Iphone kills concentration

"My wife Mary declared, with some intensity, that iphones should be banned"

Whilst I was preparing this my phone rang. Without thinking I glanced at the screen to see who was calling. It happened to be someone I wanted to talk to and so I duly answered the phone. Trying hard to concentrate again after the conversation brought it home to me again that getting constantly distracted is a challenge to creative thinking.

While on a day off at the beginning of the year my wife Mary declared, with some intensity, that iphones should be banned. The ability to receive emails, read blogs or Twitter tweets, at anytime and anywhere means that if you did not turn it off you can be constantly bombarded with information and potential distractions. Not helpful for any type of concentration especially when on a day off with your wife.

“Solitude, being alone with your thoughts,” is a vital component to creative thinking. For an external processor like myself that can be a major challenge, even without all the distractions of modern technology. Getting in the bad habit of spending only short spurts of time on the big ideas is a massive hindrance to achieving creative and well thought through plans.

Multi-tasking prevents creative thinking

Having taken detour in my last blog to highlight my enjoyable visit to Regents College, I want to return to “The idea that true leadership means being able to think for yourself and act on your convictions,” (William Deresiewiez).

There are things that hinder giving yourself to creative thinking. Over the next few posts I want to look at four challenges we face and then highlight a number of helps.

The first challenge is multi tasking. As a leader in a growing church I find that multi tasking is part of life and I think I am reasonable good at it. Deresiewiez refers to some research done on the idea that today’s college students were able to multitask so much more effectively than the previous generation.  “How do they manage to do it, the researchers asked? The answer, they discovered—and this is by no means what they expected—is that they don’t.” They also found that those who were high multi-taskers scored worse in a number of tests such as distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant information and amazingly the very thing that defines multitasking itself: switching between tasks.

I really enjoy doing most of the tasks that are in front of me. Even the ones I don’t want to do, I can put myself under pressure to fulfill them. Making a real difference in the city of Manchester involves finding adequate, quality time, to stop and think. It means making hard decisions on what is more important. As a multitasker I need to take time away from all of the jobs that demand my energy so that I can focus on the big ideas that bring growth.

To be continued

Church Planting Training

On Monday I spoke to a group of students at Regents Theological College on the subject of church planting. Preparing for the lectures I realise how little I had spoken on the subject of church planting over these past few years. Most of my time now is taken up with advising and coaching leadership teams as they plan for growth. I have concentrated on churches that have the benefit, and added complication, of apostles and other Itinerate ministries working out from them. Yet even with this as a major focus I have consistently been involved in planting new churches. The latest one being Christ Church Manchester (CCM).

Two years ago, when there were only 20 people at CCM, I found myself advising the leadership team of a church that was gathering over a thousand people every week. On one of my visits it crossed my mind that not many people would be living in this world, of leading one of the smallest churches and yet advising one of the largest churches in the same movement. Getting involved with these large and often complicated churches whilst having faith for the small start-ups seems to be a world I happily embrace.

My talk at Regents concentrated on how Paul planted the church at Corinth and then at Ephesus. From the narrative I looked at the following themes: Who can plant a church, Team & timing, Start simply, Vision and faith, Persistence, Bridgeheads, and Flexible growth strategies:.

I would have loved to the time to look at some other themes that came out of the text such as- Multiple church planting, Signs and wonders, and Growing apostolic teams. I also mentioned a manual I had written some years ago on the subject of pioneering churches this can be downloaded here.

The Church needs Visionary Thinkers

"I need time to think , to make mistakes and recognize them"

William Deresiewiez “What we don’t have, in other words, are thinkers. People who can think for themselves. People who can formulate a new direction: for the country, for a corporation or a college, for the army - a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. People in other words, with vision.”

I am incredible challenged and motivated by these words. As I now find myself leading a church in one of the great urban regions of Manchester. These are mainly poorer and under-churched micro towns, merging into one another in one mass of houses. They offer a large mission field where fresh thinking is needed. There seem to be many and often conflicting ideologies about how this should be done.

Small house churches are one route often advocated. Bussing people out to better-resourced suburban venues is another. Incarnational is the buzzword used for another strategy. This is where people move into a deprived area and live among the people. Over the years all of these, and other variations on the theme, have been tried with mixed success. 

William Deresiewiez: “I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing.”

To be continued

Spirit defined Structure

"leaders need time to think through all the different angles to shape their church for a successful future"

I am always amazed how little the New Testament says about the way churches were structured. It mentions churches being led by Apostles, Elders and Deacons, Prophets and Teachers. There seemed to be some sort of consistency that the churches had public gatherings as well as meeting from home to home. But how the large church in Jerusalem was governed and administered on a day to day basis, to the way the church in Priscilla and Aquila's house was led in that great city of Rome, is a mystery to me.

I do believe that the New Testament is short on definitive administrative models but high on principle and values. The leading of the Spirit seemed to be vital to decision making and principles, such as the poor being looked after, shaped the support structure. 

With this in mind it is important that leaders have enough time to think through all the different angles that need to be addressed to shape their church for a successful future.
Every church situation is different and the variables we are trying to overcome and even utilize means that we need time to think. In our world where multi tasking seems to be the order of the day and information is shared in bite sized portions William Deresiewiez comments “Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it.”

To be continued…