The Transformation Agenda

Once Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz decided to return as CEO, he pulled together a team to began working on the process of turning the company's performance around.

As noted here, one of the team's key realizations was the need to focus on the ones: one cup of coffee, served to one customer, at one store. That thought drove the team to draft a transformation agenda that would be used company-wide to implement decisions.

The Transformation Agenda started with a compelling strategic vision, and was followed by a backbone of seven big moves, each with specific tactics. Here's a synopsis:

Our Aspiration
To become and enduring, great company with one of the most recognized and respected brands in the world, know for inspiring and nurturing the human spirit.

Seven Big Moves

• Be the undisputed coffee authority - Starbucks could not possibly transform the company if they did not excel and lead in their core business. Focusing on their quality and passion they exhibit in sourcing, roasting, and brewing coffee, actions included improving the quality and delivery of espresso drinks, reinventing brewed coffee, delivering innovative beverages, and increase the share of the at-home market. Undergirding all these actions was the push to continue telling their story.
• Engage and inspire their partners - Every Starbucks partner (employee) should be passionate about coffee - from soil to cup - and possess the skills, enthusiasm, and permission to share that expertise with customers. Actions included significantly improving training and career development for partners at all levels as well as developing meaningful and groundbreaking compensation, benefit, and incentive packages for partners.
• Ignite the emotional attachment with their customers - People come to Starbucks for coffee and human connection. Their goal was to put customers back in the center of the experience by addressing their needs, providing the "value" in a manner congruent with the brand, and developing programs that recognize and reward the most loyal customers. In the stores, that meant achieving operational excellence, finding new ways to deliver world-class customer service and perfect beverages while keeping costs in line and retail partners engaged.
• Expand their global presence-while making each store the heart of the local neighborhood - The challenge was to grow their retail presence while striving to connect with and support the neighborhoods and cultures that each store serves. Enhancing local relevancy would mean redesigning existing and new stores, offering new products that reflected the tastes of particular cultures, and reaching out by volunteering or fund-raising to support local programs and causes.
• Be a leader in ethical sourcing and environmental impact - Starbucks has led the way in treating farmers with respect and dignity. These efforts would expand, strengthening existing partnerships and forging new ones. They also have a goal of reducing each store's environmental footprint and sharing their initiatives with others.
• Create innovative growth platforms worthy of their coffee - Starbucks would grow not just by adding stores and selling coffee, buy also by extending its brand and/or expertise to new product platforms expanding or complementing coffee, such as tea, cold beverages, instant coffee, food, and the booming health and wellness market. Innovation that was relevant to their core values would be the hallmark of their transformation.
• Deliver a sustainable economic model - Without a profitable business model, Big Moves 1-6 would not be possible. It was imperative that the refocus on customers and core also be matched by an improvement on how they operated their business. Creating a culture that drove quality and speed, managing expenses on an ongoing basis, reducing costs, and building a world-class supply chain would be the primary tactics in this area. Big Move 7 would be the most painful, least sexy, and most difficult part of transforming the company.

Launched at a global summit of 200 of Starbucks' most senior leaders from around the world,  the Transformation was in Schultz's words "to make sure that we level set the reason we exist."

Schultz felt that ultimately the summit helped align Starbucks' top global leaders around two very important statements: the Transformation Agenda, which outlined what everyone at Starbucks needed to do, and the mission statement, which reminded them why.

Lessons for ChurchWorld:

• Do you know what you are doing?
• Do you why you are doing it?
• Do you know how you are doing it?
• Do you know when you are successful?
• Do you know where God is taking you?

For a better understanding of these questions, take a look at the Church Unique Visual Summary here, or download it here as a free ebook.

It might just be the start of your own Transformation Agenda.

Got Clarity?

If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.
- the Chesire Cat

Where's your red X?


You know, the spot that says "You are here."







Looking for the shortest distance between Point A and Point B?



The answers to the above questions aren't in Will Mancini's Visual Summary to his book "Church Unique," but you will be able to grasp the process that just might answer the tough qustions you're facing today.

