Stop Trying to Reach Most People

by: Will Mancini

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Tags: Duplicatable Process, Evangelism, Leadership Engine, Seth, Tribes, Will Mancini

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The Essential Lesson of Tribal Communication

by: Will Mancini

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Tags: Communication, Seth Godin, Tribes, Will Mancini

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Limit Your Limitations – 3 Essentials for Creating a Movement

by: Will Mancini

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

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

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

Here are some questions for each essential:

Future-building Narratives

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

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

Leader-Follower Connections

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

Doing Without Limits

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

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

Tags: Leadership Engine, Movement, Seth Godin, Tribes, Will Mancini

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Pastors are Tribal Leaders – 4 Things We Must Do

by: Will Mancini

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Today I want to apply Godin’s perspective about leading a tribe, to Jesus. As we do, I invite you to allow the life of Jesus shape your own identity as a leader.

You may wonder why Godin’s perspective is so valuable here.  Although he doesn’t sit in the academy or carry credentials of a theologian, he is a language artist who knows people and knows the times.

Here are four ways pastors can model Jesus.  Each assertion is connected to a Godin quote and followed by some challenging questions.

1:Embrace change-making.

“Management is about manipulating resources to get a known job done. Leadership, on the other hand, is about creating change that you believe in.”

2: Repent of ‘organizational loves.’

“When you fall in love with the system, you loose the ability to grow.” 

3: Initiate something.

“Initiative=Happiness”

4: Commit before its successful.

“If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either. A big part of leadership is the ability to stick with the dream for a long time. Long enough that the critics realize that your going to get there one way or another…so they follow.”

I have ordered these quotes intentionally. Reread them again to feel the progression.

Think about Jesus’ context as a religious factory. Think about how Jesus daily ordered his steps around his Father’s voice and mission. Seth’s definition of management can easily speak to the problems of church in America.

•  How are we, spiritually speaking, tempted to manipulate resources to get a known job done rather than creating change that we believe in?

Jesus created waves for people who didn’t just create systems as tools but sustained systems in order to nourish their identity. What sytems do you have as a leader and what is your relationship to them?  Do they serve you or do you serve them? How conscious are you of your system?

• What aspects of your system, tempt you to “fall in love” with them?  What personal growth as a leader is your current system holding back?  What keeps you just “going through life” at the risk of “growing through life?”

There is always status quo.  What is it right now for you? I love the phrase “initiative = happiness.”  It is certainly not a statement of truth, but an overstatement for insight’s sake. Before a leaders is defined by anything, he or she is defined by initiative. Hebrews tells us that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him. Now think of how that joy and the culminating event of the cross was preceded by literally thousands of moments of initiative that were bold, gutsy, and downright heretical.  Start with mind-blowing act incarnation. Go to the norm-shredding engagement with the Samaritan woman. Take a boat ride for a near death experience and an indelible lesson in faith. I think pastors need a wake-up call to follow Jesus footsteps as radical initiators.

• What initiative do you need to take in your leadership these days?  What happiness are you forfeiting as long as you shrink back from taking it?

The final Godin quote above rocks me to the core when I think of the church. We miss dreaming large, risking big and unleashing our imaginations because we want success before commitment.  Maybe the best next step to fixing this dynamic in our organizations is to name it and identify it in our own lives.

• What does the church you are leading express commitment toward? Albeit subtle, how does the problem of wanting success before commitment manifest itself in your life?  What dream do you want to pursue that you have failed to give yourself permission to pursue because it is too bold for your current context?

Let’s follow Jesus with greater clarity, conviction and courage. Let’s keep moving away from church as program factory toward church as redemptive tribe. 

Read Parts 1 and 2 of this series here and here; Read Part 4 here.

Tags: Leadership Engine, Seth Godin, Tribal Leaders, Tribes, Will Mancini

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How Passionate is Your Tribe? 5 Questions

by: Will Mancini

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Here are my three favorite Seth Godin quotes pertaining to tribal passion:

“Do you believe in what you do? Every day? It turns out that belief happens to be a brilliant strategy. Can you imagine Steve Jobs showing up for the paycheck? It’s nice to get paid, its essential to believe.”

“Caring is the key emotion at the center of the tribe… Many organizations are unable to answer the question, “Who cares?” because in fact, no one really does. If you don’t care – really and deeply care – then you can’t possibly lead.“

“The organizations of the future are filled with smart, fast, flexible people on mission. The thing is, that requires leadership.”

Because every leader in your church can be placed on a continuum of emotional ownership, consider these questions for team discussion:

1. Who are most passionate in our ministry? How did they get that way? How do we help more people catch the passion?
2. What is keeping me from caring more? When did I care about my mission the most? Why then?
3. How can we make creating enthusiasm a part of our leadership development strategy?
4. What can I do today to encourage a leader down the continuum from common interest to passionate mission? How can I use Thanksgiving week to leverage this encouragement?
5. Am I as a leader spending adequate time with other leaders so that passion can rub off?

Read Part 1 of the series here; read part 3 of the series here.

Tags: Leadership Engine, Passion, Seth Godin, Tribes, Will Mancini

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Take Seth Godin to Church, Part 1

by: Will Mancini

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You’ve probably been exposed to Seth Godin’s book, Tribes. But have you integrated his ideas into your thinking and leadership at church?

