One of the people I'm privileged to worship with every Sunday is Tom Wilson. Tom is the president and CEO of Leadership Network, a ministry that is doing some really neat things with issue-specific church collaboration. If you haven't ever heard of them, listen more closely - they've got their fingers in a ton of things throughout the country.
Tom says smart things all the time, but I heard a quote from him about creativity this morning that is especially brilliant. He said "The definition of creativity is: forgetting where you stole something."
For a lot of years, I worried about the fact that all "my" creative ideas were stolen from other people. Sermon series, theological ideas, philosophies, and even practical thoughts about administration and execution of ministry initiatives are almost never mine. And almost every time I do have an original thought, someone approaches me after the service and recommends a book I've read in which someone else says that same exact thing.
I don't feel bad about stealing ideas anymore. Now, I only feel bad when I steal ideas and don't do the work to make them even better.
The idea of fellowship from Acts 2:44 can apply to church ministry too - "All the believers were together and had everything in common." I get queezy every time I notice that a church has trademarked an idea. Chances are, they stole it from someone else.
Tom's quote is good. The only question is, who did he steal it from?
1 comments:
sooooo true!!! love that quote as well. come to think of it, i think he might have heard that from me! ok, maybe not, but would be nice if he did.
pray you're doin well!
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