"You Know What Would Be Cool?"

Those words fly off my lips so quickly when brainstorming and creating ideas, that it has become a joke of sorts around the offices at the church.

When I make that statement with staff members, it gets a humorously sarcastic response of, "oh great." Reason being, it typically ends up creating more work for the staff, yet more fun at the same time.

I just love to dream about new frontiers and experiment with fresh concepts. The creative juices begin to flow and the next thing I know, we've launched a really cool, effective project or have overhauled something that had peaked in its effectiveness.

Now, I have to admit that most of the crazy ideas that pop into my mind are never verbalized, because they're just ... well ... crazy. When I do speak up though, the team around me is always willing to let me share my thoughts, but then I open it up for discussion. They're really good at identifying pitfalls and suggesting solutions or new approaches to the idea. Sometimes, though, they just look at my like I'm insane, and I know that the "cool idea" is not so cool anymore. :)

Seriously, though, fresh ideas keeps all of us thinking outside the box, and they help to drive away the natural atrophy of staleness and purposeless tradition. These are two of the greatest dangers in the church, and they will destroy us if we're not saying, "you know what would be cool?"

How do we keep fresh ideas coming?
1) We have an atmosphere where ideas can be openly expressed.
Team members know that unless the idea directly violates our values, we consider it as a possibility. It's better to have some bad ideas than no ideas at all.

2) We allow time for comments and discussion to tweak ideas for effectiveness.
Seldom, if ever, are ideas perfect from the beginning. They need to be hammered out by a team who can look at the idea from a variety of different perspectives.

3) Weigh the positives against the positives.
Most people weigh the positives against the negatives. We don't. New "negatives" create far too much fear, and can paralyze the process. Instead, we focus on the contrast of the sum total of our current positives and negatives versus the sum total of our future positives and negatives, if we implement the idea. This way, negatives cannot overpower the process.

4) We all own the idea.
No matter who dreamed it up, we all own it, because we all contribute to the sculpting process of the idea before its implementation.

5) We quickly kill the bad ideas.
When an idea is not flying with the group, we drop it and won't resurrect it again.

6) We seldom rush quickly into implementation.
Patience with a thorough process is critical. Ideas need to be covered in prayer and our genuine desire must be to release the life, love and power of God through its implementation.

7) Once we go public, there should be little if any tweaking.
We can easily destroy the original intent of the idea and "dumb it down" to nothing if we keep making changes based upon initial reactions from critical people. "Joy suckers" will always be around, but don't let them destroy the idea because they are grouches. Only tweak the oversights.

8) Publicly present the new idea with confidence and enthusiasm.
If you're not excited about it, no one will be. :)

So, get that idea out and say, "you know what would be cool?"

Talk about it.

Do it!