Keys to Compelling Vision Communication

by: Dan Reiland

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How compelling is the communication of your vision?

If your vision moves the people to take action, you are on the right track.

Having served alongside two incredible visionary leaders, first John Maxwell and now Kevin Myers, I’ve watched close up how they communicate vision so well.

We often think that vision-casting is largely a public endeavor and usually done on the primary stage. But the truth is, most vision-casting is done behind the scenes, over and over again, one to one and in small groups. Communicating vision is the never-ending responsibility of the primary leader.

Before you can cast your vision, you have to create it. It needs to be crystal clear and deep in your heart. That is something between you and God and also affirmed by your church board and/or key leaders. It takes time and prayer, and requires you hearing from God. Let God breathe the vision in you.

It is surprisingly often that senior pastors, and executive staff, tell me they are not clear on their vision. If you are one of those, don’t panic. While you are waiting on clarity from God and confidence in your own mind, stay focused on Matthew 28:19-20. That universal mission for the church is your vision until you have clarity. Vision is “simply” your personal and unique version of the Great Commission. It’s the expression that God gives you for your church that brings fire, flavor and fuel to the mission. Vision keeps the mission fresh.

Seven guidelines to help you communicate your vision better:

1) Commit to the vision yourself.

If you are the leader, settle the level of your conviction first.

• No one cares more than you.
• No one carries a great burden.
• No one prays more deeply.
• No one thinks and plans more.
• No one lies awake at night more than you.

Sometimes God doesn’t make the vision clear because the leader isn’t ready personally. Settle the issue in your own heart. It’s not as if you have to pass a test before God or measure up in order to deserve a vision. It’s more about your passion and commitment to be ready to lead the vision.

2) Clearly identify the current situation.

When casting vision, we as leaders need to start by making the present reality clear. This doesn’t mean to paint an unfairly negative scenario in order to “sell” the vision. But comparison is needed so the congregation understands the why behind the vision.

Sometimes it’s more obvious and therefore easier; such as you are out of room so you cast vision to start a second or third service. Other times, it may seem more subjective like changing the name of your church. You have to make it clear why the current name is no longer meeting the need.

3) Paint a picture of a preferred future.

A great vision always describes a better future. Keeping the core mission in mind (changed lives), the vision must always include at the core, reaching people and changing lives. Again, the vision is your unique expression of that mission.

So, how will your church be better? How will your church improve (or change) in a way so that it serves people better and others want to attend? How will the Kingdom of God be advanced?

4) Capture the hearts of the people.

If the vision comes from your heart, it will reach the hearts of the people you share it with. Some vision statements are mechanical efforts that come as a result of an academic endeavor and end up on your website. They rarely move anyone because they don’t move you.  Vision statements that sound great, perhaps even alliterate, are good as long as they are real, true and personal to you.

When you share vision, tell stories. Make it personal. Remain brief. Make it memorable. Tell it often, and again tell stories. Remind people why it’s so important, and why it matters.

5) Deliver clear direction with a realistic plan.

This is where the rubber meets the road, and where some leaders lose traction with their vision. They hear from God, the vision is clear, and the people have bought in, but there is no realistic road map of how to get there.

You don’t have to provide all the answers, but a clear and simple plan that provides direction is necessary. You will need to make course corrections, solve problems and deal with the unexpected, but as long as the people know the next step you are good!

6) Tell the people they are needed and how they can participate.

When you get your congregation all fired up but don’t give them an outlet to take action, it’s a mistake. Think through the options, such as prayer, serving, inviting, giving, etc. Whatever it may be, let them know how they can be part. When an individual takes action on the vision, the vision becomes part of them and they share it with others.

7) Keep your communication current.

Communicating vision is not a “once and done” proposition. In fact, it’s the opposite, the communication must continue. You can’t over communicate vision. You can make it too long, or boring because it’s always said the same way, or unprepared so it lacks connection. But when it’s brief, sincere, creative and well prepared, it’s difficult to do it too often. One of the best ways is to include a thirty to sixty second vision moment in a sermon, tell a story and keep going. And in one to one meetings, make it part of regular conversations.

Finally, celebrate the victories! The people are working hard, praying and full of hope. Celebrate the success God gives you along the way!

Want to learn more about compelling vision communication? Connect with an Auxano Navigator.

> Read more from Dan.

Tags: Communication, Compelling Vision, Dan Reiland, Vision

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Casting Vision: The Only Communication Principle You Need to Know

by: Church Community Builder

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Communicating in a way that captures attention and inspires action is an art. And there’s one communication principle that effective communicators understand when it comes to conveying their thoughts effectively.

Because communication can be messy. It can be complicated. And in many ways, it can’t be controlled as no one can completely anticipate how another person will hear, interpret, and respond to what you say.

