Will Mancini

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.

After completing a 12-month journey with Auxano, the pastoral staff of the MET, lead by Sal Sberna unveiled their Vision Frame to over 500 people in their leadership community last Sunday. On exciting aspect of The MET’s vision is a 100-acre plot of land in the middle of one of the largest master planned community in the country- Bridgeland in Northwest Houston. The spearhead of their vision is their missional mandate to “connect people each day to the real Jesus in a real way.” They articulate 5 values or missional motives that guide their uncommon community:

Because we are the recipients of Undeserved Grace we value:
• Unexpected Authenticity
• Unselfish Service
• Undiluted Truth
• Undivided Living
• Unapologetic Evangelism

A bedrock assumption at Auxano is the belief that a “strategic outsider” is indispensable to effective ministry. So when I see a post like this one by Todd Rhoades of Leadership Network I want to pass it along…

“As a leader in your church, do you have people who will tell you what you need to hear? You know, straight shooters who tell it like it really is, challenge you, and tip you off when things are straying off course? We’re not talking about the typical church complainer or antagonist. We’re talking about individuals worthy of respect, have a good pulse on your church’s life, and hold you accountable to the church’s mission and vision…

Michael McKinney has a fascinating post at his LeadershipNow.com Web site where he cites author Keith McFarland (author of The Breakthrough Company). McFarland calls these types of people ‘insultants.’ They’re willing “to ask the tough questions that cause a company (or a church) to think critically about its fundamental assumptions. The value of insultants is that they will go to great lengths to get their [church] to reevaluate a position or adapt to a changing environment.”

Do you have any church insultants? According to McFarland’s research, 90 percent of business CEOs believed they did. However, only 60 percent of their direct reports believed the same companies had a culture that insultants could have input.

What’s the value of a true insultant? According to McFarland, “Often authority figures are wrong, and if an organization doesn’t have a strong insultant culture, errors are likely to be propagated throughout the [church].”

So, here’s today’s question to ponder: Do you have any church insultants who speak into your leadership and vision? If not, who would be willing to become a valuable insultant for your ministry?”

Last Sunday, Faithbridge had their first Values Blitz of the year. Three “blitzes” a year make up the backbone of our leadership development process. Basically the Values Blitz is an unforgettable shared experience around one of Faithbridge’s six core values. By having three a year, every leader gets total exposure to all six values every two years.

The idea behind the shared experience is rooted in the model of Jesus. He seemed to focus on identity much more than activity. Likewise our goal was “be more” together and not just to talk about our “doing.” Jesus also would immerse his followers into symbolic experiences that would find meaning after the fact.

During this blitz on fervent prayer, we emphasized the dynamic of listening to God. The total experience together was designed with 25 minutes of teaching and celebration and 25 minutes of unexpected silence. For the silent part we used Rob Bell’s Nooma video, Noise, which kicked off a powerful 8 minutes. Following this we asked leaders to respond to “What is God saying to you right now?” by writing on large listening wall. The whole 25 minutes was held in a very dynamic silence. God was in it and four days later, many leaders have not stopped talking about the unique time together. As leaders left, all had a dot sticker on their cell phone with the number 10, symbolizing a commitment to listen to God in silence for 10 minutes a day for the next week.

Henry Ford said a basic human problem is trying to do too much at once. When Jesus prayed to the Father just before his death, he recounted, “I have completed everything that you called me to do.” I am always stunned by the reality that Jesus did no more or less than he was created and called to do. Yet he had more than a few opportunities each day of his ministry. Like Jesus, leaders today are met with far more “opportunities” than God wants us to pursue. The question becomes what “opportunities” are really distractions in disguise. So how did our Savior know what to dive into and what to avoid? What gave him crystal clarity when confronted with an ocean of urgent needs? Certainly his knowledge of Scripture and his intimate relationship with the Father were indispensable. But what else was at play? It’s a great question to ponder as a team. At the end of the day, the question begs for the development of shared values. What are the missional motives that a team can use each day as the constant backdrop for filering opportunities and making decisions.