How to Separate Critical and Creative Thinking

by: VRcurator

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Does your team have agreement around vision, but lack ownership and alignment?

Effective teams do not just agree on vision, they own it and align every ounce of energy and effort toward accomplishing the vision. As a leader, you can sense the difference between your team liking the vision and your team leading toward vision.

In most instances, simple agreement feels like an invisible wall sits somewhere within the team. A divide of mistrust, misunderstanding, or missed input often exists in the origination of the vision. This always leads to misalignment and missed opportunity in the execution of vision.

Every busy week brings a fresh truckload of glass bricks for your team to stack on this invisible wall. No one has ill motives. No one intends cement separation, but the walls go up without conscious notice as the pace of ministry continues.

The good news is that it’s NOT rocket science to take down a wall. Haven’t you noticed it’s easier (and usually more fun) to demolish than it is to build? What your team needs are sledgehammers to take down these hard-to-see barriers.

How do you tear down your team’s invisible walls?

Separate Critical and Creative Thinking

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Hatch! by C. Wilson McNair

Most Corporate Brainstorming Isn’t Brainstorming… not even close. (Usually what’s going on is playful arguing with snacks on the table.)

McNair Wilson spent a decade inside Disney – mostly at Disney Imagineering designing theme parks. His teams hatched so many ideas he was invited to teach his methods through Disney University. His “7 Agreements of Brainstorming” will assist your team in launching world-class products, services, and programs. You will create competition-crushing concepts using brainstorming that works! (And you can keep the snacks on the table.)

Whatever’s next for your organization, why not make it best? HATCH! is a highly entertaining book filled with the author’s witty drawings and scores of examples of McNair’s 7 Agreements in use by big corporations and small non-profits.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

The problem with brainstorming is that everyone thinks they already do it.

The reality is that nobody knows how to brainstorm anymore. It’s not your colleagues’ fault – or yours. Nobody knows how to brainstorm anymore because it is likely every model we have seen contains significant roadblocks to actual innovation.

Far too often, the “way you’ve always done it” is the wrong way – the least productive and the most frustrating.

According to former Disney Imagineer C. McNair Wilson, real brainstorming is both fun to do and very productive- all at the same time.

Done right, brainstorming produces amazing results because “we are smarter than me.”

Start your brainstorming by separating Creative Thinking and Critical Thinking.

Both must be done, but they must be done separately if anything of lasting value will be accomplished.

Creative thinking is idea generating, imagining, wondering out loud, dreaming, “what-iffing.” The decidedly different activity of Critical Thinking is not so much thinking negatively as it is thinking with analysis, focus, intentionality, and purpose.

You will have made huge strides toward powerful Creative Thinking once your team embraces and agrees to this important distinction: Creative and Critical Thinking are not part of the same activity and do not, cannot, must not occur simultaneously. It doesn’t work. They cannot occupy the same space. They are the beginning and end of the process whether it is five minutes or five months. Folding them together means doing neither activity effectively. And it is not brainstorming.

You cannot be fully, actively, creative if you are simultaneously thinking critically.

It is vital that you learn to postpone judgment, evaluation, and analysis until you and your team get everything out of your head and up on the wall. You are hatching a plan. Every chicken, eventually, leaves the egg. During Creative Thinking you are offering thought fragments, whims, notions, doodles, bits, and pieces.

The key to Creative Thinking is to learn not to care. That is to say, get to a point where you learn not to care of your ideas make sense, are possible, or if they fit into the project budget. You will care about all that later. This is true for all the ideas that flash through your mind during Creative Thinking.

Don’t deliberate, divulge.

Don’t analyze, add.

Don’t decide, confide.

Don’t edit, say it.

You cannot possibly know when a tiny, fleeting thought will be just the spark to ignite a bonfire of creativity in other team members.

C. Wilson McNair, Hatch

A NEXT STEP

Auxano developed a team collaboration tool that we use with every church team. The Collaboration Cube specifically addresses this need for separation between creative and critical thinking.

The Cube is built around the three modes of good collaboration: Blue Sky, Discuss/Challenge, and Decide/ Commit. Each mode represents the ground rules for how the team is interacting at any given time. A facilitator, team leader, or team member can use the Cube to signal a shift or recommend a change of the team’s mode.

Blue Sky mode is the classic brainstorming time where it is critical to generate a great volume of ideas while delaying judgment or critique. The basic principle of creativity is that great ideas are generated through many ideas. While many teams are familiar with the general idea of brainstorming, few practice it, because of the discipline required to suspend judgment, or Critical Thinking. Use the Cube to strengthen this mode of Creative Thinking.