Perception is reality, after all.

And communication becomes even more complex within organizations like churches. Pastors or senior leadership may be inclined to jump straight to the ‘what’ after defining the ‘why’ when casting their vision without really taking the time to strategically think through the ‘how.’

The ‘how’ is just as important – if not more – than the ‘what.’ And the effectiveness of your communication as a leader is directly related to your effectiveness in communicating your vision’s ‘how.’

Learning to communicate your vision’s ‘how’ can be difficult because people listen and learn differently, and this is where a lot of leaders struggle. They’ll communicate the same way with their staff as they do their congregation or even their family – but the way you communicate with some audiences doesn’t work with others.

There are two ways to ensure that your ‘how’ connects with each of your audiences:

1. Diversify your ‘how.’ Because people listen and learn differently, create multiple channels to communicate your message. Diversify your methods to determine which ones work best for each audience. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to casting the ‘how’ of your vision.
2. Keep it simple. You may understand your point because you’ve thought it through for a while. But it may not be that obvious to others. Break down the details to help people understand your message as clearly as you do.

By diversifying the way you communicate and keeping your message simple, you’ll be able to focus on your ‘how’ – and then the vision you communicate will start to make a difference in those who hear it.

Learn more about casting vision; connect with an Auxano Navigator today.

> More from CCB.

Tags: Casting Vision, Church Community Builder, Church Vision, Vision

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Vision Should Be Consistently Clear and Clearly Consistent

by: VRcurator

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Do you have problems seeing yourself as a visionary communicator and instead prioritize the maintenance of week-to-week ministry?

Are you finding yourself on a ministry treadmill, where the busyness of ministry creates a progressively irreversible hurriedness in your life? Today’s demands can choke out needed dialogue for tomorrow. When this occurs, your multiplied activity prevents you from living with a clearer vision of what should be.

If you find yourself in this situation, it’s time to call a timeout and evaluate the obstacles that keep you from focusing on visionary communication about God’s preferred future for your church.

Solution – Vision should be consistently clear and clearly consistent.

THE QUICK SUMMARY – The Advantage, by Patrick Lencioni

There is a competitive advantage out there, arguably more powerful than any other. Is it superior strategy? Faster innovation? Smarter employees? No, New York Times best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, argues that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre ones has little to do with what they know and how smart they are and more to do with how healthy they are.

In this book, Lencioni brings together his vast experience and many of the themes cultivated in his other best-selling books and delivers a first: a cohesive and comprehensive exploration of the unique advantage organizational health provides.

Simply put, an organization is healthy when it is whole, consistent, and complete, when its management, operations, and culture are unified. Healthy organizations outperform their counterparts, are free of politics and confusion, and provide an environment where star performers never want to leave.

Lencioni s first non-fiction book provides leaders with a groundbreaking, approachable model for achieving organizational health complete with stories, tips, and anecdotes from his experiences consulting to some of the nation’s leading organizations. In this age of informational ubiquity and nano-second change, it is no longer enough to build a competitive advantage based on intelligence alone. The Advantage provides a foundational construct for conducting business in a new way, one that maximizes human potential and aligns the organization around a common set of principles.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

How do you as a leader communicate information to your teams? Are you regularly reminding your team of your organization’s mission, values, and strategies? Do these missions, values, and strategies drive the resulting work of your teams? Do your individual team leaders understand and apply these concepts well enough with their own teams to respond to any individual concerns?

The problem is that leaders confuse the mere transfer of information to an audience with the audience’s ability to understand, internalize, and embrace the message that is being communicated.

The only way for people to embrace a message is to hear it over a period of time, in a variety of different ways, and preferably from different people. That’s why great leaders see themselves as Chief Reminding Officers as much as anything else. Their two top priorities are to set the direction of the organization and then to ensure that people are reminded of it on a regular basis.

The reason most organizations fail to communicate to team members is not that they don’t know how to build an intranet site or write a blog or design a PowerPoint/Keynote presentation, but that they don’t achieve clarity around key messages and stick with them. The world is full of organizations where team members feel uninformed and in the dark even though they have access to more glossy newsletters, interactive Web sites, and overly produced team meetings than they need or want. What they don’t get is consistent, authentic, and relevant communication.

Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage

A NEXT STEP

In order for you to communicate with clarity, understand these four keys:

#1 Successful leadership requires more clarity work not less. The more you lead and the more God blesses your leadership, the more liable you are of losing clarity. Because success assaults clarity, you must never stop fighting the good fight. Engage your own clarity journey with courage and keep reading everything you can on the subject.

#2 Many leaders are in desperate need of a clarity system. With so many ways of looking at goals and planning, it is critically important to find an approach and process that works for you. Church leaders across the country have found success in the Vision Frame.