Take a look.

Download the free e-book.

Start out on the journey...

...today!

Church Unique Visual Summary Released today

It's the Monday after Easter and you are wiped out in every definition of the word, right?

Here's a shot of pure vision adrenaline for you - in one hundred and eleven words, illustrated and expounded on:

The Church Unique Visual Summary 

Church Unique is the most powerful tool you can use in your church today.

Period.

It is a field manual for leaders like you who are in the ministry trenches daily - struggling along, not content with the status quo.

Download this free e-book, grab a cup of coffee and read through it.

Author Will Mancini just released a "Visual Summary" of the material in a free e-book. Use this link to download your copy today.

Take a look at the book here.

For additional resources about the process, go here to Auxano's website.

The Church Unique Visual Summary will infuse you with energy today - and start you on a path to vision clarity tomorrow.

Glancing Back at 2009

Most church leaders are all too glad to be bringing 2009 to a close. The economic situation that began in the fall of 2008 is still impacting ministries across the country. While there is no denying the impact of that event, I prefer to take a “glass half full” approach and have been looking this week at some positive movements in the Body of Christ.

Vision – Church leaders are increasingly concerned about their vision. My experience with vision planning matters goes back to seminary in the early 80's: Lyle Schaller, Aubrey Malphurs, Bobb Biehl, Kennon Callahan, Peter Drucker - these were the leaders in the field that we followed. Others have joined them in the years since, but all of these - and especially Malphurs - have influenced my own views of vision planning in the churches I served and in the churches I work with now as a development consultant.

Enter “Church Unique”, by author Will Mancini and the team at the Auxano Group. Church Unique’s approach centers on the powerfully simple concept that God has created all churches as unique. While we understand that God created His world with uniqueness (think snowflakes), and His children (DNA, environment, and culture) the same way, we think that churches are mostly alike. Do you think He would act any different with His church?

Church Unique serves as a map that will help you discover and live a vision that creates a unique church culture in your ministry setting. The book outlines a process that will help you discover, develop, and deliver your unique vision by creating your own Vision Pathway. The clarity and practical application you will realize through this process will take you to new levels of effectiveness and to a lifestyle of visionary leadership.

Leaders realize now more than ever that their vision will not move forward unless it ties into and brings together leadership, communication, processes, environments, and culture. “Church Unique” gives church leaders a practical tool to capture their culture and build a movement that flows into their community with contagious redemptive passion.

Tomorrow's final look back: The Greening of the Church

What's on Your Menu?

This week has been a closer examination of Will Mancini's book "Church Unique." Specifically, the chapter entitled "Lost Congregations" that examines how churches adapt to a vision vacuum. Using the metaphor of Soul Fast Food, Mancini challenges the church leader to examine how their structures, programs, and ministries may have become a substitute for the real meal - what God intends for the church.

To close out the week, I simply want to restate some of Mancini's questions for your consideration.

• What really happens in the soul of a congregant when left in a church's vision vacuum over time?
• What is left to excite the heart of church attenders?
• What then fuels the dreams of your people?
• What nourishes the identity of those who call your church home?

God's people have a heart for mission; we need guidance to carry it out - vision. When a church articulates and clarifies its vision, the people of God will be released in a powerful realization of God at work in their world.

What's on your menu?

Granite Etching vs. Sand Writing

This is the close of a four-day look at a section of Will Mancini's "Church Unique". I'm participating in the Charlotte Vision co::Lab, and this section has been jumping all over me!

For the past three days, it's been all about Soul Fast Food - but now it's down to some "solid" stuff!

The real nourishment of your people should come from the vision of your Church Unique. Only then will the enduring purpose of the church reflected locally can replace the substitutes of place, personality, programs, and people.

In his book "Built to Last", author Jim Collins found that enduring organizations have two dominant characteristic that are complementary opposites:

• A strong conviction about core ideals that never changes

• A clear understanding that everything else must change in order to preserve the core

If people are nourished by unchanging vision, they are more agreeable when the rules change with tactics. It takes clarity and discipline to understand which things in the organization belong to which category.


