I just had the opportunity to interview Will Mancini, the founder and Clarity Evangelist of Auxano. Will describes his job title as consultant, strategist, and vision architect for churches and ministries across the country. The Auxano team provides churches with consulting about the clarity of their vision, rather than marketing and promotional consulting. In reaction to my recent post on the 5 Attributes of a Church in Decline, here’s what Will had to say about vision and clarity in the modern church.
TONY: From your experience, what does a great vision look like?
WILL: Just like wind, we can describe either the wind itself or the effects of the wind. When most people think about great vision, they think about the effects. Things like enthusiasm for being a part of something big, a real sense of togetherness or freedom to take risks. The list goes for miles.
But in describing what great vision itself looks like, I boil it down to having a clear, concise and compelling answer to five questions:
- What are we doing?
- Why are we doing it?
- How are we doing it?
- When are we successful?
- Where is God taking us?
In the end if individuals on the team don’t “own” a common response to these questions, than vision clarity work is an urgent need that should be developed before other decisions are made. The “Vision Frame” is a great diagnostic tool to help these five clarity components stick in the daily life and leadership of the team.
Most important, we have created a question that must be answered before developing the Vision Frame. That question is, “What can your church do better than 10,000 others?” This question is important because most leaders tend to photocopy vision without even knowing it.
TONY: Is it possible to have a vision statement without having a strong vision?
WILL: Absolutely. The most common substitute for real vision is words on paper. Paper cages vision, whether it’s a “lofty one liner” or “compelling page dump.”
Furthermore, a lack of vision is a common attribute of most churches whether they are declining or growing. In a growing church we don’t see the gap of vision clarity because leaders tend to substitute the feeling of momentum for vision. (Here is a blog post on that subject.) In a declining situation you just can’t hide from it. Clarity is one of the deepest systemic growth challenges in the church. That’s why I always remind leaders that vision transfers through people not paper.
TONY: Can you give us a recent example of where you’ve seen vision clarity lead to mission success?
WILL: One church Auxano recently worked with felt stuck at about 500 in attendance for over a decade. For them, developing their Vision Frame, helped re-orient an over-programmed, “all-things-to-all-people” approach to a singular focus on the mission of Jesus through their crown-jewel strength of mentoring. Soon, every ministry they offered from serving the under-privileged, to children’s ministry, to small groups was focused around the practice of mentoring. The first year after the process they experienced 15% growth in worship. But the most important outcome for me was the electricity in the air with the staff. When I first met them, the ministry atmosphere felt like a dragged out potluck dinner. But by the end, we were on a God-given adventure.
TONY: For an established church, what should the process look like to develop a clear vision?
WILL: The key is spending enough time in discernment, engaging in honest dialogue with the right people and having a good guide. I will work with a church for 6 to 12 months depending on the size, life-stage, and culture and average one day of onsite meetings each month.
TONY: Other than onsite consulting, what are some of the other things you are doing to equip leaders for vision clarity?
WILL: We have a coaching strategy called Vision co::Lab where eight churches can participate at a time. We do them geographically in designated cities or virtually. We have a virtual one along with Houston, Dallas, and Orlando co::Labs starting next month.
Also, we are finishing a Church Unique Vision Kit developed in partnership with Group Publishing. It ships this December. The kit contains workbooks, videos and tools based on the book Church Unique.
Interested in learning more? Feel free to contact Will and the Auxano team directly.