Discuss/Challenge is the default mode where four Critical Thinking roles are put into play and where feedback and pushback are openly discussed. Discuss/ Challenge is the dominant mode that occurs during collaboration. Remember, each role is a default style that each team member tends to play, but during collaboration, each person can pass in and out of each role as collaboration progresses to Decide/Commit.

Decide/Commit is the mode signaled by the facilitator when moving toward a consensus decision or clarifying final action steps. In this mode a leader is able to “land the plane” on the meeting or session. This is the time when the facilitator or leader senses that enough dialogue and “ah-ha moments” have occurred to move toward a meaningful conclusion. When it comes time to Decide/Commit and you poll your team, use this definition of consensus: “Consensus is not when 80% of people feel 100% good about an idea; consensus is when 100% of the team feels 80% good about an idea.”

Visit collaborationcube.com to learn more and to purchase Cubes for your team.

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 50-3.

This is part of a weekly series posting excerpts from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix book excerpts for church leaders.

SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; each solution is taken from a different book. Additionally, a practical action step is included with each solution.

As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS Remix provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

>> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

>> Purchase prior issues of SUMS Remix<<

Tags: C. Wilson McNair, Hatch!, SUMS Remix, Team Brainstorm, Vision, brainstorming

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6 Ways to Rekindle Your Church’s Passion for Its Vision

by: Cory Hartman

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The vision is still in print, but it’s harder to keep people’s eyes on it. Vision lingo is still spoken, but it’s harder to get people excited about it. Vision activity is still performed, but it’s harder to remember the reason for it.

Diagnosis: your church has lost its passion for its vision. We get it. It happens to everyone. Waning passion is part of life, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. Here are six ways to get it back.

#1 – REINTRODUCE people to the problem

Every genuine vision solves a problem. It describes a place we want to go that’s better than where we are. This is especially true for vision in the church. If a church’s vision comes from God, it is one detail of God’s total vision for the world. God’s vision solves the biggest problem there is: the “futility” and “bondage” in the world due to sin (Rom. 8:20-21).

So when you roll out a new vision to the church, you have to “problem-cast before you vision-cast.” In other words, you have to help people get emotionally tied to the problem that the vision exists to solve. Otherwise, they won’t care much about the solution. If passion wanes as time goes on, people may have lost touch with the problem. It may not be a burning issue for them anymore.

To rekindle the passion, use both platform and private conversation to rub people’s faces in the specific problem your church was commissioned by God to address. Remind people of what it looks, feels, and smells like. Recover holy discontent with the world as it is. Awaken people’s thirst for the solution —what God wants to do through his church.

#2 – REVISIT Scriptures about encouragement and discouragement

People need to be reminded of the problem if they have become complacent and self-satisfied or if they have become distracted by lesser things. But those aren’t the only reasons passion fades.

Sometimes passion fades because of discouragement. People may know well the problem that vision is meant to solve. In fact, they know it so well that it’s overwhelming. They may have been struggling against it for a while, and for some reason they don’t seem to be gaining any ground. They’re demoralized.

Fortunately, the Bible contains rich resources for discouraged people. Dig up the jewels of the complaints of God’s people —

“How long, LORD ? Will you hide forever?” (Ps.89:46). Preach them. Better yet, pray them in small and large groups.

Then mine the ore of encouragement out of Scripture. Remind each other to “be strong and courageous. . . do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go” (Josh. 1:9). Recall the reality of the presence of God in your midst. Remember that he is infinitely more invested in the vision than even you are, and he will bring it to completion.

#3–RESEARCH individuals who are passionate for the vision

Maybe passion has waned in the church in general, but that doesn’t mean everyone in the church has lost it. Who is still fired up?

It may be a staff person, but it’s even better if it’s someone else. Great places to look include new volunteers and new members. These people have stepped up their involvement because they care—something about the church has touched them emotionally.

So once you locate the who, learn the why. What do these passionate people love about the church? If they’ve been at it for a while, what do they do that keeps their passion strong? Search for stories, themes, and lessons that can be transferred to the rest of the body.

#4–REMIND with an annual report experience

Does your church issue an annual report every year? A well-done report reminds people of where the church is headed and celebrates milestones along the way.

If you already prepare an annual report, does it stir the soul? Is it printed in black and white or in vivid color? Does it list numbers or does it tell stories? (The right answer: both.) Does page area display as much imagery as text? Is the church’s vision woven into its language, and does it define its outline?

To get the most out of the report, make its release an experience. Connect it with a worship weekend that’s hyped for two weeks prior. Shoot and show video that enlivens the high points. Preach a passionate sermon that illuminates the biblical source of the vision.

