In response to the post on creativity I realized I needed to clarify something and pass on a helpful tip.  When I say you schedule your time for creative work I don’t want to imply you can schedule time for the ideas to suddenly hit you that inspire the creative work.  The two are different.  The ideas that inspire the work and working on the ideas.  I get an idea for a talk or a message at wacky times.  Then I have blocks scheduled in the morning to develop that idea and make it better.  Thus I’ve scheduled time to do creative work but many times the inspiration comes when you least expect it.  What do you do?  Capture your ideas.  I was a fanatic about this for years.  At the end of a day I’d have post-its and napkins in my pockets with ideas for a message series, things that should be working better at church, and misc. stuff in my life.  Then I got a little lazy with it.  I stopped worrying about always having a pen by the bed.  The ideas to draw from began to dwindle.  We’ve all heard that lots of people get the ideas but few implement them.  In between getting the idea and implementation is capturing.  Let me tell you about a service that has gotten me back on the wagon.  About 8 months ago I started using this service.  It’s free.  I call a number and it dictates my text and emails to my inbox.  It’s available again for free signup.  Check it out www.jott.com.  Capture those ideas!

Have you ever read Joshua 9: 3-16 and thought about it in the context of attachments, partnerships, or relationships?  That’s the obvious point of that story, no doubt.  For some reason in this season of life I find myself seeing things that should’ve been obvious but weren’t.  Beware those that come to you wanting to link up.  It could be a good thing.  A God thing.  A link that will open up doors of great opportunity.  Or it could be a relationship under false pretenses.  How will you know?  

1.  Do some investigating.  Joshua could’ve investigated.  Subjectivity got in the way and emotions were probably running crazy.  Been there done that.  Should’ve asked more questions.

2.  Ask about why they want to help or link up.  Don’t be afraid to ask their motive.  They can still by lying to you so make sure you…

3.  Understand clearly what they expect to get from you and what you expect to get from them.  (If it’s a business deal I’d get all that put in writing.)

4.  Ask a trusted advisor, mentor or if you’re married see if it passes the spouse test.  When we don’t listen to my wife’s concerns it always hurts our family.

Special word to pastors…There are usually people around you that would love to be able to pull your strings.  The moment you sense you are overlooking concerns so as not to upset the “string puller” then you must cut the strings.  There may be consequences but it is worth it to put your life back in God’s hands and to have authority to make your own decisions.  (More posts about this later!)

Where do you need to cut some strings?  Where do you need to do some more homework?

Then move to China and get a job in a factory.  I don’t mean to be harsh.  I’m just passionate that you don’t sell your potential short.  Most futurist writers I’ve paid attention to have spoken clearly that future jobs/ influence/ and income in America belong to the creative class and those that service them. Yet so many of us say, “I’m not the creative type.”  We think of creativity as something that occurs in flash moments of inspiration when we least expect it.  That happens.  It happened to me last night.  I started writing on some messages for a new series our church will be doing in June at about 4:30 and didn’t stop until 12:30 (minus the drive home and a phone call).  That usually doesn’t happen.  Creativity comes because I have scheduled time at least 3 days a week to create, write, and chase serendipitous rabbits.  I believe God has gifted all with the ability to create and innovate ideas and solutions.  We just create at different levels. Our problem is that we’ve believed a lie because our society favors hard-core left brainers or we don’t schedule time to be creative for our jobs, our families, and our contributions to humanity.  (Due to the cost of recent  distractions I’m really squeezing my brain to find solutions where there are problems.  I’ve tried a lot of things that haven’t worked but I’ve got to keep trying.) 

One caveat.  Just because time is set aside that doesn’t mean inspiration comes.  If I’m stuck then I move on to something else like exposing myself to finished creative works.  Much of my creativity as a pastor in writing messages comes from listening to other speakers or reading books about unrelated subjects.  No pastor, designer, copywriter is completely original.  Everybody is getting ideas from everybody else.  

If you’re grown up enough to wade through some messy language and handle beliefs you don’t agree with check out The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.  It’s a kick in the pants for your creativity.

 Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life

Yes this is a book from ‘07 but I never heard much about it and it makes some great points that apply well to any organization or community, especially a church.

As a journalist for Fast Company the author stumbled on the idea for the book based on a story about heart patients.  3% (or less than 1 in 10) of those that go through coronary bypass or angioplasty surgery change to a healthier lifestyle.  The choice they face is change or die and many don’t change.  The author takes three successful stories of change (medical patients, criminals, and business workers) to show a process that can work.  Allow me to simplify…

What doesn’t work?

• “After we try ‘rationally’ informing and educating people, we resort to scare tactics”  pg 11
• “So many political efforts fail because activists make the same mistakes that the rest of us make when we try to get other people to change: We rely on facts and fear.” pg 214

Deutschman goes into more detail about the process of transformation in a community (relate, repeat, reframe) based on the case studies but you get the point.  Inspiration that leads to changed behavior doesn’t start with facts or fear but hope from a community.  Isn’t this what AA and the recovery movement are about?  Ahem, isn’t that what the church is should be known for.  A community of hope that inspires lasting change.

How many times have I tried to motivate myself or others with fear and facts?  Wasted efforts.  How many pastors challenge their communites to embrace Jesus (change) based on the evils of society or some statistic about rising crime?  It’s a lot harder to do the work of hope but isn’t that the voice of Scripture?  We don’t just have facts or fear but a hope to cling to.

No. 2 message that rocked my ministry world.  A pastor I served on staff with came back from C3 in ‘04 going on and on about a message he had heard on creating relevant ministry environments.  This talk is still available so copyright restrictions won’t allow me to link the mp3 or word-for-word content so I’ll summarize.

If you want to create an engaging and relevant context there must be :

• helpful content
• appealing context
• engaging presentation

It’s that simple.  But there’s so much more…  You can order the mp3 and be listening immediately.

There’s one more post in this series but it may have to wait until next week.  Let’s just say it involves a tape from about ‘92, Bill Hybels, and some raw discussion about ministry burnout.  I don’t think you can get this content anywhere so I’ll try to have PDF.

What messages have impacted you?

What are the messages/ talks/ big ideas that have impacted you the most?  For this series of posts I’ll share a very short list of talks that still stick today.

I was listening to the CD’s from Catalyst in 2003, I think, and there it was…permission.  Permission to challenge things the way they are for the way they could be.  Permission to challenge.  (And some direction on how to avoid causing yourself problems.)  Then listening to C3 (Fellowship church) conference ‘03 there it was again. Same message.  Andy Stanley will be talking straight to you as a leader in this one.  Be free.   Download this pdf below from one of those sessions.  There may be a few typos but you’ll get the gist.

challenging-the-process