But what if our people were so captivated by the granite etching that it set us free to play with sand drawings? The leader’s role is not just to communicate in both granite and sand but to show how the two components work together. The leader should help people embrace change by nurturing an emotional connection to the unchanging core vision. The leader should preserve and champion the core vision by showing people how to constantly adapt.

Our change management problems today are vision problems first and people problems second. Many leaders want their people to run a missional marathon but unknowingly feed them junk food, leaving them malnourished and unprepared for the future.

If you are leader in ChurchWorld, don't be part of "feeding" your congregation junk fast food - focus on the Bread of Life, and watch your church thrive and grow!When we fail to clarify and nurture the things written in granite, our people get too attached to the things written in sand. This is how the four P’s (place, personality, programs, and people) fit in. These are sand, not granite. As the fluid and flexible stuff of the kingdom they not only should change, but must change. In the absence of vision, the stuff of sand becomes the vision. In the absence of granite, sand is all we can grasp.

Dessert Time

Today is the final day to order off the Soul Fast Food menu! For previous orders, see here. These thoughts are driven by my ongoing learning experience with the Will Mancini's Vision co::Lab - a collaborative group learning experience designed around the principles found in "Church Unique".

Apple Pie “People”
Perhaps the greatest substitute for healthy membership identity is the group of people at church – whether ten or a hundred – who “know my name.” This is not to be seen as a knock on relationships! It is identifying “community without a cause” as both unbiblical and a common source of identity for the churchgoer. Want a demonstration? Suggest a change in service times – or ask a Bible Study class or small group to multiply. People don’t want you to mess with their relationships.

Our familiar friends, albeit essential to church life, have become central to the person’s identify.

Relationships are critically important to community life in a church. But, like too many apple pies or anything taken to excess, they can be damaging to the overall health of the body.

Tomorrow: the source of real nourishment for your church - and it's not found at your local drive-through!

More Soul Fast Food

Big Mac “Personalities”
Spiritual leaders matter to our people. But most pastors do not want their personality to be the primary umbilical cord connecting their members’ identity to the church. Charisma is not vision. It is a vehicle to deliver the vision. But for many churchgoers, connection to their church is connection to the pastor. The “person” of the pastor can easily become the primary connection point so that in the absence of vision, people cling to something – or someone - even those with little capability to lead.

Supersized “Programs”
Programs are important, and good methodologies for doing ministry should come and go. Unfortunately, most of them come and stay – like sour milk, they hang around long after their expiration date! For years, church leaders have struggled with how to dismount a dead horse. When the program exists in a vision vacuum, the how of doing the program displaces the why in the heart of the program’s leaders. Mastering the how is what makes the volunteer feel important. The problem is not the volunteer but the vision. We need the vision to raise our sight to see the why behind the program to begin with. Their hearts find more meaning in working efficiently on yesterday’s methods than in working effectively into the future.

What about your church? Does your fast food diet include Big Mac personalities and Super Sized programs?

Part 2 of Soul Fast Food: Adapted from Will Mancini's "Church Unique."

Tomorrow: Dessert Time

Filling the Vision Vacuum

When life around our house gets hectic, we often slip into a bad habit: fast-food for our meals. Both my wife and I enjoy cooking, especially when we can try out new recipes. But when the work day gets long, that's one of the first things tossed aside. That usually means a quick stop at a neighborhood fast-food place for a quick meal. I'm not here to debate the health issues, but generally speaking, what we consume in a hurry is not as nutritious as what we would prepare on our own at home.

Will Mancini, author of Church Unique and founder of the Auxano Group, makes an application to many churches by using the fast food metaphor. I've just completed my second training session in the Church Unique process, and the concept of vision vacuum is fresh on my mind. This week, let's take a closer look at what Mancini calls "Soul Fast Food".

To set this up, consider the following Scripture from Psalms 29:18 in The Message version:

When people can't see what God is up to,

they stumble all over themselves.