#5–REFRESH with your leadership development strategy

According to Auxano Lead Navigator Mac Lake, an effective leadership development strategy has three elements. All of them can inject passion back into the church.

Prepare new leaders in the competencies they need for their new roles. Whatever the role, make one of its core competencies a passion-sustaining practice such as “giving encouragement that shapes the soul. ”

Equip current leaders by huddling up on a regular basis to learn from each other on a leadership topic. One huddle could reorient leaders to the vision. Another could be about how to keep passion alive.

Finally, inspire leaders every six to twelve months with a leadership conference, either in house or as a field trip. Soak the experience in vision conversation.

#6–RENEW the passion of senior leaders

If passion has waned in the church, it’s time to check the senior leaders’ pulses. People are rarely more passionate than those who lead them.

If honest self-examination and frank conversation reveals that your team isn’t “feeling it” the way you used to, talk about why. Is the problem at church? At home? In your body? In your spirit?

Maybe it’s time for a staff retreat that’s less about planning and more about dreaming. Maybe you need to install a rotating series of sabbaticals to keep leaders refreshed.

Or maybe you lack passion for the church’s vision because you’re out of touch with your own vision. Personal calling feeds collective calling. Is it time for your team to get clear on your individual vision journeys?

Tags: Cory Hartman, Vision

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10 Reasons You’ve Hit Your Ceiling

by: Rick Warren

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Every church goes through plateaus—times when your church simply doesn’t grow. It’s natural and normal, and they’re part of our story at Saddleback.

Our plateaus have looked different at times, but they’ve been there. In fact, a decade ago we were in the midst of one such five-year plateau. But then God did what only he can do. Today we’re going through a renewed period of growth.

In nearly 50 years of ministry, I’ve talked with thousands of pastors going through their own periods of plateau. I’ve studied the issue extensively. Here’s what I’ve learned.

1. Plateaus are natural.

Don’t get freaked out by them. Plateaus are just a state of little or no change. Everything stops growing at some point. It happens all of the time in nature. It shouldn’t surprise us when it happens in our churches. It will happen in our churches. You can count on it.

2. God created every organism to have a maximum limit on its growth.

Even redwood trees, which grow to 400 feet tall and live for 2,000 years, have a growth cap. Your church does, too. You can’t use it as an excuse, though. You don’t know what the limit for your church is.

I know a church of 150 in a town of 1,500. They’ve reached 10 percent of their community. Think about it. This church is actually doing a better job of reaching its community than many larger churches.

3. The younger and smaller you are, the faster your growth rate.

You can see this characteristic in human growth, too. We typically grow the fastest when we’re children. By our late teens, we’re done growing. When I started Saddleback, we had one member—my wife, Kay. By the end of the first year, we had around 150 people most weekends. That means we grew by 15,000 percent that first year! But a bigger church can’t do that. The bigger you are, the slower you grow.

4. The average church grows for 15 years, plateaus, and then eventually dies.

Not every church does this. Some churches have a longer growth span. Others have a shorter one. But on average, a church will stop growing at 15 years old—unless renewal comes. This is just an average, of course. It doesn’t mean every church will plateau at 15 years and then eventually die. And with renewal, a church will grow.

5. Plateaus can happen anytime.

You can plateau in year one of a church or year 40. You’ll typically plateau multiple times in your church’s history. I’ve studied thousands of churches and trained hundreds of thousands of pastors, and I’ve seen a few typical points in which churches stop growing.

Churches often plateau at 75 and 150 people. But the hardest to overcome is usually 300. If you can get past 300 people, you’ll likely have solved many of your most difficult problems. The larger your church gets, the easier it will get to break plateaus because you will have developed the skills needed through earlier growth and plateau cycles.

6. Some plateaus are uncontrollable.

You may be the greatest leader since Abraham Lincoln and still go through a plateau. You simply can’t control all of the factors that cause your church to stop growing. For instance, if you’re in a typical small town and a large factory closes and the members move away, that’s not your fault. You’re not a failure. It’s just a fact of life.

7. Plateaus can happen in one purpose while you’re growing in the other purposes.

If you’ve been reading Ministry Toolbox for a while, you know the five purposes of the church: worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism. You can certainly grow in one of those areas as you’re plateauing in another. You could be bringing people in the front door but sending them out the back door. To be healthy, you need to do all of the purposes.

8. The longer a church is plateaued, the more energy it takes to get it growing again.

It’s a matter of momentum. It’s clearly easier to keep an active object moving than to get a static object to move. If your church hasn’t grown for the past six months, or a year, you’ll have challenges as you try to restart growth. If it has been five years, you’ll have a bigger challenge. If your church has been plateaued for 20 years, you’ll have a real problem. It’s not impossible though. With God’s help, you can break through it. But it’ll be more difficult.