#3 Every approach to clarity should start with a “plane ride.” While all of the answers to your life’s clarity questions are organically related, they are also hierarchically structured. Clarity at every level must start with clarity at the top level – the 30,000-foot view from the plane. There are many ways of capturing this idea: synthesis before analysis, strategic precedes tactic, etc. To illustrate, a sense of overall direction must precede determining this year’s priorities, which must precede daily task creation. While everyone may intellectually know this, few practice it. Stop and develop a big-picture goal for the year, thinking in both qualitative (emotional) and quantitative (measurable) ways. Example: By the end of next year, 20% more people will be “elbow deep” in each other’s lives in small groups.

#4 Most leaders have not spent enough time in the plane for themselves or the organizations they lead. As a result, all of the lower level questions (goals, priorities, plans, roles, structure, systems, daily tasks, etc.) are, at best, more difficult to answer. At worst, the answers are shaped by the misdirected forces of pet agendas, feelings, and status quo protection and turf wars. Leaders consistently move toward tactics and execution without clarity first. Clarity isn’t everything but it changes everything.

So how do you know whether you have spent enough time in the plane? The clarity system we use at Auxano makes it easy to know. Basically you answer five “plane ride” questions in a clear, concise, and compelling way before moving on, and therefore “framing” all other planning work. You can download a visual summary of the Vision Frame as the Five Irreducible Questions of Leadership here.

This is part of a weekly series posting content from one of the most innovative content sources in the church world: SUMS Remix Book Summaries for church leaders. SUMS Remix takes a practical problem in the church and looks at it with three solutions; and each solution is taken from a different book. 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 provides 26 issues per year, delivered every other week to your inbox). 

> Subscribe to SUMS Remix <<

Tags: Vision, Vision Frame, Will Mancini, visionary communication

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Crafting Your Cast: From Mission to Vision

by: Church Community Builder

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POP QUIZ: In a sentence or two, can you say what God is calling you to do – or at least the direction He has for you?

If you answered ‘YES!,’ then congratulations! You have your vision. And you can skip ahead to the neat little listicle below about how to effectively cast your vision.

If you answered, ‘No. I don’t think so. But maybe? I’m not sure,’ then congratulations! You now have the opportunity to take your nebulous idea from infancy to a full-grown vision.

Your vision should take the purpose and mission of your church and reduce it down to a simple statement that guides your church. Much like an ‘elevator pitch’ in business – wherein you spark interest in what your organization does with a brief, persuasive speech in 20 seconds or less – your words act as an all-encompassing phrase that galvanizes and motivates your people in the right direction for your church.

And the right direction for your church – and the right vision – cannot be written from your will, but only from God’s because remember this as you cast your vision: Leadership is a privilege; steward it well. Yours is a privilege that can take people to where you believe God wants to go.

So as you cast, make sure your vision is …

Simple: Be clear about your vision. Over time, you’ll learn how to communicate the vision clearly and when the vision is clear to you, you are able to clearly communicate it to others.

Solid: Make sure your vision is real and tangible; it is a vision that people can touch, see and become invested in personally.

Succinct: We live in a ‘push-button-get-banana’ world. The same is true when we cast a vision. So keep it brief – because it’s not about how much you share, but that you share enough for it to be clear.

Stimulating: Your vision should inspire action. It should also cultivate a sense of ownership. If your vision can capture hearts, people will feel compelled to help you realize your vision.

If your vision is simple enough to understand, solid enough to believe, succinct enough to remember, and stimulating enough to inspire a shared ownership, your vision is ready to rally your people to a better future.

Learn more about Auxano’s Vision Pathway process.

> More from Church Community Builder.

Tags: Church Community Builder, Mission, Vision, Vision casting, better future

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How Vision, Alignment, and Generosity Became One Church’s Future

by: Todd McMichen

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About two years ago we received contact from Church at The Mall in Lakeland, FL. They had just launched an initiative with seven missional components. These action items were big, really big. The intent was to propel an already active church with a miraculous story into a bold new future. Of course, these seven missional objectives needed to be funded. Naturally, a three-year capital campaign would be the solution. HOLD ON! What if vision, alignment, and generosity could be the solution for their new future?

Here are the seven missional objectives, our approach, and some of the results we’ve seen less than two years into the work.

Missional Objectives:

1. Raise $1million each year for missional causes while reducing church debt
2. Maximize their outreach and efforts
3. Advance and expand their media ministry
4. Needs assessment for staff, space, finances, and times
5. Launch a multi-site campus approach
6. Develop a Center for Discipleship and Education
7. Develop methodical and comprehensive life stage discipleship from cradle to college

Approach:

1. Create two one-day offerings immediately to take a huge leap forward with debt reduction and missions giving. Palm Sunday was utilized to catalyze those who were passionate about debt reduction. The entire offering that Sunday was deposited toward their debt. Then on Easter Sunday, Church at the Mall built bridge relationships with multiple non-profits in the community that aligned with the church vision. The entire offering was given away to impact the city. It was a bold step on many fronts. The staff and church leaders needed to decide how committed they were to the missional objectives. What would happen if they gave two complete offerings away at the beginning of the year? How would that impact ministry, even their jobs? Their unified faith would be more than rewarded.

