Introduction
I love to help church leaders experience more meaningful progress in life and ministry. In order to best serve you, I've felt called to start some organizations and partner with others. I don't say "partner" lightly. If an organization is listed on this page, it means that I am part of the leadership team and that they are using the master tools of my life's clarity work. The four that I have started are Auxano, Younique, Denominee, and RunFree.Co. Read about my story with these organizations on the timeline below.
RunFree.Co - Stop the Chase. Run Free into What Jesus Started.
The greatest challenge for every church has become the Functional Great Commission of: Go into all the world and make more worship attenders, baptizing them in the name of small groups and teaching them to volunteer several times a month. That's not what Jesus started. Our answer at RunFree.Co is proven team processes built to deliver breakthrough clarity. We offer three strategic seasons: Pivvot Vision Framing to clarify your vision and design your ministry, Team Meta>Performance Coaching to double your staff's productivity (and have more fun doing it), and Calling Activation using the Younique System. Teams that we serve at RunFree.Co literally fall in love with ministry again as they lead the church that God created them lead.
Clarify Your Vision
Future Church Co. - Let's Design What's Next
I started Future Church Co. (based on the book Future Church) with a group of friends to innovate the Vision Framing process for churches and denominations during the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic. During this time, we led 100 churches through Vision Framing with a new set of tools that would eventually become RunFree.co's Pivvot Vision Framing process- a strategic season to design and articulate the best ministry playbook of your life. We closed the Future Church Co. in 2022, and I took a year off work to restore and prepare for my next vocational chapter with the team at RunFree.Co.
Design Your Future
Denominee - More Value. Every Church.
The Golden Era of Denominationalism stretched from 1960 - 1980. The Baby Boom was in full swing and home construction also boomed in the suburbs sprouting up around North American cities. Each denomination realized that if it did not erect buildings and plant congregations in the new communities, another denomination would—or no one would. Over the last 30 years, denominations have been consistently losing influence in the eyes of the most effective churches. The Denominee Vision Framing process was created to reverse this trend by equipping denominational and network leaders to reinvent themselves through a strategic clarity process so they can provide increasing value to the churches and leaders they serve. This process is currently available exclusively through RunFree.co
Revitalize Your Network
Younique - It’s your Call
Launched in 2016, Younique is the first Calling Activation System designed to scale through your church. The process is called "Calling for the Best of Us" which is an 8-week training group based on the Younique Life Plan. Church leaders are certified to be Calling Champions for their leaders, members, attenders and volunteers. The preparation for this launch has taken a decade and I believe it represents the single greatest opportunity of the church in my lifetime. Activate the calling of your people today. If you aim at volunteering, you will always get burnout, but if you aim at calling, you will never lack volunteers.
Release Your People
Slingshot - Next Level People
Several years ago, the search and staffing industry in the church world took off. Because I had been doing leadership pipeline, team building and organizational design through Auxano, there is much potential for synergy. When the two largest church search firms approached me, I was delighted to partner with Slingshot. They are passionate practitioners who aren't trying to take advantage of the church. Their mission is to build remarkable teams through staffing and coaching.
Find Your Next Team Member
100 Movements - Shifting the Tracks of History
As a result of my personal friendship with Alan Hirsch, several years of dialogue turned into 100 Movements. He had been a primary voice for over a decade of speaking and writing about the paradigm of "missional" and "movements." It was clear that new process and tools were needed to move from conversation to competence. So we assembled a "design team" that includes Dave Rhodes, Neil Cole, and Jessie Cruickshank. How many competencies do you need to master for real movement? Six. And it all starts with "Identity Declaring" which uses the Vision Frame to declare your "Jesus is Lord" identity.
Gain Movement Competency
LifeWay - Biblical Solutions for Life
I was blown away when Eric Geiger approached me about becoming the director of consulting for LifeWay. LifeWay is the largest Protestant resource organization in the world and was originally created to provide Sunday school curriculum to 40,000 Southern Baptist churches over one hundred years ago. It's a honor to serve with Eric as he supports and empowers Auxano to serve as many churches as possible. My role with LifeWay has led to two dynamic new services related to your Vision Frame: Vision-based capital campaigns and vision-based leadership pipeline development.
Grab Some Resources
Auxano - Go Ahead
Auxano: to cause to grow. The big bang of Auxano is God-given burden: Almost every church is using someone else's language to describe their own identity and direction. The years of 2001-2004 represent the height of our "cloning conferences" and the beginning of increased "category complexity" of what it takes to grow a church. "Auxano" is the term Luke used to describe the early expansion of the church in the book of Acts. What do we do? We create break-thru clarity with church teams to realize their vision. That is, we help each local church articulate it's unique disciple-making mission and model. And then we install a visionary plan to get there. Growing your church shouldn't be a mystery.
Grow Your Church