9. Some plateaus are actually seasons.

Every church goes through seasons in its life. Everything grows during springtime. You start harvesting in the fall. Then winter comes along. It’s cold. It’s dark. The days are shorter.

Your ministry may be in the winter right now. Hang on. Springtime’s coming. It may be just a season.

10. A plateau doesn’t have to be a dead end! It can be a gateway to the next level.

Growing churches have figured out how to break through the inevitable growth barriers that come along. You can break them, too. Often, once you break through, you’ll experience a new season of growth.

We saw this at Saddleback. I mentioned earlier that we hit a plateau between 2005 and 2010, so we made some structural changes. I learned some new skills, and we started growing again. And we’ve grown steadily over the last eight years—sometimes as much as 10 percent a year.

I’m confident your church can grow again, too. I believe God will finish what he started in your church. It’s what he does. Just remind yourself of Philippians 1:6: “I am sure that God, who began this good work in you, will carry it on until it is finished on the Day of Christ Jesus” (GNT).

> Read more from Rick here.

Tags: Plateau, Rick Warren, Vision, church plateau

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Vision Moves Your Church in these Four Ways

by: Sam Rainer III

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Vision is overrated. Too many leaders put too much weight on their vision and not enough on other important matters of leadership. Culture, discipline, accountability, and creativity are just as important as vision.

That being said, leadership does not happen without vision. Vision is meant to inspire, engage, and capture the heart. In the church, vision statements are common, but not enough of them move the congregation to action.

How do you know when vision is working? When it’s moving your church from what is stated by the leader to what is accepted among the people. What is accepted will become the culture and then move the people in the direction of vision. What does this movement look like? There are four important ways vision moves your church.

1. From inward to outward. Vision works when the movement of the church shifts from inward to outward. Priorities change from personal preferences to selfless action. For example, through the vision of one of our local mission partners to serve the homeless, I’ve experienced my own shift away from being selfish with my time. Now I find joy in giving that time to them.
2. From joyless to joyful. Another shift occurs with the tone of the congregation. A church embracing vision will do so with joy. Hopefulness replaces hopelessness. Care replaces apathy. Boldness replaces fear.
3. From infrequent to frequent. Attendance frequency is one of the biggest reasons churches experience a numerical decline. When a congregation embraces vision, the people start showing up more often and with more fervor. An increase in attendance frequency helps a church with giving, volunteering, communication, unity, and just about everything else.
4. From comfort to sacrifice. A shift from comfort to sacrifice is perhaps the most important movement for shaping the culture. When a church is willing to sacrifice for the vision, most everything else will fall into place. Comfortable people don’t move. Sacrificial people are always looking for opportunities to do more for Jesus.

These four movements are important ways in which vision changes the direction of a congregation. Good vision will move outward with joy. Good vision will cause people to be more sacrificial with increasing frequency.

> Read more from Sam.

Tags: Sam Rainer, Vision

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Your Best You: Find Purpose

by: VRcurator

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Life Younique founder Will Mancini asks this question: 

Do you see your mission in life as something created, designed, and given by God? We are called not just to follow Jesus (a common call to all people) but we are called to accomplish something specific as a one-of-a-kind saint (your special assignment from God).

Is there a process of discovering and living out your unique life call?

THE QUICK SUMMARY – The Call by Oz Guinness

The Call continues to stand as a classic, reflective work on life’s purpose. Best-selling author Os Guinness goes beyond our surface understanding of God’s call and addresses the fact that God has a specific calling for our individual lives.

Why am I here? What is God’s call in my life? How do I fit God’s call with my own individuality? How should God’s calling affect my career, my plans for the future, my concepts of success? Guinness now helps the reader discover answers to these questions, and more, through a corresponding workbook – perfect for individual or group study.

According to Guinness, “No idea short of God’s call can ground and fulfill the truest human desire for purpose and fulfillment.” With tens of thousands of readers to date, The Call is for all who desire a purposeful, intentional life of faith.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

The journey to “discover one’s self” has many paths. There are also innumerable resources along those paths. The bookshelves – both physical and digital – are filled with volumes dedicated to helping you “discover your purpose,” “finding the true you,” and many more similar promises.

If you are serious about undertaking such a journey, beware of the inadequate answers offered by most of those resources. While not necessarily wrong, they all fall short of this truth verbalized by author Os Guinness:

Our life purpose comes from two sources at once – who we are created to be and who we are called to be. The real notion of calling is the “ultimate why” for human living.

