I am a creative. I love coming up with cool [and hopefully impactful] visuals, staging, graphics, music, scripts, videos, etc… for church. But the reality is that I only have so many ideas [and only so much time to work on coming up with ideas]. I have been very blessed – both as a creative AND as a leader – to have some great teams, chock full of other creatives.
Many times, as humans, we tell ourselves that – in general – people are pretty much like us. That is a lie. The reality is that God is, in fact, an artist, and each of His works [us] is unique. Similarly, He created each of us with unique skills, outlooks, etc… The end result is that your creative efforts may speak to one specific group of people, but completely miss the mark with a different group.
That’s where your team members come in. There have been times when my creativity hit a dry spell, and someone else took the ball and ran with it. There have been times when my style of ideas had run for a period of time, and we needed a break. There have been [many] times in brainstorming sessions when it was clear that someone else’s idea was significantly superior to what I had come up with. And there have been times when a team member took the germ of one of my ideas and made it WAY better than I ever could have accomplished alone.
If I am a “ball hog,” due to ego or insecurity [I actually think those are two sides to the same coin], then the church suffers. The output and excellence of a well-functioning team dwarfs that of any individual – no matter how talented…
“Where there’s a will there’s a way; where there’s a team there’s more than one way.” – Rex Murphy
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