 Good afternoon. It is first of all lovely to have you all here. Thank you for being here. I want to welcome everybody who is joining us online, and I want to thank Radiant and Pastelie for giving me this opportunity to spend a bit of time with you this afternoon. What an incredible day and a half it's already been, and I hope that the next hour will, that you'll be able to take something from what I've got to share with you today. So I'm here with Ruth. This is my wife over here. She's my superstar. I knew I had, I knew I was gonna have one person in the room. So I'm blessed to have so many of you here. So thank you. And we live, we've been in the US for 10 years as you can tell. Hopefully from my accent I'm originally from the UK, and I say hopefully because Ruth tells me that my accent is slowly slipping. So I'm gonna try and hold on to it as best I possibly can. So today we are gonna be talking about ideas, we're gonna be talking about innovation and creativity, and I had to kind of think back to why like why am I so passionate about this this topic? Why do I believe ideas can really drive change? And I remember in what I think most of you were called middle school. So I guess I was 12 or 13 and I had a teacher called Mr. Parry, and every day he would read a book, an excerpt from a book, and it was called Ideas that Change the World. And I think it was just like drummed in to me from that point in time that ideas really can change the world. They can change our behaviors, they can change everything. And I think from that early stage I got passionate about ideas and that's really what I've spent most of my career over probably the last 20 or it's probably 25 years now but I'm still good. Let's go with 20 because that makes me feel younger. So can we just pray before we get started? Does that sound good? Father God, I just thank you for this opportunity to spend this time with this group here and everybody who's joining online. I just pray Lord that whatever is the message that you have for this group today, I pray that you would bring me the words, bring me the wisdom and the knowledge. Lord, just have your way in this next hour Lord. I pray it brings hope and inspiration and some excitement for what lies ahead. In Jesus' name. Amen. So my plan for the next roughly 40 minutes, something like that, is I'm going to talk to you or share with you a few things that I've learned in my secular life related to ideas and innovation and creativity. And then I want to make the connection to what that means for us as Christians. And how should we be approaching this whole area? And I think, spoiler alert, I think we are uniquely placed to be incredible innovators and full of ideas and innovation. So I'm actually going to approach this in three parts. And Miguel, I'm normally used to presenting with a clicker. So Miguel is going to be my clicker today. And Miguel, maybe you can just move on to the next slide, please. So I want to start by talking about mindset. So it's going to probably be a bit weird because I'm not going to talk about ideas until a little way into this conversation. But the first thing I want to talk about is mindset. Because I believe that our mindset is one of, if not the most important thing in determining whether we create an environment where ideas can thrive, where ideas can be successful. Let's just go to the next slide, Miguel, please. This is what I feel like most of the meetings that I attend can often feel like. I've often heard finance committee described as the place where good ideas go to die. If this is our world, if this is our environment, if this is what it feels like, then it's no surprise that we don't see the raft of creativity and innovation. Things get stifled. So as you think about that, we've got to be really, really intentional about mindset. We've got to think about where we are in the process. And one of the things that I really encourage you to do, you know, there's a time for being full of creativity and full of innovation and full of possibility. And then there's a time for closing things down and starting to say, okay, what are we going to do? We've got to be really clear to everybody which mode we're in. Because if you have half the group who are in the closing things down and half the group who are in the possibility, imagine what could be. Funny enough, things aren't going to work and you're going to end up with things colliding. So it's really, really important to signal to everyone, where are we at on our journey right now? And here's a phrase if you can go to the next slide that I love to use and it's called, I heard it and I just latched onto it. It's called Wow Before the How. And I'm sure you've probably all been there where everybody's like, well, you know, we kind of, we tried that last year and you know, it didn't work because of X, Y, and Z. And you know, well, we thought about doing that. But yeah, what you need to know about what this group right here is, what's different is, and you hear all of these things straight away. So my encouragement is before we get into judging, before we start to think about the practicalities and so on and how we might make it happen, start with the Wow. So when you hear somebody and they have a gem of an idea or a thought, just let it grow. Let it breathe for a moment. And this is such a simple thought and as anybody who knows me knows, I love simplicity and I love making it really, really easy. So