Our View of World Change? All Kinds of Messed Up…And This is Why

What writing and creating (my passions) are really about for me:

Making impact. Causing people to think. Helping people. It comes down to world change.

Whether this happens on a large or small scale really doesn’t matter. At all. But if we’re going for raw authenticity (which is a requirement if we actually want to create lasting world change), here’s the truth: that’s hard to believe…for all of us. But it’s more than true. Too often we get caught up in the numbers, on how many people are paying attention, watching and listening to us. Numbers are deceptive. They can be skewed. Manipulated. 

Trying to evaluate our true influence and impact based on numbers is like trying to judge an artist’s ability to paint a masterpiece based on how well he can solve an algebraic equation. It just doesn’t work.

Writing, creating, even living, are all forms of art. Art isn’t meant to sit and stagnate. Art is meant to inspire. To challenge. To propel us into something better than our current state. Art creates influence. And influence is an art. We, by nature, are artists. And artists can’t be evaluated by numbers. Only by depth. And by the artist’s willingness to step out, to risk, to intentionally create something that matters. You are an artist. So, create art. Let your art speak for itself. Just create. And don’t let the numbers distract you. Because (as stated by Jon Acuff) “Your ability to create art is not dependent on your ability to create fame.”

And remember this: When you create art, you are walking down the avenue of world change, no matter what the numbers look like.

When we change even one life, we change the world. World change is much closer and simpler than we often believe.

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BRANDON ROBBINS (@RobbinsBrandon) April 11, 2012

The Truth About Writing That Nobody Wants to Talk About

Being a good writer is a relatively simple feat. Being a great writer takes everything in me and more.

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BRANDON ROBBINS (@RobbinsBrandon) April 17, 2012

Writing in a way that changes the world isn’t something that just happens by chance. It’s something you must intentionally give your life and energy to. Do it, because you can.

But you have to want to.

A Thought on Networking

If I want to network, but in my mind it's all about me, I've got it all wrong. Networking isn't "gimme gimme," it's "here I am to serve."

—
BRANDON ROBBINS (@RobbinsBrandon) April 16, 2012

Let’s connect! Why? Because I want to serve YOU.

4 Indispensable Life Lessons I Learned While Recording A Music Album

Today’s post is a guest post by Joseph Drinkard. Joseph is a Christian singer-songwriter from Shreveport, Louisiana. His album I Serve A King comes out on Tuesday, February 7th. For more information on I Serve A King, please visit www.josephdrinkard.com. You can find Joseph on Twitter and Facebook.

UPDATE: 

Joseph’s album is out now!

Here is my tweet on the release day with a link to purchase the album:

Just had a great convo w/ @jdrinkard about his album release TODAY. He's incredible. Buy his album #iserveaking here: j.mp/wbAsBr

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BRANDON ROBBINS (@RobbinsBrandon) February 07, 2012

I Serve A King, my first album, comes out in 8 days, and it still doesn’t feel real. I know that I wrote the songs, flew up north, and recorded an album, but my heart hasn’t grasped the fact that one of my biggest dreams is about to come true. (Weird, huh?) To say that this has been a growing process is an understatement. My heart is to share a few things that I’ve learned along the way in hopes that you’ll be (re)inspired to chase after your own dreams! Some of what you’ll read is practical, while others will focus more on you as a person. The important thing is that you take what you can and run with it!

Learn Your Voice, Stick To It.
I’m talking to more than just singers. I’m talking about your God-given style and flavor that all your own. It might sound a little silly to you, but I had to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t Chris Tomlin, or Toby Mac, or random-guy-with-a-guitar-at-Starbucks-who-is-phenomenal. First things first: God doesn’t want another Christ Tomlin (although he is great). He wants you. Yes, there’s a risk to putting your heart and soul into an album. There’s a chance (actually, a guaranteed certainty) that not everyone will like your sound. So what?! God’s given you the talents that he’s given you for a reason! Be yourself, and use them for His glory. Looking back on your work ten years from now, you’ll be a lot happier if you didn’t try to force it into a mold.