Become an entrepreneur of life and see all of life as an enterprise transformed by his call. Count the cost, consider the risks, and set out each day on a venture to multiply your gifts and opportunities and bring glory to God and add value to our world. Answering the call is the road to purpose and fulfillment in your life.

Deep in our hearts, we all want to find and fulfill a purpose bigger than ourselves. Only such a larger purpose can inspire us to heights we know we could never reach on our own. For each of us the real purpose is personal and passionate: to know what we are here to do, and why.

The notion of calling, or vocation, is vital to each of us because it touches on the modern search for a basis for individual identity and an understanding of humanness itself.

Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction lived out as a response to his summons and service.

Os Guinness, The Call

A NEXT STEP

Set aside a two-hour time block free of distractions of any kind. Divide a chart tablet into three sections, and head each one with the following:

Devotion – commitment to some purpose, willingness to serve God

Dynamism – the activeness of an energetic personality

Direction – the concentration of attention or energy on something

Author Os Guinness states, “Calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction lived out as a response to his summons and service.”

Rereading this statement each time, take 30 minutes to reflect on each of the three categories listed on the chart tablet. Write as many words, phrases, or sentences – or draw images – that illustrate your current life in that particular area.

After you have completed all three sections, take a 20-minute prayer walk outside, away from distractions, asking God to help you focus those three areas to that you are both comforted and challenged by the calling of God in your life.

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 106-1, released November 2018.

This is part of a weekly series posting excerpts from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix book excerpts for church leaders.

SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; each solution is taken from a different book. Additionally, a practical action step is included with each solution.

As a church leader you get to scan relevant books based on practical tools and solutions to real ministry problems, not just by the cover of the book. Each post will have the edition number which shows the year and what number it is in the overall sequence. (SUMS Remix provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

> > Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Life Planning, Life Younique, Oz Guinness, SUMS Remix, The Call, Vision, Will Mancini, younique

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The Great Commission is NOT these 4 Things

by: Michael Kelley

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The closing of Matthew’s gospel is not just a tidy end to his book; these last few verses are the marching orders for the church:

The eleven disciples traveled to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but some doubted. Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:16-20).

Here is one of those passages that, if we ever wonder what God’s will is for our lives, we can come back to again and again, for here is the answer. What does God want me to do? He wants me to go and make disciples. Just like He said. So I wonder today, in this post, you would think with me not just about what these parting words of Jesus say, but also what they do NOT say. In that spirit, here are four things the Great Commission is NOT:

1. Negotiable.

The lasting command Jesus gave to the church is couched in His authority. Before He said to go, before He said to make disciples, Jesus wanted everyone to know the position from which He was speaking. This is not a life hack; it’s not some good advice; it’s not a request. This is a command, one rooted in the authority of Jesus.

Here we see the Son of God, the King of the Universe, the One through whom and in whom all things hang together. He has died and risen from the grave as the Conqueror of sin and death. And is taking His rightful place at the right hand of God the Father. From that position of authority, indeed all authority in heaven and on earth, He issues this command. Because of His authority, Jesus’ commission is not negotiable for any of us.

We should beware, then, of all the ways we tend to try and negotiate with Jesus. We hold up our circumstances, our supposed limitations, our special instances, but they are of no consequence. That doesn’t mean Jesus doesn’t care about them; it does mean, though, that they do not excuse us from this command.

2. Restrictive.

This is a very inclusive command. Jesus began His command with a non-restrictive description of His authority with the word “all.” With His “all” authority, we are to go to “all” nations. And when we go to “all” nations, we are to teach people to obey “everything.” There is nothing left out here; nothing pushed to the side. And here, too, we should be careful that we don’t either intentionally or unintentionally restrict that which is meant to be loosed.

We should be careful that we don’t restrict the “who” of the Great Commission. Like Jonah, there are certain groups of people that are uncomfortable for us to speak to. There are all kinds of reasons for that – maybe it’s our past experience, perhaps it’s our upbringing, or maybe it’s the state of current events. But if we are Christians, then the Great Commission calls us to confront our political, racial, and socio-economic biases. It’s an inclusive command for us to cross the lines we’ve drawn in our hearts.

But we should also be careful that we don’t restrict the “what” of the Great Commission. It’s not lost on Jesus that some of His teaching is hard to stomach. He saw it happen when He taught Himself – every time He stepped up to a crowd it was always thinner when He got done as people were confronted with the full implications of following Him. Ironically, we might talk ourselves into restricting some of the teachings of Jesus to try and make Jesus more palatable to those around us. But Jesus doesn’t need our help with that; He’s not asking for our help – in fact, He’s not asking at all. He’s commanding our faithfulness.

