World renowned blogger, marketing expert and author, Seth Godin, speaks on the ways that companies need to function with more creativity in their DNA than compliance.
MY NOTES:
- Factories train people to obedience and reinforce compliance over and above being connected.
- We can create a world where failure is not fatal but something to be embraced as a benefit and a movement toward a different future.
- Apple Inc’s success came about by their commitment to creating a movement by inspiring tribal access that uses social networking resources vs. traditional media ads.
- We need to change the way we work, doing things in a way that brings us closer together.
- So much of what we do in business, therefore, should be more about “art”. When we have figured out our art then we have figured out our purpose.
- Part of art is emotional labor. We, therefore, need more “provacateurs”, creative thinkers.
EVALUATIVE CONSIDERATIONS:
- Does our agenda and the way we work include a relentless pursuit of creativity or merely the priority of obedient compliance?
- What is our agenda and who sets it?
MY THOUGHTS:
To be honest, this session was the weakest for me. I found it to be lacking in the practicals and somewhat disconnected from the rubric of Christian ministry. Though Seth acknowledged the presence of Christian/Church leaders, the content of his presentation seemed to ignore or marginalize the plight of ministry leadership in seeking to be faithful to their call of God and His call to people in transformative ways. Maybe it was my personality density and ignorance that was the barrier but I felt that for 90% of his talk he was speaking to business and corporate leaders and inviting Christian leaders to listen in.
That being said, I did draw some insights:
I do believe that Christian Ministry can easily devolve into that which uses people to get ministry accomplished rather than using ministry to get people accomplished. We can press people into constrictive molds that accomplish the objectives of our organization (sometimes separate from the objectives of His Kingdom under His leadership) and bypass accomplishing life transformative goals for the very personnel we partner with in ministry. In that case we have made it about a paycheck and neglected that part of the incentive in ministry is that we not only do it FOR Christ but more importantly, WITH Christ.
In many churches and ministries, furthering the Great Commission is done with little significant community, nor inspiring creativity. I appreciate Seth’s word about the necessity of ART. I wonder that Christian ministry should also leverage artistry without sacrificing leadership. In many cases, sadly, I believe the opposite happens where leadership ignores and devalues creativity for the sake of narrowly defined, restrictive, conventional parameters that reflect the narrow bandwidth of innovation of executive leadership while convincing subordinates that the Spirit of God is leading.
Now while I do not believe that creativity is an absolute and necessary priority in every job description, I do believe that creativity is needed in the networking of relationships and resources that inspire people to be the best they can be for the God they serve Who deserves and desires us to be the best we can be, far beyond company policy and guidelines.
For me in my situation as pastor of worship and arts, I need to give carefully thought to how I lead that calls forth creativity within the context of community. With the ‘relentless return of the sabbath’ syndrome, it is so easy to simply to drive and crank stuff out to make things happen with excellence each weekend. I must be diligent and vigilant to ensure an environment conducive to meaningful creativity. This involves creating margin, rest and times of inspiration. It involves helping our staff to do things that inspire their connection to God through Christ — His identity through them, and their identity in Him. It is to regularly remind them of the joy of serving Him but also the need to be served by Him so that our service may be saturated with His divine influence in and through our lives.
This does not mean that there will be no times where we need to simply “gut it out”. That’s a part of life where we don’t always get to call the shots on the nature of the environment, nor control on the expectations. But we always have creative license as to how we approach those times and how not to allow them to control us. We are always “under the influence”. The very fact that Scripture exhorts us to be under Spirit influence (Eph. 5:18) also implies that doing so must be an intentional choice. The hope is that our choices always reflect and honor the One who is Supreme in Creativity and Authority.
"Imprinted" on Worship 