2. Clarify their Vision, create culture, and discipleship Measures. TheVision Framing process of Auxano was utilized to create the organizational engine and culture needed to accomplish the seven missional objectives. A repeated priority on prayer, fasting, and the anointed life would provide the fuel. This focus led to a clear articulation of a three-pronged Strategy. The Strategy would align ministries to work best together delivering the results of their Vision. This would require big conversations related to aligning programming, staff, calendar, facility, and resources. Good activity would not compete with visionary accomplishment.

3. Develop a Generous Culture. When Vision is clear, resources are aligned, and results are measurable, it releases people. They knew where the church was headed, how they could grow, where they could live a big life, and confidence that their generosity was making a difference beyond themselves. We identified the different types of givers in their church from those who gave nothing to those living generously beyond a tithe. Each person was able to identify with a giving hero in the Bible that was relatable to their stage of life and financial situation. Curriculum was developed. A year-long growth path was revealed. Every person and family could find their way to grow a generous life for the sake of long term kingdom investment.

Results:

• Total church indebtedness was reduced by 26% or $1,056,799.
• Total church missions giving increased by 35% or $216,953.
• Yearly undesignated giving increased 6% and this is not counting the special offerings taken on two consecutive Sundays.
• General offerings increased by 12% prior to summer months, and this is not including the special offerings received.
• Average gift per family increased 21% year to date. (Measured the first several months of three consecutive years)
• Families or individuals giving digitally increased 19%.
• The church was given a church facility in a neighboring town worth $1,700,000. A new campus was launched with hundreds in attendance.
• Media is being maximized via new brand development, website, and app.
• Discipleship Measures were created for all ages along with custom written curriculum.
• Outreach is on a path to being maximized via new outreach Bible studies, online services, and a new television program.

Not too bad for less than two years of focused activity. Dream big, get focused, pray boldly, and enjoy the clarity.

To learn how this process could help your church, connect with an Auxano Navigator today.

> Read more from Todd.

Tags: Alignment, Church at the Mall, Clarity, Todd McMichen, Vision

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Five Questions that Change Everything

by: James Emery White

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Mention the name Peter Drucker in management circles, and a hushed silence will fall as your peers wait to see if you might have even a nugget of his wisdom that has not already been disseminated for consumption.

The famed Austrian died in 2005, but not before turning his vast experience and intellect toward the non-profit sector, benefiting churches around the world.

He once offered five questions for organizational strategic self-assessment. Not for “program” assessment or an individual performance review, mind you, but organizational assessment. To this day, most would argue that they really are the five most important questions you will ever ask about your organization.

And shockingly, few churches have ever asked them, much less wrestled with their answers.

Here they are:

1. What Is Our Mission?

Years ago Drucker sat down with the administrators of a major hospital to think through the mission of the emergency room. They began by saying, “Our mission is health care.”

Drucker told them that was the wrong definition.

The hospital does not take care of health; the hospital takes care of illness. Eventually they determined that their mission was: “To give assurance to the afflicted.”

The mission says why you do what you do, not the means by which you do it. It answers these questions: What is our purpose? Why do we do what we do? What, in the end, do we want to be remembered for?

So perhaps, for a church, your “why” (mission) might be: “To reach people far from God, turning them into fully-devoted followers of Jesus.” Regardless of how you word it, it will surely be some variant of the Great Commission given to us by Jesus.

2. Who Is Our Customer?

No matter what you call them – customer, student, patient, participant, volunteer, donor or member – you have someone you are trying to reach; someone you are trying to serve.

Who is it?

As Drucker puts it: “Who must be satisfied for the organization to achieve results?” His answer for the social sector, including churches, is telling: “The primary customer is the person whose life is changed through your work… Supporting customers are volunteers, members, partners, funders, referral sources, employees, and others who must be satisfied.”

In other words, the primary customer for the church is the person far from God; the supporting customer is the person already reached.

3. What Does the Customer Value?

When you ask what a customer values, you are asking what satisfies their needs, wants and aspirations. This is so complicated that it can, of course, only be answered by the customers themselves.

This may be the most important question of the five. Yet, as Drucker notes, it is the one least often asked.

A complicating factor is the reality of multiple constituencies. When I was president of a leading graduate school, I had to be mindful of a vast array of support customers: faculty, staff, trustees, donors, alumni, community residents; not to mention the primary customer – the student.

