Just being honest.
I know that the really bold thing to say is that I am so excited about being innovative that I relish in the possible failure – at least it would be one more thing out of the way right?

But the truth is I am afraid of failure.

I am afraid of failing those I lead. (my wife, my children, my team)
I am afraid of failing those I follow.
I am afraid of failing those who look to me as a mentor.
But most of all I am afraid of failing God.

I know the right answers here.
Fear is not from God. Check.
Fear is not healthy. Check.
Fear paralyzes instead of pushing. Check.

I know there is nothing to fear but fear itself.  But fear is pretty darn scary.
So there you have it – I am afraid.  Are you?

What are we going to do about it?

I am very honored today to be able to be a part of the blog tour for Renee Johnson.  Renee is a spirited speaker and writer to twentysomethings. She graduated from Biola University and has had the pleasure of working with the top nationally-known Christian speakers and writers at Outreach Events.

Her devotional blog reaches hundreds of readers. Renee’s mission in life is to “spur others forward” (Hebrews 10:24) using the lessons learned from her own trials to encourage others in their walk with God. Sign up for weekly devotionals at http://www.devodiva.com. Learn more about Renee and her ministry at www.devotionaldiva.com.

A couple of months ago I got the chance to review some of the devotional’s for Faith Book of Jesus and I must say that any author who can quote ‘Good Will Hunting’ while talking about Jesus has my attention.

Renee Johnson does that while encouraging 20-somethings to grow in a new and fresh way. With a acknowledgement of a messy spirituality and a raw unfiltered style Renee has written a devotional that should sit on the bedside of every 20-something Christ-follower you know.

Here is the cool part – you can sample what Renee is cooking before you buy it by visiting her website: www.faithbookofjesus.com

So, go try it out and spread the word!

Todd Henry is the Founder and Managing Director at Accidental Creative as well as the arms dealer for the creative revolution.  His podcast has been instrumental in my development and it is an honor to have him as a guest on this blog.  If you would like to be considered for a guest post please email me at shawn@shawnwoodwrites.com

Whenever I speak to a group, I always ask “How many of you believe that great ideas are important to the future of your business or career?” Inevitably, every hand in the room goes up. Then I follow-up with“How many of you had time on your calendar in the past week dedicated solely to generating ideas for your work?” Silence. Crickets.

I’ve asked this question dozens of times to groups of every kind and I can count on one hand the number of people who answered that they had time on their calendar in the past week dedicated to generating ideas. (If you want to know what’s important to someone, you look at their calendar and their checkbook. Over and over it seems that idea generation doesn’t even show up as a blip on the radar for either.)

Why is this the case?

I think there are a few reasons. First, I don’t think it ever crosses our mind to plan for personal ideation time. (Idea generation is something that happens in groups, right?) Second, I think many of us are uncomfortable with what what “idea generation time” would even look like. We haven’t been given tools that we can use, and sitting around staring at a blank piece of paper waiting for something to happen just seems like a huge waste when we could be answering e-mail or organizing our task lists.

But once we understand that creative insight can be found through purposeful and intentional process (and that it often feels like work), we can become more structured in how we approach it. By exercising a little strategic ideation on a regular basis we can regularly generate much-needed ideas.

This is one of the reasons my team and I developed the Personal Idea Pad (PIP). We realized that one of the biggest hesitations people have about putting idea generation time on their calendar is that they don’t really know what to do with it. The PIP is a tool that helps you
(1) define a problem in a very concrete way and then (2) surround the creative problem and look at it from four perspectives: future, past, conceptual and concrete. By doing so, you are forced to think about solutions to the problem that may have otherwise been overlooked.

We’ve also used the PIP as an effective free-association tool in creative meetings. When we use it in this way, we typically break teams into groups of five and have them collectively fill out the PIP worksheet. First, they define the problem as a “challenge statement” to refine their thinking. Then they surround the challenge statement with words and concepts that spring to mind when thinking about the problem from the four perspectives (mentioned above). Once they’ve filled in the PIP worksheet, someone in the group calls out word combinations and the rest of the group shares ideas that emerge from the word combinations. (It’s critical to be loose and free with ideas and not to critique them at this point. Quantity of ideas yields
quality.) The PIP will help groups avoid ruts because it forces them to surround the problem and then to smash together concepts that would normally not be associated.

Whether individually or in groups, the important thing is to treat idea generation as a necessary discipline. Brilliant ideas are the currency of our future success or failure, so we need to structure our personal and team time to reflect that reality. We can’t allow necessity to drive our creative process. By building purposeful, rhythmic ideation into our team and personal schedules we can begin to experience creative insight on a more regular basis and stay ahead of the “create-on-demand” curve.

