Get The Big Idea
Jill and I moved here last September and I knew I was coming to work at a really cool place, but I had no idea exactly what I was getting myself into. My very first Big Idea creative meeting was chaotic, but in a creative way. I just really didn't get what was going on. I heard our teaching team leader run through the content of the message and then everybody else just started throwing out ideas. I mean anything that came to mind, whether the content reminded them of a movie or a commercial they had seen or a song they had heard. There were ideas for sketches and original videos and pretty much everything else you can imagine. Then somehow at the end of all this brainstorming there was a service planned and I really didn't know what happened. After a couple of weeks I started to get IT and it made total sense. I wondered why the churches I had been at before had never thought of this. I realized we were all working together to get ONE idea across instead of all having our own ideas and expecting everyone in our weekend service to catch each individual idea. Then I started to hear the stories of the effect the Big Idea had in people's homes. Kids that learned about the same idea in their large group time as the adults did. Adults that were better equiped to answer questions and lead their home spiritually because the Big Idea had prepared them. It was really incredible. It totally changed the way I looked at reaching people. I felt such an incredible sense of team and unity that I had never felt before. Most importantly I felt we were daily making a practical difference in peoples lives. It was and is very rewarding.
I say all that to tell you this. If you work or volunteer at a church I really encourage you to read "The Big Idea." It is an incredible resource and it also gives you a look into the culture that exists at CCC. It's a very fun and open culture and it makes doing life with my co-workers very rewarding. My favorite excerpt from the book reads like this.
"I tend to be rather cynical when it comes to churches that spend a whole lot of time telling other churches how green their grass is, so it's with a fair amount of reservation that I write this book. Because we've waited so long to write on the benefits of the Big Idea, we at CCC have had the opportunity to track the paths of other innovative churches doing all or parts of the Big Idea. The scenario looks like this: A cool church will hang out with us for a few days. We'll ask them what they're doing to reach people. Then we'll steal their ideas. Occasionally, they'll ask us what we're doing, we'll tell them, and then they'll steal our ideas. This experience is a beautiful thing called networking."
That's really what it's all about. Getting better at reaching people by sharing ideas and supporting each other. Check out the book. It's a great, easy read and I think you'll find plenty of ideas to steal.
There is a Big Idea blog that you can check out here and a great article from a local paper about the Big Idea that you can read here.
