2 Simple Questions that Will Align Your Teams for Missional Ministry

by: Will Mancini

A helpful way to shepherd your people with relationship to the mission of Jesus is to ask two simple questions:

1) Is the person clear about the vision of your church?

2) Is the person wanting to make a contribution? 

Imagine that you could answer these questions with a yes or no. If so, you can locate everyone on the “key” below.

WM2questions

Can you picture people in your church who are…

  • Crew
  • Passengers 
  • Stowaways
  • Pirates

The are key questions that arise from this simple classification. Remember good shepherds know their sheep and know how to guide each one based on their unique needs.

I will address some of these questions in follow-up posts:

1) Do you really know your crew? I am surprised at how many churches don’t have a clear view of their team. I will share how Mac Lake and I help churches develop a clear “team portrait” during our leadership pipeline coaching intensives.

2) How do you invite stowaways to become passengers? Many pastors are far enough removed from the mindset of the insecure unchurched person that they can miss some basic steps and skills to help others see and appreciate the mission of the church.

3) How do you recruit passengers to be crew? There are six “recruiting windows” that a leader must look through int he process of developments. In this post I will unpack I tool that I have used for years but have never published.

4) How do you either convert pirates to crew of get them off the ship?  This question is a biggie, and requires a separate post to provide a few thoughts. But, there is a way to do this with the wisdom and grace of a master-shepherd.

As a preparation for the rest of the series, I would encourage you to write down a few people you know in each part of the grid. Also, if you had to make a stab at the overall percentages in your congregation, what would you say? Go ahead and draw a grid with actual percentages in it.

By the way, the visual above is taken from the Church Unique Visual Summary. Download it for free by clicking here.

Read more from Will here.
Download PDF

Tags: , , ,

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Vision >

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!

Related Items

  1. 5 Stages of Capturing a Vision
  2. Study Your City: Key Questions Missional Christians Should Be Asking About Their City
  3. What’s the Deal with the Church Growth Movement, Part 3
  4. You Can’t Love a City if You Don’t Know a City, Part 2
  5. Vision Recovery Process, Step 5: INSPIRE Your Church
  6. Seven Marks of a Healthy Church
  7. How Do You Know When Your Church is Winning?
  8. Your Opportunity for God Dreams Training – Virtually!
  9. 7 Signs of Lifeless Church Vision
  10. Denying Facts You Don’t Like
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
Read Article >
 
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
Read Article >
 
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
Read Article >
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.