But take your eye off the ball of your primary customer, and you will negate the very reason you exist. So for a church, perhaps the most telling question is what a person far from God values when it comes to exploring God.

Very few churches know the answer.

4. What Are Our Results?

Drucker wisely notes that the results of social sector organizations are always measured outside the organization in changed lives and changed conditions.

So what does this mean for a church?

What should be appraised and judged so that resources can be concentrated for results?

In a penetrating assessment, Drucker notes that one of the most important questions for nonprofit leadership is: “Do we produce results that are sufficiently outstanding for us to justify putting our resources in this area?”

He would argue that need alone does not justify continuing. Nor does tradition. Like the New Testament parable of the talents, Drucker would challenge that the job of leadership is to invest resources where the returns are manifold, where you can have success.

This shift in thinking – from “needs” to “results” – may be among the most challenging areas for leaders to grapple.

5. What Is Our Plan?

Everything about self-assessment should lead to a plan – a plan that encompasses mission, vision, goals, objectives, action steps, a budget and appraisal.

And be careful with goals. They are critical, to be sure. “Goals flow from mission, aim the organization where it must go, build on strength, address opportunity, and taken together, outline your desired future.”

But they should be few in number. Classic Drucker: “If you have more than five goals, you have none.”

He then adds the five elements of effective plans: 1) abandonment (meaning abandoning what does not work, or in truth, has never worked); 2) concentration (strengthening what does work); 3) innovation (looking for tomorrow’s success); 4) risk taking (planning where to take the risks); and 5) analysis (marking out what you do not know, but need to know).

But through it all, one overarching question reigns supreme:

What do we want to be remembered for?

> Read more from James Emery White.

Learn more about Auxano’s Vision Clarity Process.

Tags: 5 Questions, James Emery White, Peter Drucker's 5 Questions, Vision

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Momentum is the Key to Resurgence

by: Jeff Meyer

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Momentum. Every leader needs it. If you’ve been stationary for any period of time you know you need to generate some. Generating it takes incredible energy. Stepping out of a maligned past is a challenge. Overcoming the barriers and generating healthy momentum is not for the faint of heart. Momentum is the key to leading a resurgence.

Resurgence takes skilled and determined leadership. Are you up for the challenge?

• Do you see a better future in the face of overwhelming obstacles?
• Are you living among a group of people you are called to lead who see nothing but the current realities?
• Is your leadership malaise stifling hope and burying opportunity?

Take courage from Cleveland’s Resurgence!

Last weekend I was in Cleveland for a family gathering. We spent time in the much misunderstood Rust Belt City. As we walked around the city once famous for its great river fire of 1969, I was struck by its radical turn around.

And while it is certain that this great city is not perfect, and that Cleveland still has economic and social issues to overcome, I was struck by the vision and relentless execution that has this beacon of hope on Lake Erie moving in the right direction.

Here are leadership lessons from Cleveland’s resurgence I took with me as I made my way back home to Madison.

Visionary Leaders…

Choose Catalytic Language

Vision has two components: macro and micro, moutaintop and milestone, qualitative and quantitative.

Both components of vision must be compelling.

By compelling I mean that we want to repeat it. We want to share it.

Hope springs when we utter the phrase.

Language has the power to paint a picture. Words create worlds.

Consider this from Cleveland:

The macro Vision launched in 2009 was “Green City on a Blue Lake”

Consider the radical nature of this vision for a city that was nicknamed “Mistake on the Lake”!

“…Cleveland is well on its way to achieving its vision of a ‘green city on a blue lake.’” Read the Entire Article Here.

The micro Vision followed. The mountaintop “Green City on a Blue Lake” would become a reality only by hitting clearly articulated milestones along the 10 year journey.

“In 2009, the city created Sustainable Cleveland 2019, a 10-year action plan initiative devoted to addressing environmental issues and raising awareness.” Read the entire article here.

Sustainable Cleveland 2019 helped the city…

Condense Their Focus

Pursuing vision can be daunting. We have daily reminders of our current position. There are voices all around us that remind us of all the reasons we can’t and won’t. Few people can see beyond the horizon.

So, an effective visionary leader knows that he/she must condense their focus.

One step at a time. The next hill to take. Steady, methodical, patient…all the while holding onto the dream.

Holding onto the inspiring “Green City on a Blue Lake” (like a post card of the dream) Cleveland took the next step pursuing the next initiative.

“Cleveland is building a new reputation of a sustainable ‘green city on a blue lake’ by promoting nine sustainability initiatives. Each initiative serves as the year’s theme for addressing environmental issues in the city. The nine themes are:

2011: The Year of Energy Efficiency
2012: The Year of Local Foods
2013: The Year of Advanced and Renewable Energy
2014: The Year of Zero Waste
2015: The Year of Clean Water
2016: The Year of Sustainability Mobility
2017: The Year of Vibrant Green Space
2018: The Year of Vital Neighborhoods
2019: The Year of People”  Read the entire article here.