Unfortunately, most churches today are living that Scripture out. There is no clear vision of what God is up to, and the result is a vision vacuum. And when a vacuum exists, something is going to try to move in to fill it.

The Heart of the Matter – what really happens in the soul of a congregant when left in a church’s vision vacuum over time?

• What is left to excite the heart of your church attenders?
• What then fuels the dreams of your people?
• What nourishes the identity of those who call your church home?

The simple answer is something does, even when vision is absent. People need vision and they need hope. If visionary leaders are not providing and nourishing it, were do people find meaning?

Soul Fast Food – According to Mancini, there are four substitutes for a well-balanced diet of vision. They fuel your most faithful people; it is how they get hope for a better future. Unfortunately, they are also four sources of a malnourished membership identity. Each of these junk food categories are not bad in and of itself. They all malnourish, because they are used inappropriately as a substitute for a well-balanced vision.

French Fried “Places”
The places of our encounters with God matter – but space itself has addictive features, just like your favorite fries. There are spots where we encounter God; they are important. But in the absence of a vision that transcends our favorite nooks and crannies, the space itself becomes the vision supplement. The primary use of the term church to connote place compounds the issue.

The meaning of place reflects God’s design, starting with the Garden and ending with the New Jerusalem. But space is essential, not central, in the economy of vision.

Do not underestimate the gravitational pull of the physical place on both members and leaders. Is it possible that the building itself becomes a cheap substitute for real vision?

If you put too much focus on the physical place, people can be robbed of the more substantial articulation of the church's future.

The result? Anorexic vision.

What about your church? Is it time to pass the salt - or pass over french fried places all together?

Tomorrow: More Soul Fast Food

Be the Church

Today concludes a series of posts celebrating the anniversary of Church Unique, a book by Will Mancini. Mancini, a former pastor, is the founder of Auxano, a national consulting group whose mission is to navigate leaders through growth challenges with vision clarity. Church Unique outlines the processes that Mancini and the “navigators” at Auxano use in working with all types of churches. The book was published a year ago, and is powerfully impacting churches all over the country. Here are some more thoughts from Mancini that you will find applicable to your church.

The idea of the missional church has single-handedly captured the imagination of church leaders of all backgrounds and denominations. But what does it mean? I’ve spoken with pastors and leaders across the country, attended several conferences and workshops, and read more than a dozen books on the topic. Mancini’s definition of missional is a simple, but challenging one:

“Missional” is a way of thinking that challenges the church to re-form and reforge its self-understanding (theologically, spiritually, and socially) so that it can relearn how to live and proclaim the gospel in the world. Church is not something you do or a place you go, but what you are.

Three dynamics illustrate the missional characteristics being seen in churches today.

From Doing to Being
The missional reorientation represents an important shift in focus from methodology to identity. In this post-Christian era, the question of church identity becomes “Now that our influence is gone, how do we reshape our self-understanding so we can be like Christ in the world?”

Attractional vs. Incarnational
Attractional means that the church’s basic strategy for reaching the lost revolves around getting “seekers” or the “unchurched” into the church building. Once inside, the opportunity to present the gospel defines the primary opportunity for evangelism. In contrast, the Incarnational emphasis of the missional mindset focuses on living and sharing the gospel “where life happens.” Importance is placed on the church “disassembling” itself for the primary work of evangelism in the nooks and crannies of everyday life.

Lost People: Prospects, or the People Jesus Misses Most?
A church’s language about the people it wants to reach quickly identifies an attractional or incarnational mind-set. Growing up Southern Baptist (attending, educated, and serving on staff), I am very familiar with the term used: prospects. The implication is that the church defines success as “selling” the church and getting people to join. But the heartbeat of the missional church has found different language to carry a renewed identity of being sent. Jim Henderson, a megachurch pastor and author, suggests that the emphasis in the parables of the lost sheep and coin is not on what they feel, but what God the Father feels. Henderson adapted his language to say that unbelievers are not lost; they are “the people Jesus misses most.” The shift in language assumes that followers of Christ will likewise have people they miss most, and will inspired and oriented towards actions in the lives of these people.

