8/3/16 WHO AM I? Startup Pastor. Clergy Coach & Transition Consultant Transdisciplinary Author & Speaker Church Futurist Former O.D.

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1 8/3/16 Minumum Viable Belief - by Ken Howard 7/31/16 MINIMUM VIABLE BELIEF: HOW THE NEED FOR TRANSCENDENT MEANING IS BREAKING DOWN BOUNDARIES BETWEEN FAITH & WORK PRESENTER: KEN HOWARD by The Rev. Kenneth W. Howard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License KEN HOWARD Founder & Executive Director, The FaithX Project Founder & Rector, St. Nicholas Episcopal Church Vice President, Washington Episcopal Clergy Association Associate Editor, Religion & Society Journal Author: The FaithX Project: Experimental Faith Communities for an Undiscovered Future Singularity:The Death of Religion & the Resurrection of Faith Paradoxy Creating Christian Community Beyond Us & Them A Comprehensive Theory of Expectancy Motivation in Adult Education 2015 Luis A. Marrero, M.A., RODP, LLP Startup Pastor WHO AM I? Clergy Coach & Transition Consultant Transdisciplinary Author & Speaker Church Futurist Former O.D. Consultant 1

2 MY RECENT RESEARCH & PRACTICE The Religion Singularity: How to prepare faith-based communities can survive and thrive in a time of escalating uncertainty and accelerating change THE RELIGION SINGULARITY Runaway growth in the number of denominations and worship centers (dis-integration) THE RELIGION SINGULARITY Corresponding decline in average size/sustainability of denominations and worship centers Christians/Denomination Christians/Worship Ctr 2

3 FAITH COMMUNITIES AT THE CROSSROADS Danger? Opportunity? Depends on perspective. Religion ß+à Faith Escalating Uncertainty Chaotic Space? Accelerating Change Chaordic Space Tradition VISION-GUIDED EXPERIMENTATION Began as an experiment in how to honor the essence of tradition without becoming extinct Vs. Traditionalism TWO OF SEVEN PRACTICES OF VISION-GUIDED EXPERIMENTATION 1. Minimum Viable Belief 2. Getting Outside the Building 3. Minimum Viable Programs 4. Rapid Iteration Prototyping 5. Stewardship: Lean-ing from the Inside-Out 6. Extrapreneurialism (vs. Entrepreneurialism) 7. Actionable Metrics (vs. Vanity Metrics) 3

4 BREAKING BARRIERS IN BOTH DIRECTIONS The world of faith can borrow from the world of work Faith World Work World BREAKING BARRIERS IN BOTH DIRECTIONS The world of faith can borrow from the world of work Faith World Work World MINIMUM VIABLE BELIEF Transcendent Vision or Meaning 4

5 START WITH WHY Simon Sinek The Six Whys What it takes to get to the real issue behind any problem. What How Why ß Program ß Process ß Purpose MINIMUM VIABLE BELIEF Shared, transcendent vision at the level of meaning What How Why Why of Whys ß Program ß Process ß Purpose ß Passion (vision or meaning) MINIMUM VIABLE BELIEF From Bounded Set To Centered Set 5

6 GETTING TO MINIMUM VIABLE BELIEF Seven Steps 1. Naming 2. Calling 3. Clarifying 4. Seeing 5. Dreaming 6. Visioning 7. Proclaiming Step 1: NAMING Identify a critical and shared issue, cause, problem, or challenge. Step 2: CALLING Bring together a community of people who share a common interest in the issue, cause, problem, or challenge. 6

7 Step 3: CLARIFYING Identify the community s shared values as they relate to the issue, problem, or challenge. Invite the larger community to validate the identified values. Step 4: SEEING Attend to the community s present context (describing reality as it is now). Widen the circle of involvement. Step 5: DREAMING Attend to the community s possible futures (describe reality as it might be). Continue to widen the circle of involvement 7

8 Step 6: VISIONING Envision the WHY that transcends success: a WHY to which faithfulness is more important than success or even survival. Step 7: PROCLAIMING Refine the transcendent WHY into a short, simple, and pithy phrase, that people will remember, understand, and repeat. Step 1: NAMING Church re-start team, reflecting on their painful experience of their church s dis-integration, decided they want to be a congregation with a sense of unity so strong that no issue could divide them ever again. 8

9 Step 2: CALLING From among friends, neighbors, people from surrounding congregations, called together those who shared common interest in a schism-resistant community. Step 3: CLARIFYING Held visioning retreat for core group. Invited participants to share values that drove their longing to be a place where people with different beliefs could coexist openly & respectfully. Identified a common thread: their sense of being loved by Christ. Step 4: SEEING Participants shared what they knew about the community in which they live. Realized that valuing of unity in diversity runs counter to common supposition that unity requires uniformity. Yet also sensed that many people have an underlying yearning for a different way. 9

10 Step 5: DREAMING Participants brainstormed what they imagine their congregation would look like fully realized in their community. Leaders recorded all of these ideas and circulated them for wider review. Step 6: VISIONING Participants looked for common themes among the futures they have imagined. From these themes they fashioned a 5-sentence vision statement, which describes their vision as though it were achieved, starting with the words, We are Step 7: PROCLAIMING Participants boiled down the longer vision statement into an eight-word credo: A Place to Belong! A Place to Become! 10

11 RAPID ITERATION PROTOTYPING R.I.P. Because it s a good idea to let bad ideas die VISION-GUIDED RAPID ITERATION PROTOTYPING Tweak? ADAPT Experimental method anchored in shared vision and meaning Toss? ASSESS APPLY VISION-GUIDED COACHING Focus: Vision Meaning Fire Faith 11

12 VISION CREATES CULTURE In which all members of the team are motivated by shared meaning Creative + Experimental Self-Directing + Self-Correcting Resilient + Durable KEN HOWARD Founder & Executive Director ken@faithx.net 12