I read this on the advice of a friend who is church planting in Belfast, with whom I was discussing the thorny subject of vision.

First a gripe: the jargon in these kind of books drives me mad! I know what Mancini and his ilk are trying to do – grappling for language that expresses new concepts – but I was never keen on alphabet spaghetti as a kid, and I’d like to read a leadership book without it now I am a man.

Gripe done with; to the content…

Doubtless many church leaders struggle to articulate a clear and compelling vision for their church, and even more fail to implement it. Vision is much agonized over and many books have been written about it. The thing is, we all know it when we see it! Certain leaders simply embody vision. There is something about them, some charisma, chutzpah, pizzazz which just seems to make things happen, and which often denies analysis. These are the mega-leaders of the mega-churches. Men who are just somehow, well, different. I think of my friend PJ Smyth who planted a church in Johannesburg four years ago and now has a congregation not far short of 2,000 people. Not many people can do that.

So I am always a little bit sceptical about vision books, as I don’t think just anybody can be turned into a great visionary leader. You’ve either got chutzpah or you haven’t. But I do believe that all of us can work on our strengths, sharpen our edge, and do better at what we are doing.

Does this book deliver at this level?

To large degree I think it does.

Probably the most liberating thing about it is the insistence not to simply copy another mans vision. Mancini warns against the ‘Conference Maze’ in which pastors jump from conference to conference and idea to idea trying to copy the latest successful model. The point of this book is to argue that every church is unique, and by definition, trying to copy the unique success of one model will only lead to disappointment, because the circumstances that created that success are unique to its context. Every church needs to find her own unique vision.

(As an aside, I am concerned that the massively growing influence of Mark Driscoll means that many people will be jumping into a multi-service/campus model when it is not right for them. I was an early advocate of multi-site, but I’m sure it isn’t right for everyone. And is this the kind of thing we really want to be encouraging)

Mancini is critical of the Willow Creek type model of strategic planning, advocating instead a framework that enables the leader to recast, clarify, articulate and advance the vision. He blasts strategic plans as being overly complex, and leading to burnout. He also criticizes the approach that measures success purely on the A,B,C’s (Attendance, Buildings, Capital). He is highly critical about overly long mission/vision statements, with multiple goals, too much jargon, and too little specificity. Instead, we should be focussing on what kind of Christian our churches are designed to produce. One thing that was encouraging to me, being 18 months into leading my current church, is that Mancini says it takes three years to get an established church re-engineered so that everyone is pulling in the same direction. Only another 18 months to go then!

One of the most thought provoking single-line statements in the book comes right at its close: “Religious people have preferences; missional people have stories.” As visionary leaders, we need to be building churches where people have stories to tell of the transforming work of Christ in their lives.

Central to the book are Mancini’s concepts of Mission Mandate (What are we doing?), Mission Motives (Why are we doing it?), Mission Map (How are we doing it?), Mission Marks (When are we successful?), and Mission Mountaintop + Milestones (Where is God taking us?). But to see what he says about those things, you need to buy the book!