Limit Your Limitations – 3 Essentials for Creating a Movement

In this fourth post on Take Seth Godin to Church I want to focus on Tribal Movement. Consider using the questions in these posts for staff or volunteer meetings in the month of December. Use the Advent season to see Jesus as the coming founder of a redemptive tribe called The Church. The previous two posts dealt with tribal passion and tribal leadership.

In Tribes, Godin references Senator Bill Bradley who unpacks the anatomy of a movement with three essentials:

  1. A narrative that tells a story about who we are and the future we are trying to build.
  2. A connection between and among the leader and the tribe
  3. Something to do- the fewer limits the better

Here are some questions for each essential:

Future-building Narratives

  • Every church has a creation story. How clear and developed is yours? Can your team cast a shared, compelling vision based on your creation story?
  • What is your most important priority right now as a church? What are one or two signature stories that help people understand and own that priority?

Note: Creation stories and signature stories are discussed further in Church Unique.

Leader-Follower Connections

  • Where are lines of communication being blocked right now? Who is suffering the most from broken lines of communication?
  • Is our greater barrier right now about tools and supports systems or about our attitudes as leaders? How would our volunteers answer this question?
  • Are we leaning into social media, or creating excuses and making jokes about why we don’t engage it more?

Doing Without Limits

  • What limits have we created that are unnecessary for connecting and releasing our people?
  • Where have limits have been imposed or created that where never intended?
  • Where does our desire for control, lead to limits that really aren’t necessary?

Missed the first parts of this series? Read them here: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3. Read Part 5 here.

Download PDF

Tags: , , , ,

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Culture >

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Will Mancini

Will Mancini

Will Mancini wants you and your ministry to experience the benefits of stunning, God-given clarity. As a pastor turned vision coach, Will has worked with an unprecedented variety of churches from growing megachurches and missional communities, to mainline revitalization and church plants. He is the founder of Auxano, creator of VisionRoom.com and the author of God Dreams and Church Unique.

See more articles by >

COMMENTS

What say you? Leave a comment!

Recent Comments
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for this information. I'm going to use this article to improve my work with the Lord.
 
— Abel Singbeh
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.