LeaderLines: On the Good Ship Hillcrest

You are a Stowaway, a Passenger, a Crew Member, or a Pirate. Every member of Hillcrest falls under one of these labels.

That’s an image Will Mancini provides in his book, Church Unique. What label a person wears depends on their answer to two questions: do they embrace the church’s vision, and do they want to be a contributor to the vision. Depending on how those two questions are answered makes you one of the following:

Stowaways are people who don’t buy the vision and don’t want to participate.

Passengers are people who buy the vision and don’t want to participate.

The Crew is made up of people who buy the vision and do want to participate.

Pirates are people who don’t buy the vision and do want to participate.

As to the last category—Pirates—Mancini acknowledges that not everyone has ill intent simply because they don’t buy the vision but still want to influence the organization. Nevertheless, he says, “to want to contribute and to not agree with the vision is an act of piracy, whether the person has harmful intentions or not.”

I think this is a helpful way to identify the people in an organization, including a church. In my experience, the vast majority of any church is made up of Passengers and Crew. Though the Pirates can cause a lot of trouble—intended or not—a leader’s focus shouldn't be on what to do with the Pirates. Instead, as leaders our passion should be about turning Passengers into Crew. I’m grateful for people who can at least articulate our church’s vision (Passengers), but we want an ever-growing body of people who lend a hand to actually accomplishing that vision (Crew).

Our vision? We want to be a gathering of people finding and following Jesus together. That’s one reason for our iINVITE Campaign that begins this Sunday. As we begin the effort, look for ways to get more Passengers to be Crew Members.

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Each Thursday I post my article from "LeaderLines," an e-newsletter for church leaders read by more than 300 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "LeaderLines," sign up here.