It’s 2016. You can see the progress as you walk the streets of Cleveland. Not finished, 10 years is a long time. The vision is a long pursuit in the same direction.

So along the way, the visionary leader realizes that he/she must…

Celebrate Their Progress

“Cleveland has come a long way in the 50 years since the infamous Cuyahoga River fire, even hosting a sustainable celebratory Burning River Fest every year in the summer to help Clevelanders celebrate just how far the city has come….Cleveland is well on its way to achieving its vision of a ‘green city on a blue lake.’” Read the entire article here.

A visionary leader like you can bring others with YOU as YOU…

• Choose Catalytic Language
• Condense Your Focus
• Celebrate Your Progress

Back in 1969, who would have thought that Cleveland would be described like this?

“Hipsters battling to rent warehouse lofts. Trendy bars, espresso shops and music venues. A funky, celebrity-chef-owned restaurant serving bone marrow and crispy pig ears.”

Someone in 2009 who loved Cleveland enough to pursue a “Green City on a Blue Lake”!

• What vision is stirring in your heart right now?
• What’s your catalytic language?
• What’s your condensed focus?
• What opportunities can you create to celebrate your progress?

If you would like to learn more about vision and momentum, start a conversation with our team. We’re glad to offer our input. Your vision is at stake, so let’s talk.

Tags: Jeff Meyer, Vision, Vision language

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4 Pastors in Which Vision Thrives

by: Will Mancini

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I was having a conversation with Bryan Rose on the Auxano team recently. We broached the topic of “pastors who get it.” That is, we discussed the kinds of pastors who really press through the vision process to gain great clarity. These pastors lead with humility and tenacity. These pastors build great churches. These pastors see the kingdom grow right in front of their eyes. These are the true visionaries.

We believe these leaders fit almost perfectly into one of four categories or four types of pastors.

These are four types of pastors that are willing to learn, discern and do the hard work of visionary leadership. Another way to say it is that these pastors are leading today what will be the great churches ten and twenty years from now.

WHAT ARE THE FOUR TYPES?

#1 – The relevant rookie pastor: “I don’t know what I don’t know”

These pastors are sharp younger leaders (20s and 30s) who are in tune with their personal calling and dialed in to the prevailing issues of popular culture. They are probably in a new role that brings new responsibility; or they may be launching out on their own as a church planter.They are naturally hungry to learn. They are culture savvy and they are connected to the people they are leading. 

They understand that they don’t know everything about organizational leadership. They are humble enough to invite a coach to the table. But their humility does not dilute their tenacity. They are the new breed of visionaries. They are tired of the old scorecards and will do whatever it takes to communicate the substance of the culture and vision of the church. 

Client profile: Jason Webb at ElmBrook Church recently completed a 9-month vision framing process.  “Rookie” doesn’t reflect Jason’s stellar church planting track record. But as a 30-something leader walking into a 5,000 plus attendance church, others might assign that adjective. (Especially when following in the footsteps of Stuart Briscoe and Mel Lawrenz, two former senior pastors.) Jason did an amazing job stewarding a vision process with a highly tenured team. They are 8 months into their vision roll-out. The completely new sense of team is felt and focus on the future is extraordinarily clear. Their passion is to help spiritually adrift people become rooted and released in Jesus Christ.

#2 – The legacy minded pastor: “I want to leave something valuable”

On the opposite end of the “rookie” spectrum is the legacy minded pastor. These pastors have likely led for decades in the same church. They have a lifetime of trust building and faithful service creating solid and influential ministries.

But they know that times are changing. They are now aware of the generational pattern of failed successions of senior pastors.  They are not quite ready to pass the baton or even make any long-term succession announcements, but they want to start putting the house in order. They are probably 3-7 years away from leaving their position.  They want to be more relevant. They want to re-clarify what their church can do best and re-align ministries to strengthen impact. They are tired of just doing more and want to prune ineffective ministries. They want to leave a strong and self-aware church to their eventual successor.

Client Profile: Pastor Clint has been leading his church for 25 years. At age 62, he feels that he has at least five more years left. He has built one of the best megachurches in North America. The church is getting older than people want to admit. Even though younger leaders are present, they are not present with serious responsibility yet. Pastor Clint has raised the money to do a 12-month vision process and it has reinvigorated his life and ministry like nothing before. As each month brings increasingly clarity, he is leading better, allowing others to lead better and is gaining confidence toward the long-range future.

#3 – The newly stuck pastor: “I have barrier that I now realize is not going away and I am not exactly sure how to fix it.”