hold on to that thought about the Wow Before the How. You know, the other things that you can do is ask some really provocative questions like, what's the one thing that if we could do it differently, if it could be different, would change everything? Ask yourselves those really bold questions, those things that kind of scare us a little bit because those are going to be the things that are going to open up possibilities. And I wanted to say one word on failure. You know, the only failure is failing to learn from failure, right? We have to fail. I'm going to share with you some of the examples of the things that have, where I've seen success and where we've had incredible results. But I can tell you that behind all of those, there's a litany of things that were disasters that didn't work. And frankly, most of what I'm sharing with you today comes from that journey and those experiences of things not actually working. So I wanted to give you one example. And so this is an example. I've worked for Kellogg's serial company for about 18 years, nearly, in the UK and in the US and around the world. And, you know, cereal, everybody's seen it, everybody's eaten it forever. It's advertised as cereal with milk, in a bowl, probably with four people, sat around a table, and that's been pretty much it for ever, probably 100 years since WK, just up the road, kind of came up with the idea. And, you know, the problem was, cereal's really, really boring. And we needed to do something about it. So somebody had a great idea on the team. They were like, hey, you know, we should think about cereal like pasta, or pasta, what do you say? Pasta? Thank you. That was English there. Okay. So I'll stick with pasta. You should think about it like pasta, because you could eat it anywhere. You could eat it with ice cream, you could eat it, I mean, you could pour on syrup, you can put nuts on it, you can eat it in the middle of the night. You can do, you can do all these things with it. Why didn't we think about that before? So it's a really good idea. And the mindset of the team was very open to what's possible. And I say that because we briefed a classic advertising agency and they came back and they said, okay, we've got this great idea. You know, we're going to picture the scene as you kind of, kind of anybody who's seen the kind of classic movies or madman or something like that, you know, these guys come in and they say, okay, we're going to do a 30 second TV ad and somebody comes into somebody's home and they're going to reimagine it. And we were all sat there and completely underwhelmed because it just didn't do justice to this idea. And then there was a guy on my team who came to me and he said, I think I've got another idea. And he said, I think we should open a restaurant. And like this is a company that's made cereal for 100 years, sells to Walmart, you know, deals with big trucks, doesn't deal with like restaurants. And but if you think about the why before the how, the best thing to say, okay, tell me more, tell me more about it is like, well, I think we could sell cereal in every kind imaginable from the middle of them, you know, early morning, all the way through to the evening. I think we could just do it completely differently. I was like, tell me more, okay, well, we'll get a celebrity chef, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more. And we ended up launching the cafe in Times Square in New York. And it was more six times more successful than any traditional advertising that we'd done previously. And people wrote about it in social media, we got to open the New York Stock Exchange as a result. All of that to say it's a secular example, but it's an example of, you know, if the classic mindset would have been, oh no, no, we don't, that's not what we do around here. That's not the way we do it. So I just encourage you just to be open to the fact that the ideas might look really, really different to what we do today. So if you think about that, let's go on to this next slide. I want us to think also about individuals, because we all come at things with our own perspective, right? We all come with our own mindset. And one thing I want to say up front, there's, I love things like MBTI and Enneagram and all these different typology things that you can do. And some people love them, some people hate them, but it kind of helps you to think about your preferences. And I think one of the things I want to say up front is so important is that those, you have to be really careful to make sure they don't define you. Those things are just a guide for where you might, you tend to gravitate. But I want to share one that I heard this in the last year because I thought it was really, really useful. So it's from the table group, and I like it because it's all about geniuses, and that sounds really good to me. I think everybody, basically it means everybody's a genius. And there's six geniuses, and I want us to go through these. Generally what they'll say is there's two that you just naturally go to. You're like absolutely draw energy out of it. And then there's two that you can do, but they're really, really hard work. And maybe at the end I'll ask Ruth if she can tell me which, I think Ruth's pretty sure, I'm pretty sure you'll know which ones I struggle with. But anyway, the six geniuses here, there's the genius of wonder. So these are the people that look at the world and imagine it different. They