Integrating new learning for me always happens in stages. For example:

• Exposure to and awareness of new ideas
• Understanding (distillation and re-articulation) of the idea’s essence as it pertains to my leadership today
• Experimentation and practice of the new idea
• Continued refinement of my understanding of the idea over time
• Re-articulation and communication of the idea with others

I share these thoughts regarding Seth Godin’s book because it is easy to get stuck in the emotional satisfaction of having been exposed to the idea without applying it. For example, when I met Seth hanging out backstage at Catalyst in 2008, I could proudly talk about the ideas in his book, but I had not read it. It took me another six months before I did.

The bottom line: I think Tribes is a book worth engaging as church leaders. And I would love to help you get past a surface exposure. In fact you may want to grab a free audio copy or a free copy of his companion tool.

To help you I have prepared some future posts with my favorite quotes from the book and questions for team discussion.

My dominant thought in this series is “How are you managing a program factory (whether overtly or sub-consciously) in the name of church, rather than leading a redemptive tribe in the name of Jesus?”

Take a look at Part 2 of this series here.

Tags: Leadership Engine, Seth Godin, Tribes, Will Mancini

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Developing a Tagline for Your Church, Step 1: Clear Vision

by: Will Mancini

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If you are new to my blog, you may not know that everything I do in helping ministries begins with clarity first. In order to help teams with clarity and vision, I developed a tool called the Vision Frame. The Vision Frame is discussed at length in Church Unique.

Before developing a tagline, it is important for a leadership team to know, agree on and articulate the primary strength of your ministry (I call this the Kingdom Concept) and to articulate the Vision Frame. Think of the Vision Frame of “knowing who you are” before you decide to “get dressed” to present yourself to people in the world. The Vision Frame is your internal language and your clearest expression of identity and direction. Your tagline is what you want to tell people before they experience your ministry. Obviously they must be organically connected and meaningfully related.

At first seeing, all sides of the frame might seem like a lot, but its not. Look for language you already use. Many times a church communicates its strategy in it’s mission statement for example. As you separate out the key components of your DNA, each component will become more clear and more transferable in leadership.

GO TO  Step TWO: Decide on a gospel-centered promise.

Return to Church Tagline Series Overview

Tags: Awareness, Tagline, Vision Clarity, Vision Frame, Will Mancini

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Developing a Tagline for Your Church, Step 7: Final Decision

by: Will Mancini

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By now you are ready to pull the trigger.

Use your external ranked list as a very serious perspective for input, but not necessarily  the final basis. If there is a clear favorite from the external audience, I would highly recommend using it, unless there is a compelling reason otherwise.

If two or three of the external opinions are equal weight, then let the team or the senior pastor (or however your church makes decisions) make the final choice.

The goal is to create a collaborative decision that will create confidence and enthusiasm from the leadership team first and then the entire body.  The collaborative decision should:

1. Represent the strength of the church
2. Create a seamless experience with the church’s first impression
3. Be based on the gospel
4. Represent at least two weeks of thoughtful leadership reflection
5. Not create confusion with other organizations’ taglines
6. Weight the external opinions highly
7. Rally leaders and the entire congregation to deliver on the promise

Be looking for most posts on branding and marketing you ministry.

Return to Church Tagline Post Overview

Tags: Awareness, Final Decision, Tagline, Will Mancini

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Developing Your Church Tagline, Step 6: External Testing

by: Will Mancini

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There are many ways to test your top five taglines. The most important thing is that you DO test it. It will be tempting to feel the excitement of your internal process and just skip this step.

While marketing companies produce very sophisticated testing techniques, here is a simple one you can do at no cost.

#1  Create small cards that you will use to record a response from at least 50 people. Use card stock and make a standard size note card. On the note care write, “Possible taglines for ABC Church. Please circle the phrase that is most attractive to you if you were to attend a church:“ and list the top five options with no numbers, just bullet points.

#2 Ask each person on your team to get 4-6 responses from people outside of your ministry. Encourage them to ask neighbors or other acquaintances for their input. Remind them that everyone loves being asked for their opinion.

#3  Make sure you get at least 50 responses but don’t be afraid to get hundreds. Because this is a very informal process also make sure that the folks recording answers don’t represent too limited of an age segment.  The main idea of this step is to get SOME outside input rather than relying TOTALLY on internal opinions.

#4 Tally the data and create a ranking of your top five list from the external audience responses.

GO TO the final step SEVEN: Make your final decision

Return to Church Tagline Post Overview

Tags: Awareness, External Testing, Tagline, Will Mancini

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Developing a Tagline for Your Church, Step 5: Top 5

by: Will Mancini

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Now its time to identify your top five ideas.

I recommend a two step process. Make sure you have had at least two weeks to reflect on your list of 100 or more ideas. The team should have a copy of all of these.  This is important as the creative blitz may produce excitement around ideas that won’t last. A great tagline will get even better in the first few weeks after some reflection.

Step A: After one week, have everyone list their top three ideas. Use this to create a ranked list with the highest rank at the top, but with all of the ideas still on the list.

Step B: Take one more week and encourage active reflection on the list. Now you have had at least two weeks from the brainstorm. Take a final vote and ask people to select their top choice.

Use this process to create the top five list.

GO TO Step SIX: Test your tagline with people outside of your ministry

Return to Church Tagline Post Overview

Tags: Awareness, Tagline, Top 5, Will Mancini

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