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Creativity

Daily Routine of Famous Creative People

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The Daily Routines of Famous Creative People
Had this shared with me from the folks at Podio, a collaborative work app. They mapped out the daily routines of some of the more famous creative people in history. I see a lot of sleep and leisure mixed in with their creative work. Much of their fitness or workout times were just going for walks. Very few workaholics in the bunch.


Want to develop a better work routine? Discover how some of the world’s greatest minds organized their days.
Click image to see the interactive version (via Podio).

Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl

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Was given a preview copy of “Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl” which I had never heard of before. It was a dvd series which made the consumption of it a little more palatable than a book review, being honest here I keep falling asleep when reading, call it a two year old joy/disease. N.D. Wilson isn’t someone who was on my radar till now, so I had no clue what to expect. So here is a bit of my experience with “Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl.”

  • The cinematography of the whole thing is quite good. If you watch it beginning to end as a I did you might pick up on some of the similar looped videos from chapter/segment to segment but as someone who has produced and edited a video 1. I see that stuff easily 2. I forgive that stuff as long as it isn’t overwhelming. The audio is equally good. This makes for an enjoyable watching experience if nothing else.
  • Wilson (sorry, just can’t do the referencing as N.D.) is fusing together a whole lot of philosophy, science and religion. I immediately thought of Rob Bell in this way of teaching. These are not Nooma videos, but I did think of that to. The videos speed through through Wilson’s thoughts so I’m sure I missed a thing of two, which will probably be most people’s experience. But there always was some takeaway idea that I heard in there.
  • Wilson also has some video that are poetry mixed to a video element. Watching the whole thing through those took me a minute to realize that is what this segment was, but I actually would skip back at that point to listen/watch again. Poetry is really cool when read by the authors, you get some of their original emotion & intent when you can experience that. As an art fanboy I was in to those segments.
  • Wilson grew on me. I was skeptical of the whole thing at first. In part because I wasn’t familiar with him or this at all. Towards the middle to end of the whole thing I found myself in the rhythm of him and a bit about his message. Seems like a pretty cool guy I wouldn’t mind having a drink with.
  • I imagine everything through the lens of “Is this a teachable element for youth?” For the sake of this being video and the whole collision of philosophy, science & religion it’d be a great discussion starter for the guys. Not sure the girls would get into it as much, but maybe. I haven’t done any control and test groups there, just my suspicion. All our kids are in some level of educational science and that is part of what they wrestle with in their spiritual formation. Not sure the level of philosophy for a middle schooler..
  • Wilson’s theology I wouldn’t necessarily agree with in all points. The core stuff seemed to be there, the more nuanced things I might switch up. A few times I had that feeling, “I’m not sure why, but that just doesn’t jive.” It is more of an apologetics type creation so that is probably where a little bit of that comes from.
  • There is a study guide, if you want to teach into this. I didn’t go there as of yet, so I have not perused it as of yet.
  • Will I go through this myself with my teenagers? It is possible. We have our outlines and things set for the foreseeable future at the moment so it probably won’t happen soon, but it could make an appearance. I think if nothing else it would be a good discussion starter for many of my teens to give words to their own faith. That would be what we would use it for.

 

What is The Why of Ministry?

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I have been pondering this idea of “start with why” for my own ministries then it had me wondering. Does our church even know the ‘why’ of its existence? Sure there are some mission statements, but those are things that the church says it wants to be. Not really why it is there. Maybe I am thinking to hard on this, but companies who live to do their why have captured mass appeal. Maybe the church doesn’t need mass appeal.. The leaders of my faith expression sure seem to want ‘vital’ mass appeal.

P90X your Church Email!

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I happen to be subscribed to a number of church email newsletters. Some because I helped set them up and have not removed myself from the list, some because in a weak moment I wanted to know how they communicated. Many times I am feeling pretty bored with the emails. They are always doing the same things and in the same way. I know what is in there before I even open up the email.

P90X is a popular workout program that you would have to be under a rock not to have heard of it. If you own a tv you must not have it turned on ever to not have seen one of their commercials. One of their cool marketing tricks or actual solid training technique (you decide there) is their design of training called “muscle confusion.” The idea is simple, do different stuff so that your muscles never get used to the work out and will burn more calories because they are never conditioned to do a certain set of exercises.

