From “Wouldn’t it be great if…” to “Let’s do it,” Dennis Choy says there are important steps church teams often overlook. He’ll explore them at CFX 2026.
At CFX 2026, longtime church leader Dennis Choy will challenge production and creative teams to rethink what happens between the ideas they dream up and the things they actually do.
Churches rarely suffer from a shortage of ideas.
There’s always another possibility. A different approach to a worship service. A new stage design. A special event. A technology upgrade. Something another church is doing that sparks the inevitable question: Could we do that?
Great ideas are easy to find. Knowing what to do with them is considerably harder.
It's managing it.
After 35 years in church ministry, Choy has watched good ideas generate excitement, gain momentum and sometimes move toward execution before anyone stops to ask some fairly important questions.
Does this really fit our church? Can we afford it? Do we have the people to make it happen? Can we sustain it? And perhaps most importantly: Is this actually the right idea for us?
“We all run ‘the best idea wins,’” Choy says. “And that’s actually not right.”
At CFX 2026, Choy wants to help church leaders put some structure around what happens between “Wouldn't it be great if…” and “Okay, let's do it.”
His session, “What’s Your Process?”, grew from watching churches repeatedly struggle with that gap. Teams get excited about an idea and begin figuring out how to execute it before they've really determined whether it's the right idea—or even a realistic one.
“They go from dream right to execute,” Choy says, skipping opportunities along the way to refine the idea, test it against reality or perhaps discover a better approach.
Sometimes the best decision is realizing the great idea shouldn’t be pursued at all.
His CFX session will unpack a creative process designed to prevent that.
The objective isn't to put more constraints on creativity. It's to help teams recognize where they are in the creative process, understand what should happen next and know when it's time to start asking harder questions about people, resources, budget and sustainability.
Sometimes, Choy says, going through that process leads to an unexpected but valuable conclusion:
The great idea shouldn't be pursued at all.
Give Creativity Room to Work
Managing creativity doesn't mean controlling it.
In fact, Choy believes one of the easiest ways to undermine creativity is to introduce practical limitations too early.
A meeting begins as a brainstorming session. Someone throws out an ambitious idea. Almost immediately, someone else explains why it won't work.
Wrong conversation. Wrong time.
At Skyline Church, Choy addressed that problem with meetings he called “wonder meetings.”
Their purpose was deliberately limited to dreaming.
“This is a pure wonder, brainstorm, dream meeting,” he says. “You cannot shoot an idea down in this meeting.”
“We all run ‘the best idea wins.’ And that’s actually not right.” - Dennis Choy
Put the ideas on the board. Explore them. Let one thought spark another.
The questions about what can actually be accomplished come later.
That's an important distinction in Choy's approach. Creativity needs room to operate, but eventually someone has to help move an idea from possibility toward reality. And production leaders may be particularly well suited for that role.
Choy has frequently seen production people become the ones asking practical questions and helping the rest of the team recognize where an idea actually stands.
The production leader doesn't necessarily have to make the final decision. But someone needs to help keep an exciting idea from becoming an execution plan before it's ready.
Exactly how to do that is part of the conversation Choy plans to bring to CFX.
Pay Someone Else's “Dumb Taxes”
Choy's advice for CFX attendees extends well beyond his own session.
After years of attending and speaking at church conferences, he's watched people sit through presentations, walk an exhibit floor, see something interesting—and leave without ever asking the question they really wanted answered.
He thinks that's a missed opportunity.
“This is your chance to meet a lot of very talented, very experienced people,” Choy says. “Come to CFX with curiosity and then ask.”
Ask the presenter about something that didn't quite make sense. Ask whether an idea might work at a church your size. Ask what went wrong on a project. Ask what they would do differently today.
Choy particularly enjoys sharing what he calls his “dumb taxes”—mistakes and failures that eventually taught him something.
And he's paid plenty of them during a career that included 25 years at North Coast Church, where he eventually served as executive pastor, followed by time as global production pastor at Saddleback Church and later executive creative arts pastor at Skyline Church. Today, he is general manager at Housewright, overseeing design and project management teams working primarily with churches.
Choy has discovered that sharing those mistakes can sometimes be as valuable as sharing successes.
People working in churches often simply want to know: Am I the only one dealing with this?
Usually, the answer is no.
“You’re going to push the wrong buttons,” Choy says. “You’re going to forget to put this up there. Cool.”
Perfection isn't the standard.
Learning is.
“If you do the same one over again,” he says, “then we didn’t learn.”
That's also part of the opportunity Choy sees at CFX.
The person leading a session—or sitting beside you in one—may have already attempted the thing your team is considering. They may know what worked. They may know what failed. They may have already paid the “dumb tax” you're about to pay.
But you won't discover any of that simply by sitting in the room.
Come curious. Ask the question.
Because great ideas aren't particularly difficult to find.
Knowing what to do with them is considerably harder.