This brief discussion of the missional church is but one of literally dozens of learning opportunities you will find in Church Unique. I encourage all church leaders to obtain this resource immediately, and dive into the discovery process of what makes your church – unique.

Things ain't what they used to be...

...and probably never was!

This comment by humorist Will Rogers in the early part of last century was a biting commentary on the memories of longing for the good old days. Were they actually so good? Or were we remembering a past that never was, longing for a future that could be?

As I noted in yesterday's post, we should have a very high value for our past - celebrating those who labored so diligently to establish the church. While we correctly look back, we must also be looking forward - but in different ways.

When I was in graduate school in the early 80's, strategic planning processes included five-, ten- and sometimes even twenty-year plans. The past was relatively stable, and indicated that things would continue as they were into the future. The assumption was that the near future would resemble the recent past.

Rapid cultural, technological, and geopolitical change has rendered that assumption obsolete. Which leads to another quote from Will Mancini's book Church Unique.

Leaders must focus more on preparation than on planning.

Mancini taps heavily into Reggie McNeal's work here. McNeal is another of my favorite authors. In The Present Future he addresses 6 tough questions for the church. The one of interest here is How do we plan for the future? The short answer, as both Mancini and McNeal elaborate is, you don't plan - you prepare.

Planning on past actions and assumptions will lead you to cultural irrelevance, methodological obsolescence, and missional ineffectiveness. Churches looking to planning like they always have will be left answering the wrong questions at best; at worst, they will be answering questions not asked!

Church Unique is not a road map that assumes predictability of fixed points and roads that stay unchanged over time. Instead, the tools of Church Unique are more like the compass, sextant, and chronometer of the sailor who moves across an ever changing sea. Navigating the waters of today's rapidly changing times requires ceaseless observation and adaption to the surrounding environment.

The better (and biblical) approach to the future involves prayer and preparation, not prediction and planning.

Whose Shoulders Do You Stand On?

Will Mancini's ground-breaking book Church Unique has been out a year now, and to celebrate its first anniversary I would like to post a few of the more powerful and leadership-changing quotes. For a quick overview of Church Unique, go here.

Visionary leadership is the art of protecting the past

as we champion the future.

Wherever you stand at the moment, in whatever place you find yourself, if you turn around you will find a large group who have gone before you and prepared the way. Some are there from last week; others are there from a hundred years ago. You would do well as a leader to listen to their voices and learn from them. Bold aspirations must be rooted in the values and visions that have come before.

• What can we learn from their vision?
• How does their vision intersect with what God is calling us to do?

By connecting dots with the past, we are bring new meaning to the present and walk into the future with a stronger sense of identity.

That Vision Thing

Over the last few weeks I have been talking to several churches about vision and direction. The common theme in all of these directions is that the churches don't have a vision, or at least one that can be articulated by their leaders. You can be sure that if the leadership of your church can't state its vision, then the typical member can't either, and that is a big problem.

A companion to no vision, or a fuzzy vision, is a vision that is generic. Tim Stevens, of Granger Community Church, had this to say about vision:

If someone hasn't left your church recently,

you vision is probably too broad.

It's great for a church to say "We want to reach the world", and "Our vision is to glorify God." Sounds great, but doesn't impact your community with life-changing actions.

Will Mancini, in Church Unique, challenges the church to identify its Kingdom Concept in order to be a powerful force for God's work in its community. The 3-part Kingdom Concept is all about vision, and it starts with "The Local Predicament." What are the unique needs and opportunities where God has placed your church?

Geography is a starting place for narrowing your vision. Yes, your church should have the concept of reaching the world in its heart, but if you don't have a focus to reach your specific community, then your efforts will be diluted.