Well, the brain is a muscle, although different than your buttocks it is a muscle and gets trained. So I had this idea. What if churches did their email communications with the p90x model of muscle confusion in mind. If you send an email each week have a different type of presenting a message, different layout, and different writers. Once you set up a few layouts and themes you can repeat using them in some random pattern. So far, it has been a concept that apparently is foreign to the people I have suggested it to because it does not compute or seems like too much work.

Funny enough, the MarketingProfs folks just put out an article with a similar thought process in mind “Variety is the Spice of Life.”

Lack of variety in email marketing is a common dilemma for marketers. Businesses newer to email marketing or with fewer resources tend to gravitate first and only to promotional messaging, but there is plenty more you can and should communicate to your list.

They go on to list 1. email newsletter 2. personal & holiday greetings 3. follow ups 4. educational entertainment as emails to spice things up instead of a constant barrage of promotional emails.

So what could mixing it up p90x style look like for a church email program?

  1. Email Newsletter: You want to push all your information at people in the hopes that they are now informed so go ahead, get that over with.
  2. Ministry Story: Find some good ministry stories to share. A paragraph or two, not more than 500 words though. If you can’t find 500 words to share some cool story about the ministry happening in your church then you have worse problems than an email communication issue. You can switch it up from choir, to youth ministry, to missions, then to worship. Again if your ministry leaders cannot come up with 500 words to share a story about their ministry then they have more problems to be dealt with than email. This practice though is helping the people of your church have stories to tell about the church family they are a part of. So when someone asks them, “what does your church do?” they will actually have some stories to answer with.
  3. Images Only Reflection: Put out an email that is just photos of the congregation. Sure you can link those images to something else. Please no cheesy clipart or stock photography. Really nice cameras are owned by at least a few people in your church. Charge them with photographing the work of their church as part of their mission. People love to see good photos. People love to see good photos of themselves and the intrigue that they might be featured in an email. Open rates will be huge!!
  4. Challenging Devotion or Message: Have a message, again less than 500 words that gives a glimpse of the Kingdom of God and gives some actionable response/challenge to people. A get out and do kind of thing.
  5. Other email types to throw out there. Community Prayer email: Not your prayer chain, but a prayer you want everyone to pray for the month. Poetry devotion: plug in a single email a poem written by a congregation member. What is Out There: so often church emails just share the church things, share blog posts, news articles, that give glimpse to what others are doing

There you go. Gavin’s p90x Email marketing method. Give it a go and see what happens. Tell me I’m full of crap. Tell me it has revolutionized the culture of your church. Let me know it is a whole lot more fun than just blasting out the newsletter or bulletin in another form. If it doesn’t work in 90 days I’ll give you a full refund of the money you spent on this advice.

Oh, and if you want to use an enhanced email program, I suggest you do, then go with MailChimp for your free option. There are other pay options such as Aweber or Emma I’d suggest, Emma if you want someone to hold your hand & help design.

Unexamined Impulse is Prejudice | #missional

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My buddy Sam Davidson at Cool People Care highlighted this 10 courageous actions to building community in your neighborhood community. It had me thinking that, 1. community is what people are looking for 2. people really do not know how to go about it anymore because we’ve spent a few generations segmenting our lives to our own personal bubbles. So when it comes to images of church, do we actually know how to build community? We might not..

So here’s some added thoughts to this list of actions for those who would be called ‘people of the church.’