3. Complicated.

The Great Commission is not negotiable; it’s not restrictive; it’s also just not that complicated. We are to go. We are to share. And we are to bring others along the road of following Jesus. That’s it. And when you look at it like that, it’s really not that complicated. One might wonder, then, why we tend to make it so.

If we think about other parts of life that we tend to overcomplicate we might come up with a reason or two. For me, I know one of the reasons I tend to overcomplicate something is out of sheer procrastination. I know something needs to be done and I feel either unprepared or unexcited about doing it. So complicating an issue like that is a neat way around actually getting busy – it’s because the more I talk around something, the longer I don’t have to actually do it. And as an added bonus, it actually looks like I’m doing the very thing I’m subconsciously avoiding.

4. Easy.

But it’s at this point that we should recognize the difference between simple, and easy. Just because something is simple, doesn’t mean it doesn’t take effort. And cost. And pain of one sort or another. That’s true in obeying Jesus’ instructions. More times than not, they’re actually pretty simple. But there is difficulty in their simplicity.

It will cost us to obey Jesus’ commission. We will have to go, and if we have to go, then we will have to leave. And we will have to make disciples, and if we are making disciples, it will mean we have to give up some other things in our lives we are spending time and resources on. Make no mistake – living out Jesus’ Great Commission requires a drastic reordering of our lives. That’s not easy, but Jesus’ promises us it’s worth it.

These words of Jesus? They’re not negotiable, restrictive, complicated or easy – but they are the words of the One with all authority. So we must ask ourselves when confronted again by this familiar passage – are we following Jesus, or aren’t we?

> Read more from Michael Kelley.

Tags: Great Commission, Michael Kelley, Vision

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Three Places to Uncover Values in Your Culture

by: Eric Geiger

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While serving alongside the Auxano team, I learned the important distinction between vision, mission, strategy, and values. Well-intentioned leaders can confuse those and mix and match them in a way that actually harms clarity.

• Mission is the what. Your mission is what your organization or ministry is on the planet to do.
• Strategy is the how. Your strategy is how you accomplish the mission.
• Vision is what you are pursuing now – the major goals in front of your team that are in alignment with your mission.
• And your values impact everything you do because your values form the culture of your ministry organization.

Because it is the shared values and beliefs that form the culture, it is critically important for leaders to understand the values beneath the surface. Wise leaders don’t declare values; they uncover the values that are already there. In your organization, you can learn the values that are beneath the surface by looking in a few places. Doing so will help you understand the culture, and understanding the culture is more important than understanding the strategy because strategy is much more flexible than culture. So where do you look? To uncover the values in your culture, look in these three places:

1. The Heroes and Stories

The leaders in the culture that are spoken of as the epitome of the ministry or organization are good examples of the values on display. Listen to the stories that describe the heroes in the culture and you can learn what is valued. As I interviewed and onboarded into my new role at Mariners Church, I heard numerous stories of God’s people at Mariners serving the poor and marginalized in our community and around the world. The stories are beautiful and amazing. By listening, you can learn a lot about what is valued.

2. The Celebrations

Plato famously declared, “What is celebrated in a country is cultivated.” The same is true in any ministry or organization. Whatever has been celebrated has formed the culture. If a ministry celebrates tangible impact in a local community, you know local engagement is in the culture. If a ministry celebrates volunteers who are equipped for ministry, you know that leadership development is in the culture. If you pay attention to what is celebrated you will you learn what is valued. If you want to add a value to a culture, you will need to find ways to celebrate and cultivate that value. You won’t be able to merely speak a value into existence. You may be the leader, but you are not God.

3. The Language

As the new senior pastor of Mariners, I knew one of my first tasks was to understand the culture beneath the surface at Mariners. Thankfully there was language and history for me to study.

I have been fortunate and blessed to follow an exceptional leader in Kenton Beshore. He has, infused the church with values that have created the culture. When he became the senior pastor 35 years ago, he brought the church a list of five values to the church:

• We teach God’s Word.
• Be God’s loving family.
• Every believer is a minister with a ministry.
• Be innovative in our ministry and relevant in our community.
• Be contagious in sharing Jesus Christ

Those values have been crystalized over time. I am leading our team through those values again. We are spending one staff meeting a month, with our whole team, walking through the importance and the implications of each value. It is helping me learn the culture, and I hope and pray it is helping us all renew our commitment to and unify around values that have formed the church we are honored to serve.

I love strategy. I have a tendency to go there first. Strategy is important, but culture is more so. Peter Drucker wisely quipped that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” My friend Will Mancini has provided helpful tools, such as this one, to help leaders articulate values through demonstration of those values.