Honesty Really Is The Best Policy.
In a creative environment, in this case a recording studio, it’s imperative that you make it OK to be honest with one another when it comes to thoughts and ideas. When it came to producing I Serve A King, we made honesty our priority. There are certain times for agreeing to things or saying “yes” for the sake of being nice (i.e.; eating your aunt’s horrible casserole at Thanksgiving, holding your girlfriends purse while she goes to the changing room). Recording I Serve A King was not that time for us. I’ll admit it, I didn’t like some of the producer’s ideas for a few of the songs. At the same time, not all of my original visions for the album were spectacular. But, 100% honesty was all that was accepted. We worked through it, combined ideas, and made something great! If the record came out exactly how I originally envisioned it, it would have been boring and dull. Be honest. Be willing to change. Work as a team. Encourage new ideas.

Redefine Success.
Success is not in numbers. Success is obedience. I wouldn’t have recorded I Serve A King if I wasn’t absolutely sure that it’s what the Lord wanted me to do. Putting all of your time, talent, and energy into something that may be a good thing but not a God-thing is a practice in vanity. It may look great, but you’ll find yourself lacking in the end. Set your focus on His Kingdom. I’ve found over and over that if we’ll just stay attached to Jesus, attached to The Vine, we’ll bear fruit. The growth will come. The numbers will come. We’ve succeeded because we’ve been obedient.

Have a Lot of Fun
Please remember to have a great time. Get stuff done. Do it with excellence. But have fun. Who wants to look back on life, see everything that they’ve made, and regret it? I don’t, and chances are that you don’t either. The fact of the matter is that we serve a holy, righteous, excellent, fun God. He designed us for joy and relationship. Don’t let the enemy steal that from you.

These are just a few of the things that the Lord has been putting on my heart these past few days.

My prayer is simple: God, birth God-sized dreams in the hearts of those reading this. Raise up creative, godly, hard working, fun-having people who pursue you with everything.

Take what I’ve said and run with it. Make music, design, lead, innovate, change, and inspire—in the name of Jesus, for His Kingdom, His Power, and His Glory!

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If you appreciated this or would like to spread the word about I Serve A King,  please share this post using the social media icons below!  Please use the hashtag: #iserveaking. Connect with Joseph on Twitter:

Follow @jdrinkard.

Connect with me:

Follow @robbinsbrandon

Rules Are Killing The Creativity In Your Organization

Organizations today have  policies and rules from here to the moon and back. The rules are endless, telling employees, students, volunteers how to act, react, interact and more. Originally these were meant to give direction & guidelines that support the mission of the organization. At one time all of these policies and rules were probably beneficial. But anymore, they are excessive and are hindering organizations. Here’s why:

Excessive control is killing the creativity and innovation in your organization.

Unneeded policies contribute to the control factor. Under strict control, people often do less and aren’t willing to try new things. They stick with what works, doing things “the way they’ve always been done.” This makes people operate more out of fear, than out of willingness to contribute. Instead of offering brand new, innovative ideas, they timidly offer simple, plain, ordinary input, because they know it’s safe. Any leader that desires to make a difference cringes at the thought of having a “safe” organization. Additionally, morale drops. People begin to feel unhappy and like they have no freedom. They lose heart, start giving up, and become apathetic. So what can you do?

Try these things:

1. YOU have to bring new ideas to the table. When your direct reports see that you, the leader, are bringing new things into the picture, they notice. They pay attention to what you do. They will mirror your willingness to offer new ideas.
2. Encourage and applaud new ideas & innovative thinking. Seeing that new ideas are accepted & valued, people will jump at the opportunity to add to conversation and throw their ideas out there.
3. Be flexible on the not-so-important policies. When you are flexible on policies, those you lead begin to see you as less of a “dictator” and take notice that you are willing to work with them, without the threat of consequences hanging over their head all the time.
4. Be willing to let your people make mistakes. When people are afraid they will be scolded or reprimanded for mistakes, they don’t bring their far fetched, but often helpful ideas to the table. When people see that mistakes are okay, they give it all they’ve got. It removes the intimidation factor.

Rules are helpful, if they’re the right ones. Don’t let excessive control kill the creativity in your organization. That damage is permanent. Once you take that path, it’s nearly impossible to turn around.