Stevens goes on to suggest these directions for a church that's just starting or one that's going through a major change:

• Start very focused - Have a laser-targeted vision for your church as a whole, and then for each event or outreach as well. Who are you trying to reach with your weekend service? with your web site? with your children's programming?
• Do a few things well - don't try to be all things to all people. Figure out your core competencies, and knock the ball out of the park.
• Add slowly - Take on one major new outreach or ministry each year that helps you reach your target. Raise up leaders, but don't launch ministries until you have identified a trained leader to run point.

If you begin to narrow your focus, someone in your church will probably leave because you aren't meeting their specific needs. It's OK. Free them to follow God's directions for their lives; encourage them in seeking a church that provides what they're looking for.

Mid-Week Museings

Hey, it's not the middle of the week, but my Wednesday was too busy to post. I left home at 6:45 AM for a full day:

On the road for about an hour to have a breakfast meeting with a new local church pastor, part of my Together Tuesday initiative coming out of Catalyst 2008. A couple of weeks ago as I was returning from a meeting at one of our job sites, I took a different route home and passed by a church. I was impressed to contact the pastor, which I did when I got home. We set up a breakfast meeting for yesterday, and it was a good, God thing. He's relatively new to the area, and the church is doing well. We had a few similar interests and family situations, and it was good to fellowship together. He had a lot of interest in Catalyst so I left my summary with him and encouraged him to check into attending next year.

The monthly conference call with NACDB Advisory Board was next. I pulled over into a parking lot and our group of six spent the next hour reviewing recent developments in our business, making plans for our annual meeting in February, and looking ahead to 2009. Since I'm the secretary of the group, I took notes for later distribution.

Then it was back on the road to my noon meeting, about an hour away from my breakfast meeting. Taking advantage of technology, I had three mini-phone meetings with the office, an architect, and my editor. Safety note: I have a Bluetooth in-ear receiver for hands free talking!

Pulled into Boone for a design review meeting on a project with the church AVL team and Signature Sight and Sound, our AVL systems integrator on the project. 3 hours later, we had a major design modification, revised equipment list, and satisfied customers.

Since I was right around the corner from my son's house, I stopped by and dropped off a Christmas ornament for my new grandson. I knew they weren't there, but it was a great feeling just to pull into the drive of their new house and know that the work they were doing was going to make it a home.

Back on the road for a 2 hour drive to Huntersville, taking advantage of technology again to make a few calls.

At my home office, I did a quick review on a proposal for the next meeting, printed it out, and headed out to drop my son off at his youth group. My daughter arrived home on Christmas break as we were headed out the door.

The meeting at my next prospect went well: we submitted a feasibility study for them and had good dialog with the group. Some of the learnings from Church Unique are coming into play in this setting, and it will be interesting to see how they play out.

Back at home, and time to catch up on the paperwork of the day: Client Meeting Reviews for all my meetings of the day, both in person and on the phone. It's part of my 100% communication pledge: I type up our meeting comments for their review to make sure we all heard the same thing and are clear on next steps. I also typed up the NACDB conference call notes and a year-end summary.

I started and ended the day with a few WhiteBoard exercises: I'm finding the practice very beneficial in several ways. Currently, I have a flow chart of all the projects I'm working on - later today I'm going to translate them into the calendar for the rest of the month. Then I'll clean the board for a new day and a new thought process.

Ended the day with a quick read of a couple of chapters of a book I'm working through for our company's marketing/sales process. Called it a day at 11 PM.

That was a long, but satisfying, day.

Forward March

If you have been following this post all week, you know I have been presenting sections of Will Mancini's book, Church Unique. First, the idea of the Kingdom Concept was introduced Tuesday; then, the Vision Frame was examined Wednesday. Today, the Vision Integration Model is the topic. If you haven't read the others, take a few minutes to go back to them.

The Vision Integration Model helps you deliver the vision that you developed in the Vision Frame. Behind the Vision Integration Model is one of the most important assumptions of the book: the success of advancing vision is directly proportional to the degree to which the vision is first aligned and integrated.