If you are a ministry leader who would like some strategic outside eyes to help you and your team uncover your unique identity, not only your values but also your mission and your strategy, I highly recommend Auxano. I have learned a great deal from the team and believe wholeheartedly they would serve you and your team well. To reach out to the team, click here.

> Read more from Eric.

Tags: Eric Geiger, Mission, Strategy, Values, Vision

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Don’t Settle for a “Lesser Than” Vision

by: James Emery White

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I was talking to our church staff recently about a counterintuitive idea. At least, it’s counterintuitive to many: the higher the standards, the stronger the team.

Why is that counterintuitive? Because we tend to think that raising our standards will thin the ranks and weaken what we have. We feel the need to accommodate people, not challenge them.

So here we are, attempting to cast the vision for Christ’s mission in our deeply fallen world, to live lives individually and collectively that serve the least and reach the lost, to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight…

… and what do we do?

We lower the bar on all things related to the cause of Christ and, as a result, we train people to minimize the significance of it or blow it off entirely.

Consider the following comparison:

A youth soccer team coach tells a parent that if their child misses practice before a game, they won’t play that week. Period. And if their child misses more than three practices, they are off the team.

The effect on the parent?

They move heaven and earth to never miss a practice.

Let’s say that same parent is a volunteer with their church’s children’s ministry. They consistently arrive late, cancel at the last minute or, if they do show up, are unprepared.

The response of the children’s ministry leader?

There often isn’t one. The idea is that every volunteer is doing them a favor by even feigning to serve.

The effect on the parent?

They continue to treat volunteering as unimportant and inconsequential.

Here’s our fear: if we raise our standards and enforce them, we will lose people. And, no doubt, that is true. But did you really ever “have” them to begin with? No. You will lose the ones who were already demonstrating a lack of commitment. But the people you do “have” who are open to the challenge will begin to take the cause of Christ more seriously. And they should. The church is the hope of the world; youth soccer is not. Yet we treat soccer like it is and the church like recreation.

That must change.

We must remember that there is no greater cause than the cause of Christ. We must cast the vision of that reality to those we lead. We must hold them, and ourselves, to the highest standards of commitment and excellence.

Which means the goal cannot be to accommodate,

… but to disciple.

> Read more from James Emery White.

Connect with an Auxano Navigator to learn how to not “settle” for a lesser vision.

Tags: James Emery White, Standards, Vision

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Lessons in Leadership from the U.S. Military: Paint a Bold, Inspiring Vision for the Future

by: VRcurator

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Following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. military accelerated the ongoing and gradual process of searching for the best people available to lead – regardless of sex. As a result, female career military officers began to advance into very visible leadership roles: the first female combat pilot in the U.S. Navy, the first female in U.S. history to command in combat at the strategic level, and the first woman in U.S. military history to assume the rank of a four-star general.

They didn’t want to be “female leaders”—they just wanted to lead.

These women were wives, daughters, mothers and sisters. But they were also military leaders, warriors, academics and mentors in their own right.

As the military has evolved to develop an appreciation for the potential of women to serve in the most challenging of positions, it is also time for the American public to see these women for what they bring to the fight: brains, strength and courage.

They are leaders.

No one does leader development better than the military. Behind winning our nation’s wars, its primary purpose is to develop leaders. This happens through organized leader development programs, like institutional schooling and courses, but mostly through personal interaction and example. It’s the unit-level leaders out there who are making the critical impact in our armed forces.

Falling between Armed Forces Day (the third Saturday in May) and Memorial Day (the last Monday in May), this SUMS Remix honors three female leaders who demonstrated principles of leadership development that all leaders will find helpful in leading their own organizations.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – Fearless Leadership by Carey D. Lohrenz

An F-14 fighter pilot’s top lessons for leading fearlessly–and bringing a team to peak performance

As an aviation pioneer, Carey D. Lohrenz learned what fearless leadership means in some of the most demanding and extreme environments imaginable: the cockpit of an F-14 and the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Here, her teams had to perform at their peak–or lives were on the line. Faltering leadership was simply unacceptable. Through these experiences, Lohrenz identified a fundamental truth: high-performing teams require fearless leaders.

Since leaving the Navy, she’s translated that lesson into a new field, helping top business leaders, from Fortune 500 executives to middle managers, supercharge performance in today’s competitive business environments.

In Fearless Leadership, Lohrenz walks you through the three fundamentals of real fearlessness–courage, tenacity, and integrity–and then reveals fearless leadership in action, offering advice on how to set a bold vision, bring the team together, execute effectively, and stay resilient through hard times.

