Creativity + The Church = BANGARANG!

 

Today an awesome site called Creative Church has launched. I’ve been anxiously awaiting it! It’s got tips and thoughts from creatives, along with resources, connection points and more great stuff for creative church leaders and pastors.

This really is a don’t miss!  (Read more about it here.)

I’m grateful to have contributed the first article to the launching blog series. Check it out here!

On another note, I’ve got a post that went live on Rick Warren’s Pastors.com today entitled “How to Combat Your Church’s Secret Creativity Killer.”

Don’t let this secret culprit hinder the innovation in your church! 

Lastly, my newsletter went out yesterday. I’m filling it with updates, news, freebies, tips, new products, and other exciting stuff just for the creative and church folk! Want in on the action? Sign up here.

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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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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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