In this episode, Auxano Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Senior Lead Navigator Jim Randall is interviewed by Gary Moritz, Church Revitalization Futurist, Strategist, Professor, and pastor of City United Church in Boston. This episode - the first in a series - will discuss the need for process, clarity, and the "jars" that keep us trapped from vitality.
Here are a few of the ideas from the podcast:
- The passion behind Auxano's "Clarity First" drive comes from the realization of a vision vacuum: It's that point where you look around and in some way or another, all of the vision, all of the identity, all of the clarity of the organization is just not there.
- When a church lacks clarity, we know that there's going to be some serious pitfalls.
- Clarity isn't everything, but clarity will change everything.
- Auxano helps churches create words that are going to help them to shape the culture, to come to a point of health, to a vibrancy, to a vitality that's been missing.
- These words are created through a process - the vision framing process. It's about identity: a new mission, a new set of values, a strategy of engagement, the outcomes of what it's going to look like, what a disciple may look like.
- There is also a vision planning process. It's about direction: where is God taking us? Where does God want his church to be three years from now, five years from now, seven years from now?
- Auxano brings a collaborative vision crafting environment, but the local church has to provide the context.
- The reality is that there are "jars" that are keeping your church from having vitality, from being vibrant, from cultivating growth and health.
- Half the challenge of coming to a place of vitality is really understanding that there is an issue, that every church has these "jars."
- What's at stake if we don't break those jars?
- Auxano will begin to walk churches methodically through the process of not just what it means to remove those caps and those barriers - to break the jars - but how we to come through and how to help the church think differently.
- Some pastors don't even know they hit the wall, they just have a headache.
- If a church just a vision vacuum, they don't have the clarity, and there's no wonder that the church is struggling.
> To employ an honest assessment of your vision language, download your copy of Auxano’s tool for breakthrough leaders: The Vision Headwaters TeamUP.