Vision Navigator

Having had a chance to reflect on my two days at the recent Innovation3 conference, put on by Leadership Network, I can sum up my experience in one word:

Dialogue

As opposed to a monologue, where your time is spent largely in venues designed for information transfer or one-way communication - either speaking or being spoken to.

Not to say that there weren’t great speakers. Quite the contrary. In fact, I’m still processing and reflecting on the content presented in both the main and breakout sessions.

My lasting impression of I3, however, will be the conversations I shared with so many great leaders and servants from across the country. Some old friends, some new ones, my Auxano peeps, and a ton of folks I knew via blog or twitter connections but had never met face to face.

What impressed me as well was the way dialogue was encouraged through innovative uses of technology. Which includes such things as:

• free wireless Internet service provided by Bent Tree Bible Fellowship
• use of the twitter #i3 hashtag, allowing a way for folks twittering at the conference to connect with and track one another more easily
• live session feeds and chatrooms on the conference website, which extended the reach of the conference beyond those who were physically present

And the dialogue continues. Through twitter, blogs, the live portion of the conference website, and other conversations I’ve had after the conference.

So why is this so significant? Consider the words of Jesus:

Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. Matthew 18:19-20

Notice that? The emphasis is on two reaching an agreement, and two or more coming together in Christ’s name. Agreement and unity. Which is hard to forge when only one person’s doing all the talking.

The real value of I3 for me then, was its ability to stimulate dialogue. Conversations where two or more followers of Jesus, the Living Word, or logos, could share their thoughts, words, and experiences with one another. Reaching agreements, hearing Christ speak through each other, and forging lasting relationships.

I wonder what church leaders can learn from this? Is your church known more for creating dialogues or monologues? Is your primary communication style one of conversation or proclamation? What technologies do you employ to support your church’s communication strategy?

If you participated at I3, what were your impressions? What thoughts or key takeaways have impacted you the most?

On the heels of yesterday’s post re: welcoming the “other,” I thought this clip from Desperate Housewives was really eye opening:

Should churches be a place of answer dispensing, or question fielding? Or something in between?
Hard to make a case for Jesus being the answer, if we’re not open to hearing what the questions are, don’t you think?

How does your church handle hard questions?

[ht: Grace Roots]

David Hayward had a thought provoking post earlier this week on Spiritual Engineering. He notes the preoccupation the Nazis had with social engineering, and how their desire to achieve a perfect society ironically translated into a genocidal agenda to contain or eliminate those who were considered to be disruptive or inferior.

He closes the post by asking this question: “When we try to engineer the kind of community that we want, are we actually doing violence to the body of Christ and violating his parts?“

Below was my response:

I think we all naturally gravitate towards engineering things in our favor, whether we’re conscious of it or not. It’s part of our broken, fallen nature seeking safety and self-preservation, and is not something we can escape. When we give in to this need for self exaltation, and organize others around our cause, then we recognize it as the warped type of social engineering you describe, where the goal is uniformity, not unity — promoting our own agenda, rather than participating in God’s mission.

The key to me is being aware of this, and humbly submitting ourselves together to become the community that God wants us to be. This involves dragging our own thoughts, feelings, convictions, biases, etc., into the light — sharing them with each other — airing them out — arguing if need be. And realizing that none of us has “the answer” in our back pocket. We all have limited perspectives at best, and we all need illumination from our Heavenly Father, the Waymaker, to show us the way forward.

This involves trust — trusting that God really does want to guide us and show us the way if we ask. It also involves trusting our Father’s heart, even when the path runs through the desert, is obscured, dark, or full of stumbling blocks. Because God’s purpose for the path often has more to do with the process — growing our faith, making us more dependent on him, and more loving/forgiving towards ourselves and each other — than the actual destination.

The question for me then is not whether we should try to engineer or not, but who’s agenda we’re advancing — each day — today — in this moment…

What are your thoughts? When church leaders cast a vision for your community, do you feel motivated or manipulated? How might the trust you place in leadership impact your perception?

Here’s an interesting article from USA Today earlier this week on Megachurches.

Not surprisingly, the article equates “growth” with attendance numbers, suggesting that such growth “may be stalled.” Not sure how they actually arrived at that conclusion, given the numbers they cite. Apparently slight declines by “some of the biggest” warrant a trend that the numbers actually don’t seem to support. Case in point, North Point’s attendance figures have increased by over 15% since last year, with 3 of the top 5 showing increases, not decreases (if you’re interested in North Point, you might want to check out my earlier posts here and here).

The focus on attendance numbers misses the point, however, in my estimation. Which begs the question, how do you measure the health or growth of a church?

I have my opinions, but I’d like to hear yours. What measures does your church use to define success or failure? How do you measure your own spiritual growth?

Ran across a couple of great posts on vision, both of which drive home the notion that vision should be more than just an idea — vision needs to connect mission to strategy in a real/tangible/practical way:

1) Larry Brey talks about how Vision is Divisive, but in a good way — here’s a quote:

Vision isn’t a statement, it’s what you do. The more you clarify the vision the more divisive it is. It draws a line in the sand that says either jump on board or get out of the way because here’s where this church is going. For too long churches have muddied the vision keeping in nebulous and ill defined. When vision is only something you say, anything goes. But when you drill it down to what you do people are forced to do something…either get on board or go somewhere else.