Alignment - the ironic part of advancing vision is that the most difficult and most defining work happens pre-movement. Alignment is the critical work that must be done early in the rollout of the vision. Just like a car that is out of alignment and cannot drive safely or at normal speeds, the church which finds itself out of alignment has severe limitations to missional effectiveness and efficiency. Alignment has four stages, but they look different in established churches (more than fifteen years of history) and entrepreneurial churches (less than fifteen years of history).

Attunement - what alignment is to structure and communication (the hard stuff of an organization, attunement is to human emotion (the soft stuff of the organization). Attunement is the attraction and emotional connection in the heart of the follower to a given organizational direction. Leaders must create a climate that produces real, dynamic, emotional resonance for your vision.

Integration Model

The Integration Model is not a system theory, but a conversation starting point. Mancini starts by looking at the church through five perspectives: leadership, communication, process, environment, and culture. For each perspective, he presents three principles for weaving vision into the life of the church. The result: 15 integration principles that will fuel your leadership team conversations for months. Here is a very simple outline of the five perspectives and their respective principles:

Developing Leadership - How will you use vision to recruit leaders, develop leaders, structure people, and divide your attention among the right leaders?

• Staff: get people who get the vision


• Structure: let strategy determine structure


• Engine: lead leaders

Intentional Communication - Daily, your church is the steward of thousands of moments of truth - communication. Members talking to a neighbor, someone driving by your facility, ministry emails, staff business card left on a desk - the church's vision is distributed countless ways. The discipline of church communications must be approached with a tremendous amount of intentionality.

• Attention: grab attention or hold nothing


• Brand: communicate visually


• Awareness: broadcast your position

Duplicatable Process - at some point your vision must transcend your skills and be deposited into the basic reproducible habits of the entire congregation. It's not about what you can do, but what you can duplicate.

• Assimilation: help people attract people


• Evangelism: Accessorize the mission


• Multiplication: decide how you duplicate

Compelling Environments - the missional leader must constantly show that the church gathered is actually a time of preparation for "being the church" outside of its walls.

• Worship: refocus Jesus, together


• Connect: integrate everything relationally


• Serve: serve inside out

Conscious Culture - the missional visionary is also a cultural architect. Transforming the future is made possible because the cultural perspective is held in conscious view.

• Scripture: reveal God's signature


• Folklore: retell the story


• Symbol: mark defining moments

The Integration Model gives you a working vocabulary for pulling your unique vision together. The vision will not move forward unless it ties into and brings together leadership, communication, processes, environments, and culture. If it does, your Church Unique will capture your culture and build a movement that flows into your community with contagious redemptive passion.

The book is Church Unique. The author is Will Mancini. The message within is a powerful tool that will change your vision process, and by implication, the way you do life in a church. Get it today, dive into it, and buckle up for the ride!

Framed?

Continuing the journey into Will Mancini's book Church Unique, the second step on his Vision Pathway is Developing Your Vision Frame. The Vision Frame contains five components that define your church's DNA and creates the platform for all vision casting. The Vision Frame is expansive enough to include the church's evolving vocabulary that anticipates where God is taking you. Once a leadership team completes the grueling but rewarding process of clarifying vision, what are the right words to capture your Kingdom Concept? Which terms unlock the understanding of strategy? What language engages the hearts of your people?

A Framework for Missional Clarity: The Vision Frame

The central thrust of Church Unique is introduction of a framework called the Vision Frame. It contains five components that define your church's DNA and creates the platform for all vision casting. No leader should lead, no team should meet, and no initiative should start without a clear understanding of the vision frame.

Each component is critical to answering one of the five irreducible questions of leadership:

• Mission as missional mandate: What are we doing? The missional mandate is a clear and concise statement that describes what the church is ultimately supposed to be doing.



• Values as missional motives: Why are we doing it? The missional motives are shard convictions that guide the actions and reveal the strengths of the church.



• Strategy as missional map: How are we doing it? The missional map is the process or picture that demonstrates how the church will accomplish its mandate on the broadest level.



• Measures as missional life marks: When are we successful? The missional life marks are a set of attributes in an individual's life that define or reflect accomplishment of the church's mandate.



