As a consultant, I spent a lot studying churches to see what works and what doesn’t – and why.
I have seen tremendous amounts of energy wasted focused on the “what” over the “why.” Someone has an idea, and minds go into motion. A frenzy of meetings occur to figure out how to make the idea happen – who will champion it, where will the volunteer team and budget come from, how will we get the congregations excited about it, etc….
Here’s the deal… I love new ideas. I am action-oriented. I am often the one who says “we’ll never know until we try” when it gets to that point in the meeting. However, I have learned the hard way that sometimes an idea is better off just staying an idea.
Some questions to ask:
1. What makes it more important than where energy is currently being directed (ie will this idea pull focus and resources away from something more important)?
2. What won’t be able to happen if this idea or event moves forward?
3. Will the effort to make this idea a reality kill your team – or their morale?
4. Is this idea something that points people towards God in some way, or is it merely something “cool?”
“How you discover what problems need to be solved is just as important as how you develop solutions for them. It takes just as much time, effort, money and people to solve the wrong problem as it does the right problem.” – John Allspaw
Hmmm - well, let's see...
I'm a Christian, a husband, a dad, a son, a pastor, a consultant, a musician, a writer, and bits and pieces of a bunch of other things. My work life has followed three main phases - business to teaching to church. I was the Weekend Services Pastor for nine years at Northview Church, an awesome church in the Indianapolis suburbs. I used to work for Willow Creek, another awesome church in the Chicago area. Plus I've written for various magazines and websites, and other freelancy sorts of things... My life mission is to help the church be as excellent as it can be.
Oh yeah - the name's Greg. Greg Wallace. But not the race car driver or the major league pitcher or the British celebrity chef. Just the creative worship guy. Hi.
It's my hope that these ideas, musings, rants, raves, etc... will inspire you. They're just my opinions - but again, I hope that they'll help to inspire you. Because the church really, really needs inspired creative types. If you're a creative type (and most people are, deep-down), ask God for help. Then take any ideas that are useful to you - borrow them, nab them, use them, adapt them - and make them into something greater...
You can head over to my Instagram site for an abundance of shorter posts: creativeworshipideas. If you're looking for consulting - especially on weekend services, team leadership or multi-site strategies - I'd love to help. Just message me here, and I'll be in touch - Greg
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