Northeast Houston Baptist Church

In our initial session, we began by sharing our expectations for the process. We introduced the idea of the Lower/Upper Room motivators for why people are connected to NEHBC.

We talked through NEHBC’s current Vision Frame and examined the 3 Kinds of Churches. We spent some time evaluating the NEHBC culture related to the 4 Eras of church paradigms since 1940.

We concluded the session with an overview of Funnel Fusion—the master tool that is the foundation for the entire process

In session 2, we talked through the different quadrants of the Insights matrix. Using those overall learnings, we discovered how we might apply them in our interactions as a team.

NEHBC Future Team Wheel

We reviewed the overall Funnel Fusion process through the 5 Master Tools of Funnel Fusion, the Crowd Cloud, the Disciple’s Journey, Kingdom Platform, and the Vision Frame.

Finally, we spent time on the current status of NEHBC’s assimilation funnel.

In session three we landed on the session one assignment of the problem statement. Then we advanced the Crowd Cloud conversation by working on the Kingdom Concept. The bullets from round one are below as well as the summary charts from our first round of synthesis work.

KC_bullets_NEHBC

NEHBC-Minsitry Area Profile

NEHBC Percept

The problem statement is:

In order to accomplish our mission we need to be or do MORE of:

1. Discerning our unique vision and leading with it
2. Corporately… equipping people for kingdom stewardship in personal living
3. Increasing dedication to kingdom by celebrating personal victories in kingdom stewardship

while we be or do LESS of:

1. Relying on lower room language
2. Assuming people understand the “why” behind the “what”
3. Rigidity in our approach to discipleship

Session four was dedicated to the Kingdom Concept tool answering the question, “What can NEHBC do better than 10,000 other churches?” The goal is to take a strengths based approach to distinguishing our “great permission within the Great Commission” and helping people live and tell the story of God’s work amongst us based on our “sweet spot.” Highlights of this session include:

• Training on singularity with specificity: does NEHBC have a “one thing” underneath the idea that all churches exist to glorify God and make disciples?
• Listening to reports on specific topics on the first round of the Kingdom Concept discussion; each staff researched further into topics they selected.
• Sharing what each staff person would do if they were not on church staff. This further clarifies the “apostolic esprit” as our unique passions as leaders.
• Working in subgroups to take a first pass and defining the overlap of the Kingdom Concept circles.

The work of the day produced the following summary chart:

NEHBC KC Chart Summary

In session five we completed the Kingdom Concept:

NEHBC exists to glorify God and make disciples by

• empowering a vision focused, sacrificial and evangelistically capable congregation
• in a transient, diverse [ethnic, religious, economic, generational] community lacking identity [fragmented]
• with a deep passion or being biblically rooted, rescuing the lost and expecting lifelong growth in godliness [unapologetically]

One Word: FOLLOWING

Session six was a significant deliverable day with:

• Landing a new mission statement
• Reducing values to a top 4
• Presenting recommended names

MISSION

Helping one another actually follow Jesus

VALUES

We values leadership and followship:

Leadership

• The Spirit Leads
• The Scripture Speaks

Followship

• Following is expected 
• Mission is for everyone, everyday 

NAME

1. Followers Church
2. Followers Life Church 

1. Unconscious Incompetence
2. Conscious Incompetence
3. Conscious Competence
4. Unconscious Competence

In Session 8 we continued the Funnel Fusion Process by reviewing where we are in the process right now–underscoring the deliverables that have been delivered thus far in the process. We also then continued workin on the 3rd Master Tool–The Disciple’s Journey.

In reviewing where we are in the process so far, several complications emerged with will require continued conversation:

1. Problem Statement: NEHBC decided to rework their Problem Statement from the document provided.

The New Problem Statement should read, “In order to accomplish our mission we need to be or do MORE …

1. More clearly articulate our unique vision for the church
2. Celebrating of personal victories in kingdom stewardship
3. Continue in our intentionality of our approach to discipleship

… as we do LESS …

1. Relying on Lower Room Language
2. Assuming people understand the “why” behind the “what”.

2. Kingdom Concept and Mission Statement: NEHBC confirmed this work and is excited about the progress made.

3. Values: NEHBC questioned the current articulation of the Values. They were challenged to add both a because statement and a demonstrated by component to each value to better spell out the values for the community.

4. Name Change: NEHBC was indifferent to the name change suggestions and wanted to return to the name change conversation at a later time.

After we worked through the Process Summary with the complications listed above, we turned our attention back to the Funnel Fusion Process by completing our work and exercises around the Disciple’s Journey Master Tool. During this session we taught through the atmosphere, process and methodology of a disciple-making culture (based out of I Corinthians and life of Jesus). We then also completed the Red Letter Exercise (identifying the character and competencies of Jesus that were passed on to his disciples based from our reading of the gospels and Acts) and the Top 10 Saints Exercise (identifying common character and competencies of our best disciples throughout our church history).

Assignment

1. Consolidate the work completed in Red Letters and Top 10 Saints exercises to form one list of 5 Character Traits and 5 Competency Traits of a Disciple at NEHBC. Give a one sentence definition for each Character and each Competency Trait.

2. Work to complete or rewrite Values adding a “because statement” and a “demonstrated by” list for each Value. Here is an example of the way the value should read:

The Spirit Leads

…because ________________________________________________________ 

Demonstrated by: ________________________________________________________

3. Come ready to confirm name change.