just, they ask the questions why, and why is it like that, and why is it, and what if that's the gift of wonder. The second is the gift of innovation. So these are the people that just walk around and go, hey, I've got an idea. I've got an idea for you. I've got an idea for you. They're exhausting, but I've got an idea for you. I've got an idea for you. The third is the gift of discernment. So this is that ability to actually look at an idea and say, yeah, actually what we need to think about with that, or what would have to be true for that, is this thing. They're really good at kind of assessing an idea and working out whether it's going to work. The fourth is the galvanizes. These are people who, they're really good at getting a group together and exciting people. Getting people unified behind an idea and corraling effort. The fifth are the enablers. These are the people that bring the help. So these are the people that see the financial need, the people need. They're like, okay, yes, absolutely. I can help with that. I love the idea. I'm here. This is, let's go make it happen. And then the sixth one, which is not me, is the people that actually make sure it gets done and gets across the finish line. And these people are really, really important. They are going to drag it, kicking and screaming across the line to get that thing done. And I say that because, you know, I talked about the fact we've got to be really intentional about our mindset and where are we on our journey when it comes to ideas and innovation. Also think about it from an individual level. Where am I naturally going to gravitate towards? I won't ask everybody to put their hands up today, but hopefully you can kind of connect and start to fill with where you might be. So it's really, really good just to be able to think, okay, where am I at as I come into this conversation about ideas and creativity? Okay, you can go to the next slide. I actually, so we've talked about groups and we've talked about, we've talked about us as individuals. I want to talk about us as Christians and our Christian mindset. And we've all heard this verse countless times, but I feel like this one just never gets old. It says we're in Ephesians 320. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think according to the power at work within us. Abundantly more, we have a God who, I like to think of him as, he's kind of like mission impossible. The things that we think are impossible that we just see no way for them to happen, he just does it. And you see it if you, as you know, you spend time in the Word, you just see it over and over again. I read, I was reading Acts this week and I was reading just the conversion of Paul. And you know you see Saul stood over as the executioner. There is no way out for this guy, right? I mean it's impossible. And yet in the very next chapter we hear how Paul or Saul is God's chosen instrument. I'm like, you know, it just kind of blows your mind. So think about that. Think about all of those stories, all of those things that are real, where the impossible happened. You know, I think our mindset as Christians, we should be the most possibility oriented group of people on the face of the planet. I really, really believe that. Somebody who is really good if you want to read in this area, Mark Batterson, I've got a couple of quotes from him that I just love. The first is this one, Miguel, if you can bring it up. This is a great question for all of us to ask. What looms larger in our mind memories or possibilities? And don't get me wrong, there's power in memories and we talked this morning about you know remembering the great revivals and the things that we're going to draw inspiration from. But if the past is where we spend our time, we will never spend our time in the future and what's possible. So I, this to me is a really, is a really, really challenging question to ask ourselves, you know, where am I today? Where am I dwelling? And you know, sometimes when I feel like I'm, I'm not being as creative, I'm not being as innovative as I need to be, it's nearly always because I'm dwelling in the past and I'm thinking about mistakes or I'm thinking about things, maybe things that went right and I'm trying to hang on to that way that it went right and it's like actually I'm going to go do a new thing. So I just, I love that one and then I wanted to finish this section, this first piece with the second quote if you can go there Miguel. The size of your dreams may be the most accurate measure of the size of your God and I just, I read that and I loved it and I underlined it and I highlighted it and you know when was the last time we tried to do something that was not going to happen without divine intervention? You know, leaving room for God to be able to move to show up and move in our life and I'm somebody, I like to control things, I like to know that there's a plan and you know I like things worked out, even this workshop, I'm like I want everything worked out and when it wasn't. But I'm really trying to give room in my life for God to show up and God to move. So that's really what I wanted to say about mindset. Mindset is so so important and if you take nothing else out, think about ideas and innovation and creativity by getting in the right mindset first and remembering that as Christians we can be the most possibility oriented people. Okay the second thing I wanted to talk about was purpose. So purpose