This may be one of the most under-asked questions in leadership. It is relevant in parenting, leading, creating and any other word ending in “ing” that you can think of.

When we stop asking this question we have created a holy calf out of our “how” instead of really examining the “why”.

The why will probably not change, but if there is a better way, lets start moving in that direction.

The way you plan your message series. Is there a better way?
The way you arrange your worship songs. Is there a better way?
The leadership development of your staff? Is there a better way?
The discipleship process of your church? Is there a better way?

What are the areas in your life you have stopped asking this question?
Ask yourself now, Is there a better way?

How do you adapt to change?
I mean like we were going west and now it’s east change.

I was having a conversation recently with a friend who is really growing in this area. There was a time when they took 7 weeks to adjust to change and as we were talking we realized that they had really done a great job in 7 days. Then I had a thought, “Am I am 7 day, 7 hour or 7 minute leader?”

If it takes you 7 days to adapt to major change you are a great employee. You take some time, but you come along. You will be an awesome addition to anyone’s team, but to lead that is probably too long.

If it takes you 7 hours to adapt to major change you are a leader. You can bring people with you and you can model loyalty to and communicate the vision in a way that only a leader can.

If you can take a breath, gather your thoughts and adjust to a major change in 7 minutes you are a leader of leaders and can be counted on to lead large parts of an organization.

So where are you?

By the way if it takes you 7 weeks, you will struggle in life. Not just at work, but everywhere as life just moves faster than you do.

Not some future version of you.
Not even the past you before you messed up.
The You of right here and right now is able.
Able to do great things.
Able to make a difference.
Able to be the best spouse you can be.
Able to be the best parent you can be.
Able to be the best friend you can be.
You are able to do great things because…
He is able to do more than we can ask or imagine and He has chosen to use you.

What has God asked of you?
What has God given you to accomplish these things?
What are you doing with all that He has given you?

I get quite a few e-mails or phone calls each month asking, “What in the world is an experiences pastor”? I thought I would take just a few hundred words to try and answer that question as best I can.

First let me define an experience.
At Seacoast we have three streams that people experience our church. These are the places that they will run into our “brand” (for lack of a better word) which is the emotional aftertaste left behind after you experience something. These three streams are:

1. weekend
2. web
3. word of mouth

So, as experiences pastor I am responsible for shepherding the weekend, web and word-of-mouth experiences and the teams that make those experiences happen as being a resource to all of the other teams and volunteers that make that happen at each of thirteen campuses.

Another question I am often asked is, “what does your team consist of?”  I hesitate to answer this sometimes as although at Seacoast we feel very blessed to be able to have staff to do these positions, I know that we and other large churches are the minority when it comes to having staff for these areas.  I have much honor and respect for the churches that knock it out of the park with volunteers!  I also am very honored to work with the unbelievable team below…

Administrative Assistant (Part Time)
Communications Director
Creative Director
Graphic Artist
Internet Experiences Director (Part Time)
Production Director
Production Assistant
Production/IT Specialist
Video Storyteller
Video Storyteller/Weekend Director
Video Editor (Part Time)

These teams accomplish a ton of assets (See our videos) and energy towards these experiences and I will not elaborate on what each of them do as they are pretty self explanatory.

then the last question I am asked after people see that list is: “So, what do you do?”
The area that I concentrate on personally is the weekend teaching process. I shepherd that process through 3 major meetings that produce a lot of weekend centered information and involve the staff I lead as well as matrix relationships in the organization and then I also facilitate a couple of groups on TheCity that share that information.

Monthly series planning meeting. I facilitate this meeting and it involves our other teaching team members as well as our creative director and our communications director. This meeting looks 2-3 series ahead and keeps us approximately 3-4 months ahead on our weekend schedule as far as very broad topics.

Monthly experiences call. This meeting is a opportunity for me to share everything I know with all experiences stakeholders at all campuses and is done via Adobe Connect on the web

Weekly message planning meeting. This meeting involves the teaching team and a our communications director who is the liaison to a team that does research for our messages.

So that gives you a little deeper look (maybe deeper than you wanted) into the life of an experiences pastor.

So, What do you do?

Thanks to the fine folks at www.ourshirtsdontsuck.com the web site dedicated to planning easter is live!

The first post (of many to come from some awesome other guest writers) is up. Four reasons why you should plan:

This is the first official post on www.planningeaster.com so it may be a great time to answer the question, “why plan?”.

1.  We plan because the stakes are too high to depend on our own strength and God uses our time of planning as a place to speak to us and unearth our best…

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To read the rest of this post click here: www.planningeaster.com

One of the most under-asked questions in the world is, “why?”

Why do you have that meeting?
Why does it need to happen that way?
Why do you always do that many songs in your worship service?
Why do you print that piece?
Why?
Often times we start with how and we never ask why.