The newly stuck pastor has a very simple story. You keep growing until you don’t. After five or 10 years of year-over-year growth, the church just stops growing. Giving is not going up; or at least not as much. By the way, you know you are in this place when you push really hard to “feel like you are growing” even though, deep inside, you know you are not. For example, attendance may be flat, but you put your hope in the fact that the church had slightly more attendance at Easter. Or you keep focusing on a few months where giving is slightly higher. You take momentary relief in the trend that your most faithful members attend church less. 

To make matters worse, if you look around the church, everything is going fine. All cylinders are hitting. Buildings are great, staff is relatively healthy. It’s hard to know why the growth is not just happening any longer.

The truth is that the organization is perfectly designed to get the results that it’s getting. Something about the structure, the culture, or the complexity of the church is holding it back. But because all of the successful years, the answer is not obvious or automatic. Finally something happens: you realize you need some perspective from the outside. You’ll do whatever it takes to break that glass ceiling.

Client Profile: Pastor Dan is 55 and has been leading a church for 10 years. Five years ago the attendance plateaued at around 1,600 in weekend services. He has kept hoping for the best and has become increasing bothered by their lack of growth. In fact, they built seating capacity to handle double their current attendance.  Every Sunday, Dan feels the pain of the empty seats   On Sabbatical two summers ago, he read Church Unique and began to think about both his vision and his organization dynamics. Recently he finished a 12-month vision framing process. He is more excited than ever to be in ministry. He is seeing people excited as he creates and models a culture of mission. He is leading with vision like never before. Attendance is already on the rise and giving has dramatically picked up.

#4 – The rapid growth pastor: “I don’t want to grow bigger, unless bigger is better.”

There are two types of rapid-growth pastors: those who fixate on attendance only and those with a passion for disciple-making in a growing church context. I work primarily with the latter and that is the profile I am now describing.These pastors understand that all growth is not good growth. They understand that growth out of alignment in the human body is called cancer. What then, do you call growth in the body of Christ that is out of alignment with the DNA of Jesus?

The rapid growth pastor sees a growing attendance as a critical stewardship. It’s a starting point not an end point. Are there clear next steps not just to “get involved but” to really grow as disciple-making disciples? Is leadership development and people development taking place? Is growing attendance happening under the banner of a vivid sense of the church’s impact for the next 5-10 years? Are we sending as well as we are attracting? Are we managing our culture or letting the growth manage us? 

Client Profile: David Saathoff leads City Church in San Antonio. Dave has engaged the Vision Framing process several times since he launched the church 20 years ago. He continually manages clarity in the complexity of growth and the messiness of reaching people far from God. He has literally reached thousands with the passion to become catalysts of spiritual and social change in the city. He has one of my favorite mission measures which codifies the practices of “how we live” across a large church community. Even if new people are added at a fast rate, the expectation of disciple-making is delivered at concurrent speed. How do they articulate it? How we live: We listen to God, be the church, share a meal, downsize to maximize, peel the onion, keep our passport current and lean towards green.

These are the four types of pastors that excel at vision. Which one are you?

> Read more from Will.

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Tags: Vision, Vision Clarity, Will Mancini, pastors who have vision, vision process

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9 Ways to Grow Generous Disciples

by: Dan Reiland

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For every leader, it requires artful and prayerful leadership to inspire a congregation to give.

That said, I know how much stress pastors and church leaders carry about church finances. So my hope is that this “simple” list is helpful, encouraging, easily accessible, and therefore worth the risk.

1) Never make money about expenses, make it about vision.

People can smell desperation from a leader. When you allow your financial pressures to leak into your teaching and general announcements from the platform you receive less income not more. Vision is what moves people to contribute financially. People work hard for their income and want to know it’s going to a Kingdom purpose greater than they can produce on their own.

2) Practice generosity personally.

Your personal giving patterns may never be of public record, but your level of generosity is inherently connected to your leadership. When giving to others is as natural as breathing, that finds its way into the DNA of your leadership and people respond accordingly. You behave differently and the congregation responds in kind.

3) Offer an online giving option.

In the last 5-7 years online giving has caught tremendous traction in the local church. It fits the normal practices and patterns of your people for a great deal of their personal finances. In short, it’s easier than remembering to write a check and carry it to church. Don’t stop receiving your physical offering, but I highly recommend you set up online giving.

4) Teach one series on giving per year.

If you talk about money too much your congregation becomes anesthetized to what you are saying. In general, people know they are “supposed to give,” they see the offering received every week! Merely telling them or asking them the same way over and over again doesn’t change anything. If you prepare and present, for example, an annual 4-week series on biblical stewardship, including tithing, the impact is far greater.

5) Demonstrate wise stewardship.

Giving starts with vision, but continues through good stewardship. Nothing increases trust faster than when the leadership consistently demonstrates wise money management. If you are not great at the financial part of leadership, get some help from a few sharp business leaders in your church.

