Thursday, March 18, 2010

Leadership that allows creativity

I Found this article by Ron Martoia very helpful. The highlighted areas are my emphases.
The best ways of doing ministry have yet to be found and we are in an “idea” crisis
We have to own this one deeply, passionately and relentlessly. This is not because we have to be innovative or don’t like the way we have always done it. We have to own this because God is always doing a new thing and inviting us into new territory and terrain.
I am convinced the best ways are yet to be found and furthermore am totally convinced by my experience that some of those “best ways” are actually in the ideas that will come from people who we don’t know yet and who don’t follow Jesus yet.
How do you create this on a staff team? You give unbridled permission to think fresh and free and you give lavish space for unedited idea generation. These two are critical if you want to have a creative staff ethos that midwifes new ideas.

My opinion is that you also need to give enough room to try out ideas and to fail miserably. To  trust the Holy Spirit and integrity of the leaders working with you. To de-structure so that new ministry can create only the absolutely necessary structure. To let go of control, embrace chaos and stay on your knees. – Paul Barnard
I honestly think we are in an idea crisis. There is lots of information around but not a lot of ideas. Information no matter how coyly packaged is still plain old information. We need to de-google our meetings. We need to stem the flow of information that constipates insight.
We must not only de-google meetings, we must recreate meetings. Meetings must become a place of worship where we are sensitive to the Holy Spirt but where we are also sensitive to the world around us. If we want to be visionaries we have to get out of the mould we use for Church meetings. Our agenda’s of control.  Move meetings from Church buildings to busy shopping malls, sport fields ect. on different times. Stop arguing about words. We are so busy trying to protect the church, to administrate the church that it is impossible for us to radically follow Christ in this world. He leads where it is not always safe or ‘responsible’ according to us. He came for People, not for structures.   - Paul Barnard
Insight doesn’t always lead to great ideas but it is usually the foreshadowing of one. When I am in meetings where there is a shift in the texture of the space, and there is a move from simply conveying information to discussing insights, we start looking over the edge of the cliff into the vast world of ideas and sometimes even illumination.
What we need is a break with convention. We need more than simple tweaks, adjustments, fine tuning or recalibration. We seem to be experts at overlaying one conventional idea over another just slightly older conventional idea and pronouncing it as progress.
Behold I want to do a new thing….not a slightly different version of an old thing. We need the intoxicating rush of idea adrenalin in our leadership, churches and teams.
The best ways of doing ministry have yet to be found!
The original article can be found here:http://www.velocityculture.com/uncategorized/three-things-part-deux/



2 comments:

  1. Ian de Koker: As ek reg onthou het Jesus daai selfde probleem gehad. Het hy nie ook tempel toe gegaan om God te vind nie? Maar al wat hy gekry het was die klomp mense wat meer in geld belang gestel het as in god. Seker daarom dat jesus die klomp handelaars verdryf het daai dag?

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  2. In the whole process of creative leadership we also must place some emphasis on the process of helping people to get more comfortable with the whole idea of freedom of thought and the freedom to make mistakes. Failure is not always a bad thing and there i agree with Paul on his comment. I think what is important in the whole de-structure process is the empowering of people to thought. We are not use to it, and it takes us out of comfort zones to panic zones. Maybe the challenge could be to help people out of comfort zones to stretching zones and help them to realise and later believe that God is ok with such a process. Unfortunately people re-structure when they are overwhelmed with new ideas. Sometimes not a bad thing at all, but at times it could be very frustrating too. How would i help in this whole de-structure process? Maybe by really getting to know the people around me and trying to understand their own bounderies, and most of all, to communicate my own sometimes difficult process of de-structuring.I think most people won't move from information to insight in a space where they don't feel safe at all. Big challenge to create space of safety and freedom. How? Well, that still need some thought. Help me

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