Trying to think creatively – Part Two

Mark Twain said, “Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.”  For most people this is very hard. The more you try to think differently the more rigid you become in your thinking.  Ever been to an offsite meeting?  Taking the same people to a new location, putting them into a room that looks like the room back at the office  and telling them to think out-of-the box usually doesn’t generate  a whole lot of ideas different than what you get when you stay at home.

So switch things up.  Change the environment drastically.  Go to an offsite location and do your work outside, on the deck, by the pool.  No business casual attair, go with shorts and flops and goofy hats.  You have to jolt your brain into thinking with a different set of rules.

Some of the biggest breakthroughs in science have occurred not in the lab, but when the scientist was away from his work, chillin, and looked at his problem from a completely different perspective.  Only when the brain is confronted  with a stimulus that it has not encountered before does it start to reorganize perception.  A re-oriented perception is jet fuel to creativity.

Why should I care about this?  Benjamin Franklin said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. ”  If we are going to do the same things in church, the way we always have and expect different results, we’re insane.  We have to be willing to examine the why and the how of everything we do as a church with fresh eyes.  We have to re-orient our brain and get creative to impact a kingdom that is radically different than it was 50 years ago, 5 years ago, 5 months ago.

What do you think, which line is longer?

• ← Trying to think creatively – Part One
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