Bang
In their book, Bang!, Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval say it like it is, "These days, getting people to notice you isn't easy. The Information age has morphed into Information Overload. Messages are everywhere." Thaler and Koval say, "You need a big bang."
I think it'd be fair to describe the birth of the church in Acts 2 as "a big bang." Acts 13 says the message "spread like wildfire." What makes it even more impressive is the fact that they were limited to "word of mouth."
Bang! defines a "big bang" this way. "A big bang disrupts. At its core, a Big Bang idea is about taking the spotlight. It is about ideas that are simply too outrageous, too different, too polarizing to go unnoticed. There is a sea of sameness out there."
Our goal when we lauched our second location at Ballston Common Mall was simple: we wanted to make sure that no one living within a two mile radius of Ballston Common Mall could deny our existence.
We put together some unorthodox direct mailers that played off the movie theater theme--one of them even had an MPAA "R" rating on the front--and mailed them to 50,000 homes. We got some complaints. We even got a few threats. But the truth is this: if we aren't doing something that is somewhat controversial we probably aren't doing something worth doing because it's already being done. We don't need more of the same.
Thaler and Koval are right. "If you have an idea that no one hates, everyone will forget it. Think about it. No one dislikes vanilla--but you can get that from anyone, anywhere."
The disciples were hated. Why? Because their message was controversial. And they wouldn't keep quiet.
I think it's dangerous to be different for difference sake! But NCC is called to do church differently. Part of our contribution to the larger kingdom of God is "research and development." We feel called to experiment with innovative and creative ideas.
I've always loved Ralph Waldo Emerson's advice. "Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
I think a large part of following Christ is unlearning what we've learned. Half of Jesus' teaching seems to focus on unlearning. "You have heard that it was said...but I tell you." He was deprogramming his listeners.
Bang! says, "One requirement of a Big Bang is to forget every rule you've ever learned. You need to consider everything except the traditional approach. The best thing you can say about rules is that they make it easy to repeat what others have done before you. But if all you do is trace somebody else's steps, most of your ideas are half-baked at best. By definition, rules are backward-looking. Rules anticipate that history will repeat itself. In today's business climate, however, if you keep repeating yourself, your company is history." That goes for churches too!
If you say what everyone has always said and do what everyone has always done you're white noise. We need to say old things in new ways and do old things in new ways! We need a new theological lexicon. We need to reinvent ancient spiritual disciplines. We need to tell the old, old story in new, new ways!
I think Collins and Porras make a brilliant observation in their book Built to Last. They studied eighteen companies and found that "what looks in retrospect like brilliant foresight and preplanning was often the result of 'Let's just try a lot of stuff and keep what works'."
So my advice is try lots of stuff! "Creativity is not about safety; it is diametrically opposed to it." But even mistakes can turn out to be successes in disguise. James Joyce said mistakes are "portals of discovery."
So go make some mistakes!
I think it'd be fair to describe the birth of the church in Acts 2 as "a big bang." Acts 13 says the message "spread like wildfire." What makes it even more impressive is the fact that they were limited to "word of mouth."
Bang! defines a "big bang" this way. "A big bang disrupts. At its core, a Big Bang idea is about taking the spotlight. It is about ideas that are simply too outrageous, too different, too polarizing to go unnoticed. There is a sea of sameness out there."
Our goal when we lauched our second location at Ballston Common Mall was simple: we wanted to make sure that no one living within a two mile radius of Ballston Common Mall could deny our existence.
We put together some unorthodox direct mailers that played off the movie theater theme--one of them even had an MPAA "R" rating on the front--and mailed them to 50,000 homes. We got some complaints. We even got a few threats. But the truth is this: if we aren't doing something that is somewhat controversial we probably aren't doing something worth doing because it's already being done. We don't need more of the same.
Thaler and Koval are right. "If you have an idea that no one hates, everyone will forget it. Think about it. No one dislikes vanilla--but you can get that from anyone, anywhere."
The disciples were hated. Why? Because their message was controversial. And they wouldn't keep quiet.
I think it's dangerous to be different for difference sake! But NCC is called to do church differently. Part of our contribution to the larger kingdom of God is "research and development." We feel called to experiment with innovative and creative ideas.
I've always loved Ralph Waldo Emerson's advice. "Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
I think a large part of following Christ is unlearning what we've learned. Half of Jesus' teaching seems to focus on unlearning. "You have heard that it was said...but I tell you." He was deprogramming his listeners.
Bang! says, "One requirement of a Big Bang is to forget every rule you've ever learned. You need to consider everything except the traditional approach. The best thing you can say about rules is that they make it easy to repeat what others have done before you. But if all you do is trace somebody else's steps, most of your ideas are half-baked at best. By definition, rules are backward-looking. Rules anticipate that history will repeat itself. In today's business climate, however, if you keep repeating yourself, your company is history." That goes for churches too!
If you say what everyone has always said and do what everyone has always done you're white noise. We need to say old things in new ways and do old things in new ways! We need a new theological lexicon. We need to reinvent ancient spiritual disciplines. We need to tell the old, old story in new, new ways!
I think Collins and Porras make a brilliant observation in their book Built to Last. They studied eighteen companies and found that "what looks in retrospect like brilliant foresight and preplanning was often the result of 'Let's just try a lot of stuff and keep what works'."
So my advice is try lots of stuff! "Creativity is not about safety; it is diametrically opposed to it." But even mistakes can turn out to be successes in disguise. James Joyce said mistakes are "portals of discovery."
So go make some mistakes!
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