is obviously really really important and if you, if you're not clear, whether you're talking about a school or a church or a business or wherever you are, if you don't understand why you're there innovation becomes really really really hard because it just becomes random and I like a quote here from Simon Sinek who's a, you probably, you may have heard of him, he's a leadership author and and so on and speaker that's out there and he says people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it and I think that's also really true if you think about the organizations and the teams you're a part of, you want to connect them to the why behind why you're there because then they're going to bring their heart and soul to what's in hand. So I think it's really really important that we understand why we're here. There's another author that I really like, Michael Cooley and he says, this might be a little bit harsh but it's nice and simple, every activity not aligned with your purpose is a waste of resources. It's pretty, it's a pretty challenging statement but I think it's a really good filter for us to say okay if we're really about this is everything that we're doing organized and driving towards that thing because if it isn't then we end up with random stuff and I guess every once in a while one of those random things hits but we've really got to understand where we're coming from and if I think about innovation and ideas and creativity and things that I've been involved in where we've often gone off track is because we're not really know why on earth we're doing this thing in the first place. So I'm going to give you an example so we're going to go back to the world of Kellogg's and how many people have eaten a Rice Krispie treat? Okay most people I didn't really know what they were when we moved here and we did like Rice Krispie cakes I think but Rice Krispie treats they are the thing that brings the family together right you bake these slabs and and then you kind of you cover it with all this stuff and so I work that was it that was one of the brands that I I worked on at Kellogg and one of the things about that brand in terms of what it stood for was it was all about human connection it was all about bringing people together and that made sense to me once I understood the history of Rice Krispie treats and where this thing came from like you open it up and everybody comes in and gets excited about it so the purpose of that brand was all about human connection and back to school back to school is a really big time for retailers it's a really big time for people that make all this kind of stuff and kids go back to school and somebody on my team said you know the most important school supply is love and support and I was like oh that's good somebody write that down before we we forget it love and support is the most important back to school supply and and so that led to the idea to put right on wrappers on the on the wrapper because what parents are saying is hey I send my kids off to school and then I'm not there and I wish I could just send them an encouragement in the middle of the in the middle of the day which was really cool did very well but if you think about the purpose of this brand and human connection somebody else came and said hey we've got visually impaired kids that can't that for this it doesn't work for them like they can't receive those messages and I was like I felt like I'm back in the cereal cafe thing I'm like okay tell me more what are you thinking and they're like well I think we could do braille stickers that parents could order that's customized to what the message they want to send to their kid we can send them to them and then we can put them on there and and and that's what that's what we could do I was like that sounds pretty cool how do we do it no idea but that doesn't matter yet because we're still in the wow phase and and they did it and you know what I love is as they go into they were like do you know there's actually a significant number of visually impaired kids can't actually read braille so we need to do an audio version and and it just kept going and going and going and again what's fascinating about it is in terms of a it was the right thing to do but from an impact standpoint on the business was also incredibly effective much more effective than all the other stuff we traditionally done and why is it effective I believe it's because it comes back to the purpose and why why the brand exists in the first place so by the way I think in life I never thought I would talk about rice crispy treats and Jesus and so I feel like God's kind of laughing and he's like yeah I got this like I'm going to bring it all together so I wanted to talk about purposes as Christians and I think we are blessed to have the clearest or the most clarity on purpose again on anybody on the face of the earth right everybody knows let's go to the let's go to the great commission in Matthew so I love this go therefore and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you and by the way just as an aside I love that it says and behold I'm with you always to the end of the age so we're certainly not doing this alone but I I just love the clarity in that it's just abundantly clear what we are supposed to be focusing our energy and our time and our resources on and this is something that I think many of us struggle with you know what's the point why am I here what am