Rule #1 for worship service creative planning meetings: “Don’t present your opinions as if they’re facts.” I came across a similar thought recently in Kem Meyer’s “Less chaos. Less noise.” Her excellent book is focused on church communications, but it’s absolutely true for planning services, as well.
Part of the trouble with we creatives, preachers, communicators, etc… is that we get ideas and become enamored with them. Soon they appear to us to be “obvious” – in our minds, no rational person could think differently. That is not the case. The idea may indeed be a good one, but it also may be that we just like it because it’s “ours.”
That’s why we have teams. In a good creative team, ideas are “released” in a meeting and then are open to questioning, modification, combination, or even rejection. This requires trust, which we’ll talk more about in the days to come…
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
View all posts by creativeworshipideas
creativeworshipideas 