A Nappy Christmas

Running short of an idea for your Christmas sermon? Check out Kim Fabricius' example on the Faith and Theology site. You might not want to copy it intact (though you might) but there are plenty of good lines, and plenty of good thoughts in it to give you something to grab hold of. Here's how it finishes:

Christmas: God’s PowerlessPoint presentation, God’s dressing down, God’s self-demonstration that he has no sense of occasion, that God is God in a messy birth (and, later, in a messier death). And there, I think, is the true wonder of Christmas: the miraculous not in some supernatural phenomenon but in the striking ordinariness of the neonatal (and the finally fatal). And there also is the real hope of Christmas: things are not as they seem; and, more, things are not as they have to be, they can be altogether otherwise. Is a new world possible? Absolutely, because a new world came. And because a new world came, a new world is coming.

I particularly liked the line: a God whose idea of a grand entry is a Nappy Christmas, which apparently he pinched from Godfrey Rust.

Making Ideas Happen

Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, by Scott Belsky.

This book first came to my notice on the Out of Ur blog, where it’s highly recommended by reviewer, Scott Wenig.

He writes:

Belsky’s passion is to help people put their best ideas into action. As the founder and CEO of Behance, a company devoted to empowering and organizing the creative world, he and his team interviewed hundreds of productive people and teams over a six year period to discover the principles behind their success. The result of their empirical research is this book, a systematic presentation of the necessary steps needed to bring ideas to fruition.

In my opinion, a great number of pastors and Christian leaders could readily benefit from Making Ideas Happen. We’re often creative, idea-oriented types who love to cast the vision or promote the mission of our church or organization. But, as one noted Christian leader has said about vision sermons and mission statements, “If it’s hanging on the wall but it ain’t happening down the hall, it ain’t happening.” Belsky has given us an accessible guide to creating church and ministry systems that will produce what we’ve preached and promised.

It’s helpful, of course, to read the whole review, and there are a number of other positive ones on Amazon. And if you’ve got ten minutes of down time, check out the Behance site (I assume it’s related to ‘enhance’) – there are some wonderfully creative and inspiring people networked there.

Belsky notes: “very seldom is anything accomplished alone” and there is “tremendous power waiting to be unleashed in the network” of most groups.

Thought-provoking shorts

On the qideas.org site, there's a section called 'shorts'. These are essays that provide a thoughtful perspective on an important topic about faith and culture. You can preview any one of the titles, and if you like something, you can purchase it for your library and print it out. Or come back later and read online.
These shorts include a piece by Kathleen Falsani called: The Thread: when church happens online, and it begins with a Facebook experience in which Falsani learned that a good friend had died.
Tim Keel talks about not limiting the gospel, Andy Crouch about consumerism, Andrew Martin on bridging the gap between Christians and gays, Josh Jackson and Nick Purdy discuss finding the good in popular culture. There are about twenty titles to choose from and they cost US$5 each to buy.

Randy Pausch

"I'm constantly finding myself in situations where people are saying, well, it's never been done that way before, and I say, well, that's fine, and I guess that's an instructive piece of knowledge to share with me, but why are you saying that as if it's some sort of design constraint? You know, you said you wanted to accomplish something. And I suggested, well, why don't you do thus-and-such. And then you said, but it's never been done that way before! But I say that's not relevant to whether or not this is a good solution. Of course if you told me it had been done and it failed, that would be really useful data, all right."

Randy Pausch was an American professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He gave his "The Last Lecture" speech on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon after he learned that his previously known pancreatic cancer was terminal. The talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk", with a topic such as "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?" The talk was later released as a book called The Last Lecture, which became a New York Times best-seller.

How applicable is this to mission?

Seth Godin on Selling Ideas

On his blog today, Godin talks in terms of selling ideas to companies (book companies in particular), but what he has to say is interestingly applicable to the job of enabling mission.

Two points he notes:

1. They have to be in the business of buying ideas. Thus a Trust that has money may be interested in ‘buying’ the idea of a particular kind of mission, and then funding it.

2. They have to trust you. Some businesses that appear to be interested in buying ideas won’t necessarily trust you to be the person to present an idea. Entrepreneurial people who will see the big picture, who can grasp the vision, are more likely to be in tune with you.

Godin notes: A company that likes buying ideas has a process. They make it relatively straightforward and they have no upside in stealing from you. A company that isn't in that business puts up barriers. They troll around trade shows looking for ideas to take (and there's nothing legally or morally wrong with that, imho).

And:

if you have an idea for a company that doesn't know how to buy it, move on. And if you want to be in the business of selling ideas, find an industry that has experience buying those ideas.

Substitute your own mission funder, or your Presbytery, or even your congregation for 'business' and 'company', and see how Godin's points apply. The full blog post is here.

Reaching your neighbour - a slightly different approach

You'll probably think this is just crass advertising (on the part of NESCAFÉ, in this case), but it's worth pointing it out anyway. (And I'm not being paid to do it.)

NESCAFÉ have come up with an idea called NESCAFÉ TogetherNES™ (yup, they've even trademarked it). As they say on their site, the idea was born in conversation 'over a cup of NESCAFÉ coffee. When you share a moment with the people who live around you, it’s clear that knowing your neighbours adds warmth and richness to life, every day. That’s why we’re looking for people with bright ideas on how they could help build their neighbourhood’s sense of community – then we can get involved too and help make it happen. Naturally, the first step is to share your idea with us.'

There's a great deal more about it on their site, but what seems of interest to us is that this idea is perfectly adaptable to the church community.

Want to find ways to reach out to your neighbours? Start with anyone of the ideas already on the site or come up with some of your own. Mission starts with reaching out.

David Droga on creativity

This struck me as being of interest. Although it's talking about working with a group of creative individuals in an advertising agency, it's very possibly applicable to working with a group of creative individuals in a church setting:

Top adman David Droga, head of his innovative agency, Droga5 revealed the creative process his company uses:
1. Decide what emotions they want to evoke;
2. Get together a wide range of people to work together right from the start--creatives, tech people, etc.;
3. Manage the massive insecurities and egos of the people working on the challenge so everybody feels they are being heard and will keep contributing;
4. Refine the goal - a totally open brief can be too intimidating;
5. Don't fall in love with the first idea, even if it seems like a great solution. Force yourself to keep going and writing;
6. Skepticism can be healthy, it prevents blind optimism and exposes flaws or weaknesses that can be addressed;
7. When it's time to sell the client, you can't sell on creativity, but you can sell on WHY you got to the solution you're proposing.

Point 3 is possibly the most relevant of all!

The Lesson of the Three Monkeys

There's a story about three monkeys sitting under a tree. One of them decides to climb the tree and get a banana. How many monkeys are left sitting under the tree?

Answer: Three. It takes more than a decision to change anything.

As someone who is addicted to having ideas ("Hey, I know! Maybe I could climb that tree and get a banana!"), I understand this story very well. Yes, the idea is important, but things change only when we turn it into action. Speaking of which:

ACTION: Keep a journal of all your ideas so that your mind is encouraged to stay fertile - I believe that if you ignore your ideas, they stop flowing. But also make a firm decision about which ones to act on and then stick with those until you've seen them through.

Courtesy of Jurgen Wolff's Brainstorm E-Bulletin

Photo courtesy of Jeff Jarrett: Barberry Apes from a series of Gibraltar apes