If you haven’t read Will Mancini’s book, Church Unique, go and buy it now! If you’re a leader and love seeing a dream become reality then even the subtitle should get you going a bit, “How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement.” In it he does a masterful job of re-framing the conversation about vision that has been so overcooked in “Church-World.” Instead of selling everyone on a secret method, philosophy, or model that we should all adopt he lays out a road map to a journey that will lead you, and those you lead with, to discover the unique part that God has created your local church to express and play. The conversation goes far beyond simply coming up with mission, vision, and values statements to build an organization around and instead discusses, in a totally integrated fashion, the underpinnings of building a culture that frees the Church up to be the movement that it was intended to be from the beginning. In it you’ll find helpful tables that simplify the takeaways and the right kind of questions and exercises for you and your team to wrestle through and discover your uniqueness together!
Here are some of the most impactful thoughts and quotes from the book that resonated with me:
“Culture is the combined effect of the interacting values, thoughts, attitudes, and actions that define the life of your church.”
“Few churches understand their own uniqueness or even think about it systematically.”
“…people do not need more information; they need more meaning from the right information. Leaders of today must learn how to deliver meaning by distilling what they say.”
“Planning relies on predictability. But preparation helps leaders stay clear amid uncertainty.”
“Growth idolatry is the unconscious belief, on the soul level, that things are not OK with me if my church is not growing.”
“Seeing something familiar with more clarity is an amazing experience.”
“…there is a fine line between courage and arrogance.”
“Clear+Concise+Compelling+Catalytic+Contextual=Contagious”
“The average mission statement has these characteristics: 1. Too long (twenty words or more) 2. Too generic (all things to all people) 3. Too technical (focuses on theological content and accuracy)”
“Don’t tell me that you are excellent or relevant; tell me what makes you excellent or relevant.”
“Your church can’t be anything it wants to be, but it can be everything God wants it to be.”
“The absence of strategy…is the number one cause of ineffectiveness in a healthy church.”
“Your mission is what you measure.”
“Stages of Alignment: 1. Confusion 2. Communication 3. Coordination 4. Collaboration”
Follow this link to learn more about “Church Unique” http://www.willmancini.com/
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