How Your Ideas Will Hurt The Ministry

A few years back I had immense lower back pain.  It was in the midst of marathon training and I remember being concerned that this was a “SIGN” that I shouldn’t be running.  It didn’t make sense because I was eating right, sleeping well and accomplishing my runs with great times.  So why the back pain?  I had little to no core strength and I never did postrun stretching.

I don’t know too many runners who like stretching or core strengthening.  But if you are going to run long distances and do it for a long time you need certain disciplines.  If you neglect these practices you’ll find your running career limited and short.

Exercising your creativity ideas is like working out your body.  Without the proper structure your ideas could end up hurting your ministry.  It will grow stale, out of touch and even out there.  If your creative process lacks discipline your ideas will hurt your ministry because they:

• Are One Minded: Ideas need to be challenged by other opinions and outlooks.  If you keep them internal chances are they’ll never withstand time.  Share your ideas with strangers via Twitter or send them to a group of friends who you trust to give you the right feedback.  Add some dimension to your creativity by adding other people’s opinions.

• Die Too Quickly: An idea might seem stupid, unoriginal or general at first; however, the reality of the situation is that it’s underdeveloped.  Make sure you right down all your ideas and then give it an expiration date.  If you don’t know how to use it, give yourself a week or month where you come back to it with a fresh mind.  When your ideas die to quickly they become wasted opportunities.

• Are A Little Too Out There: Originality is OVERRATED.  You don’t always have to come up with new ideas.  In fact it can be rewarding to take old ones, and refurnish them.  Make sure you log what you do, so that you have that opportunity to revisit.  If they are valuable you’ll find them just as affective as something new.

Gain perspective, track your ideas and don’t be afraid to reuse.  While it creativity sounds like a free flowing process, it just like exercise needs discipline.  Take the time to build structure and discover how freeing it makes your productivity.

Do you have a creative process?  If so what does it look like?