Whether you’re stepping into your first leadership role or looking to get out of a longstanding rut, Fearless Leadership will act like your afterburner–rocketing you to ever-higher levels of performance.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

The primary work of nourishing people with vision is discovering and communicating that unique identity as a church. Many leaders photocopy a vision from a conference or book and then wonder why more people don’t flock to the to that vision. Do your people really want a vision based on another church’s values?

Never forget that God is always doing something cosmically significant and locally specific in your church.

A nourishing vision requires five courses. As you deliver the five-part meal, you’re really addressing the irreducible question of clarity people need. If you have not thought through all five aspects of your church’s vision, people won’t be able to really access it.

The five questions play out as follows: At our church…

• What are we ultimately supposed to be doing?
• Why do we do it?
• How do we do it?
• When are we successful?
• Where is God taking us?

If you asked these clarity questions to the top 40 leaders in your church, what would they say? If they don’t have a clear, concise and compelling answer that’s the same answer, it’s time to go to work.

A fearless leader begins the work of leadership with a bold vision.

The vision you create and hand down to your people is going to be the cornerstone of your team’s success. It all starts with a clear concept, a view of where you want to go. If your vision is limited, your potential and possibilities are, too.

The very essence of leadership is the ability to create a picture of success and bring people toward it. Your vision gives the team a universal understanding of who you are, as both an individual and a leader within the organization; who they are as members of the team; and where the group is headed. It’s a chart to our destination, providing a steady compass to orient your team. And when the sea gets rough, the vision allows you to navigate the challenges and come out ahead.

If you don’t have the courage to set the vision, the tenacity to keep after it, and the integrity to pursue it authentically, your team is going to be dead in the water.

Clear vision is not just wishful thinking. It’s more than simply imagining what you hope the future will be. It’s an incredible tool that catalyzes your team, gives it purpose and focus, sustains it in challenging times, and helps it perform at the highest level. You and your team have to see yourself accomplishing that dream without losing your way or getting distracted. The right vision can make that possible.

Carey D. Lohrenz, Fearless Leadership

A NEXT STEP

Set aside time to reflect and answer the following questions. Circle “Yes” or “No” – don’t dwell on the question, but answer it without too much thought.

Dreaming and Achieving Pop Quiz

1. When people talk about the future of our church, is there an immediate sense of enthusiasm? Yes / No
2. Have we named a shared dream within a five-year timeframe? Yes / No
3. Do our volunteer leaders regularly pray for some specific yet epic impact that our church will make in our city or community? Yes / No
4. Do most of our leaders naturally talk about “the big picture” of the church before they talk about their ministry area? Yes / No
5. Do we have several days already calendared in the next year to review and reset a visionary plan? Yes / No
6. Has our team boiled down the single-most important priority for our ministry in the next 12 months? Yes / No
7. Are we totally confident that our team is taking action and reviewing ministry progress each week? Yes / No
8. In the last five years, did we have a church-wide, disciple-making goal that was not related to money? Yes / No
9. Has our team written down what our ministry will preferably look like three years from now? Yes / No
10. Has our senior pastor spent as much time on preparing a visionary plan as he/she has spent on preparing the last four sermons? Yes / No

After you have completed the above questions, ask yourself the following questions:

1. How many “no’s” did we circle collectively?
2. What was the easiest “no” to circle?
3. What was the easiest “yes” to circle?
4. What was the most frustrating “no” to circle?
5. Are you excited about taking some time as a team to work on our church’s big dream? Why or why not?
6. Is there any reason why we shouldn’t be able to answer “yes” to these questions after a few months of work?

Excerpt taken from SUMS Remix 93, released May 2018.

Tags: Carey Lohrenz, Fearless Leadership, Leadership, SUMS Remix, Vision

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Busting Myths of Church Vision

by: Bryan Rose

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Vision isn’t a moment on a Sunday – Vision is a movement happening everyday.

Vision isn’t a one-time event – Vision is an ongoing eventuality.

Vision isn’t a statement on a wall – Vision is a state of mind led by a call.

Vision isn’t a leader’s style – Vision is the substance of all leadership.

Vision isn’t a featured project to reveal – Vision is a future projection in which to revel.

Vision isn’t a upcoming program to launch – Vision is an ongoing picture to paint.

Vision isn’t a building for a church’s function – Vision is a framework for God’s future.

Vision isn’t a crystal-ball prognostication – Vision is a bent-knee revelation.

Vision isn’t a good idea for that one-day – Vision is God’s idea for your every-day.

Vision isn’t a realm for envied conference speaking preachers – Vision is the reality for every congregation serving pastor.

Vision isn’t a contemplative mountaintop excursion – Vision is a collaborative group discovery.

Read more from Bryan.

Tags: Bryan Rose, Church Vision, Vision, vision myths

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