  1.  Take interest in other people’s passions as much as you want them to be interested in yours. We all have ideas for how life should be. The thing is that, unless we are unsurpassed geniuses, we only see a small part of the picture. Asking others what they see can only enhance understanding. [Tough one, stop concerning yourself first and get on with someone else and the things that are important to them. We probably do this very well for a children, but when it comes to our neighbor?..]
  2. Become a mentor to others less involved in their community. In every community there is a small, overworked group of leaders who try to figure out everything for everyone. They go to all the meetings and take on huge loads of work while others are silent—until it is time for them to complain. This will not do. If you are such a leader, mentor someone with less experience. If you are not, approach someone and ask them to mentor you. [I have many gifts and skills that could be shared. Beyond my youth work, which I do this often, do I do that in avenues for people in my neighborhood? No, and that is not something I’m proud of. Could do better to share skill sets to others in my community and who knows the impact that could be.]
  3. Support a cause with no direct personal benefit. We are involved with things we care about the most. That’s natural. My experience tells me, however, that the most interesting and possibly most important discoveries happen in the spaces between interests and disciplines and ideologies. Step outside your natural zone—it’s necessary for uncovering new solutions. [Giving of self with out some “return on investment” is tough cultural impulse to break from. We go to church because we ‘get something’ be it uplifting feeling from worship, friendships, networking, etc. Love doesn’t expect or need a return.]
  4. Invite “them” to your meeting. It is convenient to show our importance by pitting “us” against “them.” But “they” may have insights that will help us better understand the problem and appreciate the marvelous tensions that form a healthy community. [With the diverse & numerous platforms of niche news and neighborhoods we have made it easier to only focus on & affirm our current viewpoints. If you are conservative church type what would it be to go to the liberal group meetings on/about the church? Is it scary to think you will find out they are real people like you?]
  5. Reject the tendency to blame. Everyone plays a role in the problem and everyone must participate in the solution. Practice compassion towards those who, like ourselves, unwittingly contribute to the problem they wish to solve. [We play victim many times. Accountability is hard to come by so much that it is treated in very conflicting manners when it happens. Poverty is an issue and instead of blaming some group or a system, what would happen if we all assumed responsibility for doing our part of the solutions.]
  6. Confront internal contradictions. Claiming that the problem is someone else’s doing conveniently absolves us from doing our part. If I drive my car to a transportation meeting and complain about traffic jams, it’s necessary that I acknowledge my contribution to that traffic. At the very least, acknowledge the irony of the situation. [Chances are we do not even realize the many depths to which we play a part in the problem]
  7. Practice industrial-strength listening. Do not react until you’ve received. [Holy Listening or Spiritual Direction should be part of every Christian’s practice]
  8. Render unto community… Shrink your home to what is necessary and conduct the rest of your life in the community. For example, resist a “theater” room and visit your local theater instead. Anytime you bump into others you make your community a bit stronger. [How big is your church that it becomes so much the focus of your ministry that you have no energy to do anything outside in the community?]
  9. Clarify your image of the future. I find that most decisions we make are shaped by impulses so deeply ingrained we fail to be aware of them. Unexamined impulse is prejudice. Examined impulse, once confirmed, is guidance that leads to something better. Examine your embedded assumptions, embrace the relevant ones, and discard the rest. What remains is a clear intuition, an image of a possible future. Then engage with others to make it a reality. [Know thy self. As Jesus asks, “Who do people say I am?” “Who do you say I am?”]
  10. Resist the temptation to choose between the ideal and the reality. Hold them both in your awareness. Learn to enjoy the creativity and humor this tension offers. It can be quite funny. [You can’t do everything otherwise you’ll get yourself in trouble, you can’t do nothing otherwise you are not living up to the calling of Jesus Christ.]

I went to listen to some songwriters perform a few weeks ago. In Nashville, events like these are easy to find. What I like most about these events is listening to the stories behind the songs. Usually, you’ll hear something like, “When I wrote this song with Joe and Tom…” or “As Jane and Wanda and I wrote this…” Go to enough of these and listen to enough of these stories and you’ll realize that no one writes songs alone. Look at the liner notes to any CD in your collection and you’ll see.

And, in Bill Gates’ recent piece for the BBC, he wrote:

Communication skills and the ability to work well with different types of people are very important too. A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity where you sit in an office with the door closed all day and write lots of code. This isn’t true at all. Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs.

In other words, we’re not alone. We can’t be our best alone. We need community like we need air, shoes and wi-fi.

There’s a difference, however, between community and communitas. Community can simply mean some sort of loose grouping, without any kind of real connection. Our neighborhood, our city, or our classmates can be considered our community. But we can still not know anything about another person in this community.

What we need then, is communitas. This is a Latin word that describes a more intense type of community – one that usually undergoes some sort of bonding experience or rite of passage together. Fraternities and sororities are a shallow form of this, sharing a common initiation ritual. Guys who stormed the beach at Normandy and firefighters are a more intense version.