I supposed to do find the connection back to this because that's where we find our purpose I uh this is a lovely quote that that I wrote down it said God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time of course it seems like the wrong place at the wrong time and I feel like that happens a lot but God really does position us in the right place to be able to move and I don't know if I if I kept in the next slide Miguel if you can go there I love this quote it's another one from Simon Sinek it says dream big starts more but most of all start and I think sometimes we get kind of paralyzed and like oh I don't know is it right is it right should I be doing this should I be not let's let's start let's take that step because Jesus always comes and meets you when you start stepping so um that's that's purpose so um as Christians we have this or we should have this mindset oriented towards what's possible we also have absolute clarity in our purpose and and what we're here to do so let's then move on now and Miguel maybe go to the next slide we're going to start to talk about ideas themselves and uh so we kind of need some ideas right how do we actually think about and come up with ideas there's there's three steps that I like to use as I think about coming up with ideas and what I want to say actually before I get to this is that there's no formula for ideas and I would say that I don't think I've ever come up with an idea when I've been sat in a room kind of like stood at a whiteboard you know waiting for something to happen so you you really need to be open to inspiration happening at any point it's actually really good you know if you read there's a great book called Habit which is an excellent read and you know if if you follow the same route to work every day if you eat the same thing every day if you do the same thing every day you drive the same route you do all those things day after day after day no surprise that there's not much room for inspiration and creativity so deliberately disrupt yourself and you'll find yourself becoming more creative and having more thoughts and ideas so with that being said I want to give you kind of three filters that I think are really useful when it comes to innovation and ideas the first is Miguel if you can go to the next slide look we're like in tune now I feel like we're humming so the first thing it starts with that purpose right so we know we've got we've got the mindset but it starts with the purpose why are we here what is it that we are trying to do so whether this is whether we're talking about your business whether we're talking about your school whether we're talking about your family whether we're talking about the church it starts with why are we here and then you really want to get super clear on what's the problem we're trying to solve what is the thing that's the barrier or the obstacle to that to the purpose for which you exist what's getting in the way and as you think about those problems it's really really good to keep asking why but why why is that why is that why is that keep asking the question why to try to get to really to the root cause of what's getting in the way and really think about behaviors like okay well so people are showing up at church once in every once every four weeks on average why is that okay let's really start to get into that start to unpack that so we have to have clarity on on purpose on problem and then the third bit which is where it gets really exciting is the possibility what's the thing that we could do what's the spark what's the thing that could overcome that problem to achieve the purpose that we're striving to do and this is where it gets exciting because this is where we get to bring in things like technology we get to think about new ways of doing things that we haven't imagined before and I think you know the last 18 months has been a perfect example of that we've been innovating by necessity at an incredible rate and finding new and different ways to do things so one thing I wanted to say about technology though is technology is it can get really exciting and you can get really lost really quickly so and I know because I have so I feel like for years I was like we've got to have an app everybody's got an app we need an app what's it going to do I have no idea we should have wearables right wearable technology why I don't know but it would be really cool if we could and I think if we chase the technology then we put that first and that really doesn't work so what's so important is to think about the technology as as part of the possible as part of the solution but you've got to understand the purpose first and the problem that you're trying to overcome and when you understand those things then the technology really gives you really helps make that idea work and I wanted to go back this is an idea that I was involved in in 2000 who got their first mobile phone mobile mobile mobile cell phone before 2000 before 2000 anybody have a mobile phone before 2000 cell phone before 2000 there's a few okay so back in 2000 I was living in London and I was getting used to this thing called texting which was which was pretty cool but you know it didn't have predictive text like we have today by the way just as an aside I remember listening to people you know delivering messages and it would be like oh here he is on the old school stuff and what it used to be like and now I'm up here doing it so