Leave the Door Wide Open · Ministry Unlocked

Leave the Door Wide Open

I was at a church recently and saw a small thing that I have not stopped thinking about.

Before the pastor sent everyone home, he mentioned a meeting about a new slogan the church had been working on. Then he added one line that changed the whole feel of it.

Anyone who thought of themselves as creative was welcome to come, he said, even if they had never been to a single one of the earlier meetings.

It was such a simple thing to say, but you could feel it land.

In one sentence he told the whole room that a good idea was worth more than a perfect attendance record, and that the people he was hoping for might be sitting in seats no one had thought to ask.

I have been turning that over ever since, partly because so many in church leadership do the opposite without meaning to.

So, if you are working on how your church speaks, how it looks, or how it tells people who you are, let me pass along a few things that moment taught me.

Start by inviting people for their gifts instead of their history.

The planning group usually ends up being whoever showed up first, and before long it is the same faces every time.

There is nothing wrong with those faces. But the most imaginative person in your church may have never been to a meeting in their life, and you will not hear from them unless you say so out loud and mean it.

When you do invite them, be specific. "We need volunteers" rarely reaches the right people. "We are looking for people who think in words and pictures" does.

A lot of artists and writers and designers quietly assume the church has no use for what they do, and a clear invitation tells them otherwise.

Make it easy to walk in. People hold back when they feel they have already missed too much to matter.

Saying plainly that no prior attendance is needed pulls that worry off the table, and it tells everyone that you actually want their thinking, not just a few more bodies in chairs.

Once they are in the room, let them shape the real thing. The quickest way to lose a creative person is to hand them something already finished and ask them to make it pretty.

Trust them with the idea itself. That is where their best work comes from, and it is usually where yours gets better too.

And when someone offers something, receive it well, even the ideas you end up setting aside. People come back to rooms where they felt heard, and they tell their friends it was worth showing up.

I want to say something directly to the creatives who might be reading this too.

There is room for you. If you write or design or take photos or build things or hear a melody before anyone else does, that is not a hobby you leave in the car before church.

It is a gift, and your church needs it more than you know. So much of what a church tries to say to its town comes out flat, and almost never because the people leading it stopped caring.

It is usually because no one thought to ask the person who could have made it sing.

You do not have to wait for a title or a track record. If a door opens, go through it.

If you have not seen one open yet, there is nothing stopping you from knocking.

The pastor I watched made one small choice to widen the welcome, and I have a feeling it will turn out to be one of the better things he does all year.

That is the hopeful part of all this. The voices your church needs are most likely already in the building.

All any of us has to do is ask them in.

So here is my question for you.

Where have you seen someone's creativity bring your church, ministry, or organization to life?

Tell me about it in the comments. I would love to hear who is being invited in and what they are making.

1 comment