I just read a fascinating article by Fast Co. Design where it challenges the typical approach to brainstorming. The typical approach involves getting people together and having them throw ideas up on the board–or whatever medium you’re writing on. The idea was that this type of “group” approach helps people to be more creative and get more ideas flowing. Studies going back to the fifties, though, seem to dispute this notion. The article suggests that there’s several factors that lead to creativity:

1. Design of a work space. Creativity often happens when people, who don’t normally cross paths, have the ability to mingle and share ideas. The author mentions the famed Building 20–a building on the campus of MIT that is famous for churning out many great ideas and inventions. And the implication is that, because the scientist worked in such cramped and close quarters, that it allowed the free exchange of different kinds of ideas.

This concept is talked about in the Steve Jobs bio. The story goes that, when he became the CEO of Pixar, he commission a complete redesign of the entire building. He sought to create open space where people would be forced to mingle at different times, and thereby–or hopefully–share different ideas. Did it work?

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I think we’ve all heard the phrase that “leaders are readers.” I’m convinced that one thing that sets growing leaders apart is the fact that they feed themselves and intellectually challenge themselves through interesting experiences and reading books.

That’s why my ears perked up when I heard about Get Abstract. It’s a book summary service where, for a membership fee, you can select various books that they’ve condensed into a five-page summary. Now, I read a decent amount of books per year, but I thought this would be an interesting way for me to “read” some books that I normally would not have purchased.

So before I totally spill the guts on my experience with Get Abstract, let me first share a screen shot on how it actually works.

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Up until about 3 months ago, I pastored in a relatively small church. If you pastor in a small church, you know well that the pastor does a little bit of everything. You’re the web guy. The preacher. At times you’re the janitor. If someone gets sick, you’re the one that is expected to go for the visit. If someone needs a Bible study, the church members look to you. In one way or another you oversee lots of little things.

I used to think that being part of a larger church would require about the same amount of energy and time, and certainly not more. Now that I’m part of a larger church, I’m seeing that I was wrong. Before I share more, let me first delineate some things that I’m no longer doing:

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When I was in seminary I was involved in a cell church called “The Passage.” At first it began as just one cell group in the home of professor Don James. A few weeks after I joined some from the group wanted to multiply and launch their own cell group. I stayed behind in the mother group for about 6 months at which point I launched out with two other guys and their wives. When the group grew to about 25 people I launched out with a few of them to lead my own cell group. All the while I was receiving all kinds of coaching, training, and learning to live life in community with others.

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I met with our church elders privately. I then announced it to our church board. Afterwards I made the difficult announcement to the church. To get the full details and background you can read this newsletter I wrote to my church.

Here’s the gist: I’ve accepted a call to be the pastor of evangelism at Pioneer Memorial Church in Berrien Springs, Michigan. My last Sabbath at the Carrollwood Seventh-day Adventist church will be June 4th and our family will actually move north to Michigan the last week of June.

So why am I announcing this here?

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Have you ever wondered what the common traits are amongst top CEO’s? Have you ever wondered if you have what it takes to be a top-level leader? Here’s a great article from the New York Times, based upon the book The Corner Office that shares these basic traits. These principles were distilled from interviews with 70 top executives.

1. Passionate Curiosity: “They ask big-picture questions. They wonder why things work the way they do and whether those things can be improved upon. They want to know people’s stories, and what they do…It’s this relentless questioning that leads entrepreneurs to spot new opportunities and helps managers understand the people who work for them, and how to get them to work together effectively. It is no coincidence that more than one executive uttered the same phrase when describing what, ultimately, is the C.E.O.’s job: “I am a student of human nature.”

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This is part two in a series. To check out the first one click here.

I’m going to walk you through our journey of how we raised $5,000 to partner with Charity: Water to build a well. I’ll share the good, the bad, and the ugly, and then I’ll share some parting lessons that I learned in the process.

It all began last December. I was speaking and dreaming with one of our church leaders, when we came up with this idea to partner with Charity Water to raise funds to build a water well. Every year leading up to Christmas we do a big push for a special giving campaign that goes towards evangelism or some mission project. So we thought, let’s do Charity Water this year for our giving campaign. We had about three weeks to go, and I was convinced that we’d be able to make our goal. So here’s what we did to set it up.

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