Want to see your organization’s creativity & innovation explode? Make change NOW.

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7 Incredible Reasons Why YOU Should Start A Blog

1. You’re a photographer. If you take pictures that inspire at least a few, or even just YOU, the rest of the world needs to see them too.
2. You are a writer or aspire to be one. If you write words with great meaning and passion, they need to be shared. If you don’t write and want to, a blog is an incredible way to start.
3. You’ve got a story that’s worth telling. If you’ve lived a life full of priceless lessons that you’d hate to go to waste, sharing them could change the world.
4. You’re an innovator. If you have a passion to change the world and ideas to do so, but lack resources, expressing those ideas just might get you on the radar of someone who can help.
5. Your knowledge on a topic is above average. If you know more than the normal person on a subject that matters, why shouldn’t you share it?  You could be equipping the next generation.
6. You fight for a great cause. If you stand for a cause that’s bigger than you or I and awareness could make all the difference, a blog has potential to get others standing with you.
7. You have great connections.  If your resources are more than ordinary, sharing your ever-growing list of resources and tools and how they can be used is a solid way of empowering potential world changers.

If you appreciated this, please share it using the social media icons below!

Let’s connect:

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10 Crazy Simple Steps to Changing the World

1. If you aren’t reading the Bible, start.
2. Pray. (“Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” Psalm 127:1)
3. Start caring about other people like it’s your job.
4. Stop caring about critics. After all, critics are good for 1 thing: criticizing.
5. Listen. It’s amazing how much we learn when we stop talking.
6. Talk to people who do things that you admire.
7. Start a blog. Share your ideas.
8. Find a cause. Fight for it.
9. Find a need. Fill it.
10. When you don’t know what to do next, stop, wait and watch. You’ll be amazed at what happens when you think you’ve hit the end of the road.

Let’s connect:

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The 3 Simplest Steps To Be More Creative That Most People Will Never Take

1. Be willing to be wrong.
2. Stop copying other people.
3. Do your own thing, even if others think you’re an idiot for doing so.

Let’s connect:

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Why The Church Is Too Self-Centered

The church is (we are) too self-centered.

We want the attention.  We want the traffic. We are constantly asking, “Are we good enough? Are we cool enough? Are we relevant enough? What can WE do to get better?” We present these questions as an effort to impact the world, but honestly we are making it all about us.

The world is tired of us talking about us. It’s like the guy that says, “Hey, let’s go out to coffee sometime. I want to get to know you better,” then he talks about himself the entire time.

Whether or not we want to accept it, we are driving people away.

Sometimes the aforementioned questions are helpful, but more times than not, we are missing the point. We have a mindset of trying to see how many people we can fit into a building, how great we can make our buildings look, how good we can make our programs, yet we aren’t content with the results. We want better. Louder. BIGGER. 

We build new buildings, hire new pastors and staff, and switch up our programs. Then we do again. And again. Yet we’re still frustrated because our impact lacks.

Something’s not right, and this is it: We need to get the focus off of us.

We sit and wait for society to come to the “church,” but if we want to have truly great impact like we’re called to, we have to bring the Church to society.

We need to stop making church about a location, about a leader, about a production and again start making it about Christ. Our “efforts” to reach society have secluded us from society. It’s time to change that.

This is only going to happen when the Church embeds itself into community, when the Church intentionally gets involved in music, business, art, builds relationship and EARNS influence. And I’m not talking about creating some weird subculture.  We’re called to live set apart and yet influence the world, not to seclude ourselves entirely from it. You can’t influence something you isolate yourself from. Creating our own subculture does nothing but separate us from the very people we’re trying to reach. It’s time to stand up, get out of the comfort zone of our buildings, stop talking about ourselves, and start serving and loving on a whole new level.

Change needs to happen and we all know it.

Let’s do something about it.

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Sitting Could Be Killing You

We go about every single day of our lives standing, sitting, working, resting, rarely thinking about how these actions actually impact us. I ran across this infographic that pushed me to be more aware of  how simple actions like sitting can have intense effects on my health. Rest is important, but so is regular activity. Give this a look:

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