6) Teach tithing for the benefit of the people, not the church as an organization.

This should be included within your annual financial series, but it deserves special note on its own. Giving is not about money as much as it is about trust. It’s a heart issue more than a wallet issue. Trusting that God will provide for personal needs, and that principles like obedience and gratitude are part of spiritual maturity are of huge benefit to each person.

The results of giving are a major blessing to the individual and far exceed the significance of the church “making budget.” I’m not downplaying or dismissing the church’s need for financial resources, but I’m saying make it personal not organizational.

7) Be bold about tithing with leaders.

Tithing is part of a believer’s spiritual journey. It’s good to be clear and direct, but also be very encouraging with the general congregation when it comes to your teaching on tithing. But when it comes to teaching leaders to tithe, it’s good to be bold. If they are representing the church, carrying spiritual responsibility and commensurate spiritual authority, it needs to be backed by spiritual obedience.

8) Tell stories of life change.

Few things are more inspiring than stories of life change. When your congregation consistently hears these stories, whether you tell them or by video or just a hallway conversation, they are reminded of the vision and what God wants to do through your church. Make baptisms a part of your worship experience, they are some of the best stories ever told!

9) Offer personal financial training.

When we as leaders challenge people to give without equipping them to give, we create a kind of spiritual dissonance. Without knowledge of basic budgeting, debt reduction and personal savings etc., it’s difficult to embrace consistent giving, let alone tithing. Offer top-notch finance training through small groups and seminars at your church. Financial freedom is a powerful tool to help your people grow!

> Read more from Dan.

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Tags: Dan Reiland, Generosity, Generous Disciples, Vision

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2 Ways to Make Your Vision Stick

by: Steven Furtick

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There’s a crucial question every ministry leader must answer when it comes to their vision. When do you know the vision has become ingrained in the culture of your church and not just in your own dreams?

It’s not enough to have a vision, even a compelling one. It’s not enough to be able to communicate your vision well. And it definitely isn’t enough to be passionate about your vision. Of course you’re going to be passionate about your vision. It’syour vision.

What you really want is for the vision to stick. To infiltrate and permeate every area of your church. To be so ingrained in your culture that people speak the vision and do the vision without even thinking about it.

But how do you know when that has happened?
Two indicators stick out to me; Here’s the first:

1) When the best ideas are not your own.
When the vision has become ingrained in your culture, great ideas should be flowing from all directions. The pastor shouldn’t be the chief idea officer, but the chief vision officer. His responsibility is to make sure that the ideas are fitting into the vision. Not generate all of the ideas for the vision.

If all of the best ideas are coming from the pastor, it’s a sign the vision hasn’t truly been owned by the people. It’s only being served. In other words, for your staff and volunteers, it’s still your vision. And since it’s your vision, you should be the one coming up with the best ideas for it. And then they’ll support you by making them happen. As Christine Caine would say, they see themselves as servants of your vision, rather than as stewards of a vision that has become their own.

The vision isn’t going very far this way. I don’t care if you’re Steve Jobs, you don’t have enough great ideas in you to keep it going.

The solution: regularly demand people to bring their own ideas to the table. Set the expectation that fresh ideas for how to carry out the vision aren’t welcomed, they’re expected. Remind the people you’re leading that the vision isn’t just yours. It’s everyone’s. And everyone can and should contribute.

When they do, reward and recognize them in front of everyone. Make them the standard.
And then don’t be surprised when great ideas start flowing from people other than yourself.

2) Leaders have been raised up who can communicate the vision better in ways more suited to their personality and area of responsibility.
If you’re the only person who can communicate the vision, you’re in trouble. If your staff has to get you to every event to cast vision, there’s a problem. It’s an indication not of how great of a vision caster you are, but of how much your staff has yet to own and appropriate the vision to their own unique contexts.

I remember the first time I heard the original version of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door by Bob Dylan. I didn’t like it. Not because it wasn’t good, but because I had already heard it played by Guns N’ Roses. And I thought their version was way better.

That’s what you want from the people you lead. You want people who can take your vision and make it better and communicate it more effectively in their own ministry setting. Who can take it and find fresh angles to approach it from that you never would have thought of yourself.

You know the vision has become ingrained when you don’t have to be there in person to ingrain it. Your leaders have so internalized it that when they’re there, it’s as if you’re there. And it’s even better.

The solution: Regularly force your people to articulate the vision in the context of their specific area of responsibilities. To you. To the staff. And to the people they oversee. The more they do, the more they’ll understand it, own it, and spread it. And the more your people will love and believe in the vision, not just the chief vision caster.

More from Steven.

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Tags: Articulating vision, Steven Furtick, Vision, making vision stick

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