2) Chris Marlow explains why Vision is Overrated — namely vision devoid of implementation — excerpt is below:

I think vision gets way to much credit in the church world. Lot’s of dreamers with big idea’s. (people like me) Dreams mean nothing if they don’t get some feet and start walking. Vision can become your friend or your enemy. Vision can bear fruit or cause apathy.

The difference is leadership. It takes a leader to see the vision from scratch to wholeness while a dreamer will continue to “put stuff on paper” but that “stuff” never comes alive in the people of God. A true leader will take the words on the paper document and bring life and fruit from the vision.

The greatest leaders are not the visionary but the implementer. The visionary has to learn how to implement or have people around them who can implement the vision.

Is your vision becoming a reality? Do you have a clear strategy or process for accomplishing your God-given mission, or is it still just wishful thinking?

Ran across this funny story that illustrates well the potential perils of church communication:

One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Randy standing in the foyer of the church staring up at a large plaque. It was covered with names and small American flags mounted on either side of it. The six-year old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up, stood beside the little boy, and said quietly, ‘Good morning Randy.’

‘Good morning Pastor,’ he replied, still focused on the plaque. ‘Pastor, what is this?’

The pastor said, ‘Well son, it’s a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service.’

Soberly, they just stood together, staring at the large plaque.

Finally, little Randy’s voice, barely audible and trembling with fear asked, ‘Which service, the 8:30 or the 10:45?’

Do you have a story of [mis]communication to share?

How clear is your church’s communication? Do your words mean the same thing to others that they do to you?

When you ask people to give money to your church or ministry, do they see it as a tax or an investment?

The picture above is from my recent fishing trip on the White River in Arkansas. My son, Will, is in front — behind him is Dale, our guide.

Let me just say that Dale rocks!! With him as our guide, we caught 49 trout the first day. The next two days we went guideless, and the results were somewhat less impressive… (9 on day two, 21 or so the last day).

This is obviously to be expected. After all, Dale does this for a living. He knows the river, can find the best spots, knows what the fish are biting on any given day, and knows how to keep your poles properly equipped with lures in the water.

That’s why I took advantage of his expertise and picked his brain the first day — making mental notes of the best spots, learning what lures to use and when to use them, and soaking up every tip he would give me.

What I didn’t realize, however, was how valuable it was just to have him navigating the boat. Mind you, this wasn’t lake fishing, or fishing off of the bank. We were constantly moving — drifting downstream without an anchor on a swift current (they wouldn’t let unexperienced folks like us use an anchor, since we were liable to get hung up and sink the boat).

I learned this the hard way. I started out trying to navigate a boat with my son, my friend, and his son, thinking we’d all be able to fish. Then some lines got tangled, taking a couple of poles down, so I got involved trying to untangle/re-rig them. Then I had to help net a fish my friend’s son had caught. Then we started drifting too fast and too close to the bank — so I had my friend take over navigation — then the two remaining good poles got tangled up together. So just an hour or so into the trip, we had no hooks in the water, and I wasn’t even navigating the boat anymore!

Things got better from there, but this experience brought to mind a couple of key lessons I’ve learned:

1. When you try to focus on multiple things at once, you do nothing well
2. Navigators help free you up to fish and equip others to fish more effectively

I think the same thing holds true for those in ministry. It’s hard to focus on ministering (equipping/fishing) in the moment AND to pay attention to the path your ministry is on (navigating) at the same time.

What’s your experience? Have you ever used a guide/navigator in fishing, or in ministry? Got any good fish stories to tell?

[Silver frame photo courtesy of Michal Zacharzewski, SXC]

Auxano’s founder, Will Mancini, is one of the presenters at the PGF conference (Presbyterian Global Fellowship), going on this weekend. Sharing a coaching platform with Alan Hirsch yesterday, Will relayed on his blog a great quote from Alan, which ties in with my recent posts on doing church and kingdom imagination. He writes:

My favorite quote of the day was, “There is no silver bullet, but there is a silver imagination.” “Constantine is still the emperor of our minds” when it comes to how we think about church, Alan states. The silver imagination is about re-calibrating to our founder- Jesus; a process Alan calls radical traditionalism. He urged the presbyterian leaders wrestling through missional transformation to think like beginners and not experts- “we have to be OK with not knowing all of the answers.”

These are great thoughts. Rather than a quick fix or silver bullet, we need silver imaginations.

Minds that are transformed and renewed by our willingness to sacrifice everything at the feet of our Savior. Minds that are taken captive, and are captivated, by Christ. Minds fueled by the Spirit to see beyond current circumstances and past experiences. Minds that can only imagine where God is leading…

Do you tend to look for silver bullets, or silver imaginations? What has God placed in your imagination?

What effect does a building have on a church’s identity?

Consider this excerpt from Church Unique (pp. 41-42 — from Chapter 4, Lost Congregations: How Churches Adapt to the Vision Vacuum),

The places of our God moments matter. But space itself has addictive features, just like your favorite fries…. These are spots where we encounter God, whether it be the carpeted stairs near the altar, the ultrahip cafe’ where we get fed via live feed, or the intricately beautiful stained glass of the sanctuary. Again, these places are important, and they should be. 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 word 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. In other words, space ought not define our deepest connection to and association with a church. Jesus highlights this with the woman at the well: “true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” in contrast to location, “neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem” (John 4:21-23).

What defines your church? The building? Dynamic leaders? Programs? People?

What should your church be defined by?