriculum at this tool that supports the sermons series on the Five Faith Catalysts here. If you want to learn more about these, be sure to pick up Andy’s book, Deep and Wide.

I hope this inspires you to “frame up” the four sides of your church’s DNA. Also, if you have completed your Vision Frame recently, I would love to hear about it!

If you have not seen the new tool we have developed at Auxano, I encourage you to check it out.  It’s called SUMS. They are totally free book summaries, created by church leaders for church leaders. SUMS are:

• Compact for high-impact reading
• A pure summary and not a review
• Hyperlinked to go deeper
• Attractively designed
• Concluded with staff meeting action steps

I won’t typically post these on my blog, but I wanted to make sure you got to see a few of these if you haven’t pulled the trigger. And by the way, this makes a great holiday reading or a New Year e-mail gift— so feel free to pass these on.

Here are the first four summaries we released.

• Sums-How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler
• Sums-The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni
• Sums-Resonate by Nancy Duarte
• Sums-The Present Future by Reggie McNeal

Be sure to sign up at the Vision Room and get the next SUMS free every other week in your inbox. That’s right, 26 book summaries a year totally free.

I have reflected over a decade on the question of how visionaries develop. These are some initial thoughts that I want to share with blog readers as I think out loud a bit. I would really appreciate your comments and input toward the development of these ideas.

Stage One: VISION CATCHING

Every visionary leaders starts by following someone else’s vision. Here, the fundamental practice of following well precedes and develops the ability to lead well. During this time, a future visionary learns to submit to godly authority. In this stage the future visionary’s style is shaped by the strengths and limitation of the lead visionary. Strengths provide a foundational modeling opportunity. Limitations and weakness forge convictions that will eventually shape the values of the future leader.

Stage Two VISION CASTING

Eventually the visionary leader starts casting vision themselves. There are three nuances of how this vision relates to the the prior vision-catching content. In other words, most of early vision casting is found “underneath” the vision of a leader and/or organization of the developing visionary. The visionary casts vision: a) in support of, b) in relation to, and finally c) in contrast with.

• In Support Of: The first practice is recasting the vision that already exists. The visionary is articulating and communicating what was given to them. The art of communication is matured as commitment, passion and ownership of the vision progresses. For example, a student pastor shares the greater vision of the church he has been serving for the last two years with his seminary buddies.

• In Relation To: Eventually the emerging visionary will create and develop their own initiatives or ministry models within the larger vision. This mini-step takes the art of visionary leadership to a new level. As a visionary leader “builds” within their “domain” of the larger ministry they are responsible to relate what they are doing to the bigger picture. That is, they are advancing and enhancing the vision that they “caught” by casting new vision for their team, event, group, area or department. Our student pastor, for example, is recruiting two dozen new volunteer leaders for a high-school, gospel saturation strategy he developed. This strategy and mini-vision is developed in concert with the broader church vision.

• In Contrast With: This is the positive step of beginning to sense a shift in calling or being attracted to a new ministry vehicle. While this is not an eventual reality for all visionary leaders it will happen for many of them. And by the way, it’s difficult for many senior leaders to watch this happen without sensing betrayal or hurt. This is normal. Yet from God’s perspective, isn’t it natural that a strong emerging visionary will develop completely a new “holy discontent?” Won’t he see new problems and want to find new solutions? The term “in contrast with” is helpful because oftentimes in the mind of the developing visionary, the language of the new is contrasted with and compared to the existing vision. (Hence we talk about missional vs. attractional approaches  or going to unreached people groups vs. growing an existing flock.) For example the student pastor starts dreaming of planting a different kind of church in contrast with the vision he has been serving in.

Stage Three: VISION CARRYING

At this pivotal place, the vision casting stage has matured to a point of full ownership, most often embodied by the senior position or lead role. Hence, not every visionary leaders reaches this point. And it is wrong, in my opinion, to expect that all visionary leaders should aspire to. (Or we would have not visionary second-chair leaders or visionary teams.)

The greatest experiential difference for the vision carrier is the increasing awareness that the vision came from God not himself. Over time, a greater convergence of spiritual maturity, life circumstances, and divine relationships unveil how little the vision truly emerged from within. Eventually he sees how God was orchestrating the events of life to the point that he knows that God himself gave him a vision to carry. Of course his practice of vision-casting hits full-bloom as the vision grows and expands from an ever-strengthening identity and awareness of God calling.

Stage Four: DESTINY STEWARDING

The final stage is one that fewer leaders reach because it is found only with unusual favor AND demonstrated success as a vision carrier over a long time. The success builds a platform of extraordinary influence beyond what was ever imagined. Hence, I believe this stage is experience by leaders in or after their fifties. The feeling of “carrying” a vision for a time, which is in itself a stewardship, moves to an even greater awareness of unplanned, yet God-ordained impact. For the best leaders, this enables them to guard a humble spirit and embrace a broader influence. For example the student pastor plants a church that becomes a church planting movement, or or transforms a city or adopts an unreached people group. At this stage, decades of vision carrying are seen from a different and more enlightened perspective.

At this stage it’s easy for current names to come to mind like Rick Warren or Bill Hybels or T.D. Jakes or Mark Driscoll or Andy Stanley. But I believe there are thousands and thousands of leaders who reach this point, that we will never read about. Despite tremendous impact, they steward a more silent destiny.

So how do you react to this initial framing of these stages? Specifically how does this match up to your personal experience? What would you add or tweak or take away?  Thanks for considering a response.