“Hey, I have got this really new creative idea that is beyond your team's ability, we have no extra money for it and it needs to be done for the service this afternoon. What do you think?”
I don't know if someone has ever said this to me before, but I know that I have heard it more times than I can count. How about you? New and creative ideas are coming at us all the time and this is how they can sound to us. The people creating the services are usually thinking up crazy new ideas and changing things, while we are usually trying to figure out how to make things manageable and predictable. For whatever reason, God has made the body of Christ to operate in such a way that production people and programming, music, drama, creative type people have to work together…very closely together, and yet we couldn't be more different.
If it were up to me, we would all think alike and all get along and skip off into the sunset together (well, maybe not that last part). Fortunately for you, me, them and everyone who attends our services, God has designed it completely different. He has designed things in such a way that we could work together to compliment each other's gifts. As production people, we are wired to creatively execute an idea, though there is probably someone better suited than you or I to generate the content of the idea. That's the way God intended it.
If we can have this perspective, we will begin hearing things in a different way. Instead of people asking for the impossible, we can hear a creative idea that needs a creative solution. The question is: what exactly does a creative solution look like? For me, I start by taking a look at my current resources (time, people, and money) and determine how to use them to pull off the idea. If my current reality doesn't allow the idea to happen, then I ask myself two questions:
How could we tweak the idea to make it possible with the resources we have? (If we alter some aspect of the idea, would it become possible with our current reality?)
What resources would need to increase to make the idea a reality? (If I had more time, more people or more money, could we make the idea happen?)
These two questions have revolutionized how I feel about the new ideas coming at me and it has also revolutionized how I am perceived by the people presenting the idea. Instead of assuming that I am expected to pull off any idea within my current reality, I am now free to think of many more options that could make the idea possible. Now, instead of seemingly like someone who always says “no” to every new idea, I am entering the brainstorming process and bringing all my production creativity to the table. I am a team player.
The ideas won't stop coming (or at least they shouldn't). How we respond to them is within each of our control. God has called us to work together and that won't change. How we work together can change, and it is within our power to make better.