• Vision Proper as missional mountaintop + milestones: Where is God taking us? Vision Proper is the living language that anticipates and illustrates God's better immediate future.

The Vision Frame components mus be clear, concise, compelling, ccatalytic, and contextual. If these five attributes are fused within the Vision Frame, amazing energy is released. It all funnels into an important reality: the vision is contagious.

Why the Vision Frame Works

During a recent lunch meeting with Will, I was captivated by his background and path to where he is today: a chemical engineering degree, working with a marketing company, and as a pastor. This unique combination of backgrounds gives him incredible insight into process, communication, and the heart of ministry. It also speaks of why the Vision Frame works.

• It Carries the Kingdom Concept: Your Kingdom Concept "lives" as it is translated into the Vision Frame itself and not as a separate statement. Each church's unique Kingdom Concept finds many possibilities for expression.


• It is Complete yet Concise: It is comprehensive and addresses the function of the church in a real and tangible way. It is also packaged concisely, enabling the DNA of the church to be portable in the life of the church.


• It Communicates a Missional Reorientation: The Framework is a powerful tool to capture culture - drawing on the best of who God made you to be, drawing out your best as a people to live and serve in the community. Familiar planning words are used, but given a missional reorientation.

There is a consensus among missional leaders that a new language is needed for evoking our imagination and forging a new identity for the church at large and for your individual Church Unique. Will Mancini's Vision Frame is the framework for missional clarity that equips you to create this new language.

If you are looking for a dynamic, challenging process to re-energize your church and create a vision to carry your ministry to new levels of effectiveness, this is a resource you must have.

Fuzzy Vision?

Will Mancini's Church Unique serves as a map that will help you discover and live a vision that creates a unique church culture in your ministry setting. The book outlines a process that will help you discover, develop, and deliver your unique vision by creating your own Vision Pathway. The clarity and practical application you will realize through this process will take you to new levels of effectiveness and to a lifestyle of visionary leadership.

In yesterday's post I noted that the Vision Pathway contrasts sharply with strategic planning. In the brief table below, you will see how author and consultant Will Mancini makes this clear:

Classic Strategic Planning vs. Church Unique's Vision Pathway

Vision as content vs. Vision as lifestyle

Mission as statement vs. Mission as missional mandate

Values as statement vs. Values as missional motives

Strategy as plan vs. Strategy as missional map

Measurement as goals vs. Measurement as missional life marks

The first step in developing your unique vision is to discover your Kingdom Concept. The Kingdom Concept is the simple, clear, "big idea" that defines how your church will glorify God and make disciples. The Kingdom Concept is what sets you apart from every other church: it's how you develop follower's of Christ for God's ultimate honor. It is where your church's unique experiences flow as a body of Christ.

The best way to find your Kingdom Concept is to look at the intersection of three circles that represent aspects of your church's God-given uniqueness.

Circle One: Local Predicament

Your community has all kinds of specific challenges. Do you know what they are? Defining your local predicament answers the question, "What are the unique needs and opportunities where God has placed us?" Understanding your local predicament is about having an intimate grasp of the soil where God has called you to minister.

Circle Two: Collective Potential

The second circle looks at the collection of individuals in your church and answers the question, "What are the unique resources and capabilities that God brings together in us?" What possibilities of cooperative potential are lying beneath the surface of your Church Unique?

Circle Three: Apostolic Esprit

A church's "apostolic esprit" is the area of focus that arouses an energetic style in its leaders. Apostolic anchors the missional mind-set: the understanding that we are "being sent." It is the empowering and direction of the Holy Spirit linked to the human side of passion and vitality that springs from team morale. What particular focus most energizes and animates your leadership team?

The three circles are simple yet profound. The real secret is not in looking for new things, but in finding fresh meaning in the familiar. It's the work of scrutinizing the obvious. The power of the Kingdom Concept is in the overlap of the three circles.

Again, the resource is Church Unique; the author is Will Mancini. If your church is struggling with fuzzy vision and uncertainty, the need is immediate!