Will Mancini

I just finished spring break in Park City snowboarding with my three kids. Each morning as the blinds opened from our kitchen window, the question of clarity was answered as we noted the “visibility” of the day. Technically, visibility is a measure of the distance at which an object or light can be clearly discerned. It was funny how visibility affected the emotion of the morning. Tuesday morning, the bright sunshine and clear blue sky, energized our steps to get on the mountain. Thursday morning the fog and snow left my 8-year old daughter more interested in the day off. Higher visibility on the slopes meant more confidence, less fear and more fun!

Leaders create visibility for people in their organization. Consider how your clarity as a leader affects the emotional well being of followers. Clarity determines levels of credibility, confidence, joy, and propensity for risk, verses attitudes of mistrust, doubt, uncertainty, protectiveness and fear.

Howard Hendricks used to say, “Where there’s a fog in the pulpit, there’s a mist in the pew.”

FYI for science buffs: The international definition of fog is a visibility of less than 1 kilometre (3,300 ft); mist is a visibility of between 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) and 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) and haze from 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi)

When I spoke at last week’s Generous Churches Leadership Community, participates were given a complimentary copy of Church Unique. The books weren’t supposed to be out yet, so Chris Willard and Stephanie Plagens, really pulled the rabbit out of the hat and surprised me. What does it feel like to see a book you worked on for 18 months for the first time? I hate to sound sacrilegious, but it runs a close second to seeing the birth of your baby! (I watched all three of my children in raw, living color.) The only difference is the birth of a book is a little less miraculous and a little less messy. Even Max Lucado who has sold over 50 million copies says of writing a book, “It’s like giving birth to barbwire!”

The only thing better than digesting Andy Stanely’s book, Communicating for a Change is hearing a communicator apply it! Bruce Wesley, Yancey Arrington and Greg Poore are my teaching pastors at Clear Creek Community Church, and they really hit it out of the park. Over the last two years, the teaching team has zeroed in on a less is more communication strategy that leaves the message resonating in the heart throughout the week. The key feature of the message delivery is a “sticky” central idea around which the entire message is built. This last Sunday Yancey continued his Suburban Legends series, and spoke on the Myth of “New is Better.” Yancey brought a great blend of humor and urgency as he uncovered our tendency to tinker with the real Jesus to brew a more appealing spirituality. Reasserting a clear gospel, he ramped up the central idea that “to mess with the truth is to miss the truth.”

On the airplane from Spartanburg, SC to Dallas, TX to speak at Leadership Network, I was reflecting on the nature of vision. Although we know vision is important we tend to think of vision as intangible and in the future and therefore as not real. Well that seems simple, right? Maybe not. Unfortunately vision for most is words on paper- statement- rather than a vital, pulsating reality in the heart of the leadership community. Is it possible that vision could be and should be more real? Should it be as real, perhaps more real, than the physical objects around us everyday? I am still thinking about this, but my thinking left two questions to ponder:

Is what God has imagined any less real than our current reality?

Is your imagination what God has already imagined?

Last night Upward Sports kicked off its 2008 training tour in San Antonio with its typical “service beyond expectation” style. On Friday night, Caz McCaslin, the founder and president retells the creation story with humor and passion, urging church partners “to race to the heart of the child” cause “the first one there wins!” Upward is introducing somewhat of a paradigm shift this year to take their mission deeper in cities across the world, “to introduce children to Jesus Christ by creating opportunity to serve through sports.” The paradigm shift is the cultivation of a stronger missional heartbeat in the churches that run the sports programs. Caz says, “Upward is not a program for your church, its a program for your community!” The picture of this kingdom perspective is painted by their vision proper- the memorable numbers “4-1-1.” Over the last twelve years Upward marked the moments that there programs reached four thousand kids, then forty thousand kids, then four hundred thousand. The vision is now is 4-1-1. Reaching four million kids with one million leaders that lead to “won hearts” for Christ.