Will Mancini

This weekend I spoke to 60 large church pastors who are a part of the the Lutheran Church (LCMS).  Billy Graham called the denomination a “sleeping giant.”  The denomination as some unique strengths but is experiencing a long term decline as with many other denominations. As I prepared my time, I sensed the Spirit’s leading to begin to write down a few questions. So at the top of the pad I wrote down, “Questions for our existence” and this is what spilled out. I decided to end my talk with these questions:

• Are the Lutherans the only group that has the privilege to proclaim the Law and Gospel? If not, then why should Lutherans exist?
• Why would an active Christ follower in 2009 want to be Lutheran if they weren’t born into it?
• What is the single greatest reason to be a Lutheran in 2009? Why would a lost world care about that reason?
• If we are stronger at educating children than other denominations why aren’t we a growing denomination?
• Do we want to exercise the privilege of preaching without the responsibility being sent? (Romans 10)
• Who are Lutherans sent to today? Who is your church sent to reach?
• Does practicing the sacraments make you a church if you have jettisoned the mission of Jesus?
• What is keeping the strongest churches in our pack from taking more risks?
• If our strongest churches of the LCMS don’t take the risks then who will?
• What’s keeping the denomination from dramatically celebrating the small pockets of true innovation?
• Why aren’t the larger churches and the denominational leaders working better together for the future of the denomination?
• What will the state of the denomination be in 2080?
• Why do we elevate academia over action when our founder modeled both?
• How come Lutherans have fewer large churches than many other protestant groups?
• Who is solving our ineffective decision-making structures and policies and why aren’t large churches banding together to show the way?
• What would you be willing to give up today in your church (speaking to the large church pastor) if it meant the denomination would be stronger in 2080?

My 15 year old son twittered the MLK quote yesterday: “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” The quote struck him from his 9th grade studies yesterday.

In my vision work I am indebted to MLK’s mastery of vision casting. His 16 minute watershed “I Have a Dream” speech is one the best teaching tools I have used on the elements of vision. In fact we have a cool listening exercise with churches, where we play the speech with a spider diagram in front of them to see how MLK weaves various elements of vision throughout the address. Recently Auxano started developing new resources for Church Unique readers (yet to be released on churchunique.com). The most requested tool is the vision casting “spider diagram.”

Download Vision Proper_Spider Also, if you want to see the video, one of Auxano navigators, Steve Bradley has it posted here.

In Patrick Lencioni's latest POV Newsletter, he commented on the "bad economy bandwagon" that is accompanying most media reports and conversations.  He humorously suggested that perhaps the next thing we may see is "recession Barbie" all decked out with a frown and carrying a copy of the want ads.  While not playing down current economic realities, he acknowledges that most people agree things will rebound and improve. Yet, Lencioni presents an alternative to simply holding on tight and waiting for the storm to pass. Instead, he asserts that now is the perfect time to invest in your organization. But he is talking about investing in the health of the organization – "improving the functioning of the executive team, and their clarification of and recommitment to the organization's values and purposes."

I was asked an interesting question today at the end of 3-hour "futures forum" for a church starting the Vision Pathway. One the wall in front of the group was the work of 30 different subgroups that all presented the "Best of" stories of the church. The retelling of these stories obviously created a sense of enthusiasm among the group.  But the last question of the day was, "Will, can you comment on the health of the church from these stories you see?"  The question presented the opportunity to shift the tone of our meeting from pure celebration to challenge.