Wednesday
Oct142009
ridiculous recruiting
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 10:38PM
i looked up the word "ridiculous" in the dictionary. it comes from the latin ridiculosus, which literally means "laughable."
last night i led a brainstorm time with the children's ministry team at my church. we were all growing a bit tired of struggling with the same issue - too many children and not enough volunteers.
at the last meeting i suggested we try a new approach in order to solve our problem. how about a big-huge-out-of-the-box-never-before-seen-brainstorm in which we spend a focused amount of time trying to think of ridiculous-even laughable volunteer recruiting ideas. my hope was that in that crazy time of focused ridiculousness, the mother of all recruiting ideas would emerge!
so that's what we did.
first, i explained the 5 simple rules:
1. have fun!
2. no planning
3. celebrate each other's ideas
4. no idea is a bad idea
5. be ridiculous
then we needed an activity to get our minds thinking ridiculously. i handed out various toys, and each person came up with a crazy recruiting idea that included their object. oh! it was hilarious! my favorite was the person who had a pair of silly scissors suggesting that we cut out masks to look like our pastor and then walk around with the masks on our faces asking people to volunteer. now that's ridiculous.
the energy continued to rise as the excitement continued to grow. if there was energy around a particular category, i encouraged the group to continue thinking in that direction. if i hadn't heard from one person in a while, i called them by name and told them i could see something good going on in their brains.
it's amazing to watch people's eyes light up, and brains start turning when given the opportunity to be creative and completely free from careful planning. i almost wonder if we did this more often, if we would more fully enjoy our times of planning.
last night, we needed to feel safe and freed up to explore new ideas. something that usually only happens when you are given permission to be ridiculous.
next month, we'll have our work cut out for us as we try to execute all of the ideas. but today, we are resting in the satisfaction that we pushed ourselves to think ridiculously creative, and we trusted each other, and we came up with some really dang good ideas.
last night i led a brainstorm time with the children's ministry team at my church. we were all growing a bit tired of struggling with the same issue - too many children and not enough volunteers.
at the last meeting i suggested we try a new approach in order to solve our problem. how about a big-huge-out-of-the-box-never-before-seen-brainstorm in which we spend a focused amount of time trying to think of ridiculous-even laughable volunteer recruiting ideas. my hope was that in that crazy time of focused ridiculousness, the mother of all recruiting ideas would emerge!
so that's what we did.
first, i explained the 5 simple rules:
1. have fun!
2. no planning
3. celebrate each other's ideas
4. no idea is a bad idea
5. be ridiculous
then we needed an activity to get our minds thinking ridiculously. i handed out various toys, and each person came up with a crazy recruiting idea that included their object. oh! it was hilarious! my favorite was the person who had a pair of silly scissors suggesting that we cut out masks to look like our pastor and then walk around with the masks on our faces asking people to volunteer. now that's ridiculous.
the energy continued to rise as the excitement continued to grow. if there was energy around a particular category, i encouraged the group to continue thinking in that direction. if i hadn't heard from one person in a while, i called them by name and told them i could see something good going on in their brains.
it's amazing to watch people's eyes light up, and brains start turning when given the opportunity to be creative and completely free from careful planning. i almost wonder if we did this more often, if we would more fully enjoy our times of planning.
last night, we needed to feel safe and freed up to explore new ideas. something that usually only happens when you are given permission to be ridiculous.
next month, we'll have our work cut out for us as we try to execute all of the ideas. but today, we are resting in the satisfaction that we pushed ourselves to think ridiculously creative, and we trusted each other, and we came up with some really dang good ideas.
Reader Comments (3)
Thanks for this great reminder that in order to be truly creative, we need to have fun, create safety and celebrate each other's creativity!
Thank you for the ideas and reminders. Good stuff.
I'm reading a book on PLAY. Written by an expert. Here is what it boils down to. Play is really really important for all ages. Now you don't to read it. ;)
Love the idea of just having fun with the team on a topic that becomes not so fun oh so often.