anyway where was I yeah so we're just getting used to texting so we're typing in things like how are you with a capital R and a U because it takes too long to be able you didn't have predictive text you couldn't put the whole thing in but everybody was kind of obsessed with this idea of text messaging and at the time I worked for Cabri which is a chocolate company best chocolate in the world and everybody's sort of Willy Wonka right and the chocolate factory and the golden ticket so like that like we've been using that for like 80 years basically just rolling over and over and find the lucky the lucky bar but it's again it's getting tired it's getting bored what are we about we're about fun we're about excitement and bringing brightness to your day so somebody on the team came in and said okay I've got this idea we want to bring excitement that's what we're all about but the problem is everybody's seen it all before we think that we might be able to put a text message inside of a chocolate bar wrapper and then get this you could text that to a number and that number will text you back to tell you if you've won or not and like minds are blown it's hard to believe now but I remember in that moment and I said okay do you know how to do it well not quite but we think we know some people that might be able to help us help us do it and if you go to the next slide this is this is what that looked like it was called Cabri text and win and I had to go back to the BBC and look at what they said at the time the biggest trial of wireless advertising this promotion is pushing the boundaries of how text messaging can be used as a marketing tool it was actually the first time that text messaging was used as a marketing tool 10% of people in the UK took part and I think we probably agree it's subsequently become a pretty big thing from a marketing standpoint but I wanted to use that as an example because it you know it came back to okay we're about bringing fun we're about bringing excitement that's what we're about and there's this problem it's just all it's just boring we need to do something different and it gave a purpose for the technology and so I wanted to share that and I it's wonderful I look back on with quite a lot of nostalgia I guess related to related to that so let's now think about it in relation to us as as Christians and this is where I think it gets perhaps most exciting of all so actually I wanted to go to first Corinthians 3 9 and it says in the ESV for we are God's fellow workers here's the King James version for we are laborers together with God and I love that because it means that we are not operating under our own power we are not operating on our own when it comes and that means we're not operating on our own when it comes to ideas and innovation and creativity which is pretty cool we have something called the Holy Spirit it's like this secret source it's this extra special advantage that we have that's coming alongside us and is going to inspire us and is gonna bring thoughts and is gonna bring ideas and innovation if we are open to it Mark Basseson references the movie Inception if anybody's seen that movie it's all about kind of implanting ideas into your subconscious it's kind of a cool a pretty cool movie but one of the quotes that he says is I believe the Holy Spirit performs Inception that idea of the Holy Spirit coming and planting something and I feel like even over the last day and a half I've heard in multiple sessions people talking about how the Holy Spirit came and brought them this idea or brought them this thought or brought them this component that was gonna really set them on a course and set them on a trajectory and if we're open to it God is ready and willing to work with us and that means in every facet so I guess as I kind of bring it towards a close you know I believe there's I believe that there's ways of doing church that nobody's thought of yet I think we started to see that over the last 18 months we've seen an acceleration in that one of the things I love about the Great Commission it's I also call it the unconstrained commission like it's it was very very clear but it's also very open it's open to ideas it's open to innovation it's open to creativity and I think we need to be able to approach it in that way so if you just go to the last slide Miguel if I can leave you with anything it is that mindset really really does matter as you're approaching the thoughts of innovation and creativity and as Christians we really should have the most possibility oriented we should be the most possibility oriented people on the face of the earth secondly from a purpose standpoint we have absolute clarity as to why we're here and what we're supposed to do so if nothing else let's work on that as a purpose and then from an idea standpoint remember the ideas can come from anywhere be really open to it but be open to the Holy Spirit and be open to the Holy Spirit working in you and planting ideas in you and seeding those ideas in you and when you hear an idea remember wow before the how so that's everything I had for you guys and I wonder what I can turn open to any questions that you've got I'm an open book so feel free to ask anything that might be on your mind oh actually there's there are two one of them is I want to say it's in a snowy pit in a in a pit on a snowy day with a lion that perfect dream team that is that's probably my that's probably my favorite