This is one of those books that church leaders and consultants will be quoting for a long time. The author of Church Unique, Will Mancini, summarizes his book as follows:

Church Unique starts by looking at your surrounding microculture and at what makes your church one of a kind.  What is God’s unique thumbprint for your church?  What is different about your church’s corporate grace and collective soul?  What does your church do better than ten thousand others?  This perspective honors God by taking into account what He has made and what He is up to.

A Lifestyle of Visionary Leadership

A better way of leadership includes the disciplines of careful observation, vibrant imagination, and demanding collaboration that forge a unique vision based on what God is uniquely doing in each church’s unique context. 

There was a time when a one-size fits-all approach was viable. That time is no more. Until leaders not only embrace uniqueness but celebrate and leverage it, they will miss out on God’s best for their ministry. The answer is having a vision that oozes, that is original, organic, zeroed in, and extravagant. 

When leaders start thinking clearly, engaging locally, focusing redemptively, and risking boldly, their church becomes an unstoppable force and an irresistible influence.  It becomes a church that prevails not because it is “purpose-driven” but because it is purposeful.

Related: AUDIO: Interview with Will Mancini, author of Church Unique  –  What is the "Kingdom Concept”?

From Church Unique: How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement (Jossey-Bass, 2008); used with permission