Borrowing

You know what we are finally starting to get good at? We are getting better about borrowing ideas and concepts from each other. I have noticed that a good idea form one place is beginning to turn up in others and how smart that is! I have been borrowing freely for years. I guess it's not really borrowing when you take something and don't plan on returning it. I guess that's more like stealing, but I digress.

I have attended a leadership seminar at Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City, KS for the last two year. It is very well done and I learn so much. The biggest thing I learned though is how to be generous. They do such a good job of welcoming guests from all over the country. They do great workshops and great worship, they also share all their ideas, copies of their materials and even staff people to tell you how they run their 15,000 member church. We have taken many of their concepts and adapted them to work in our much smaller church. Other churches are taking them from us and doing the same thing. We are now part of the chain the links us all together.

This year the COR folks told us to take home every idea, tweak it and come back with how we made it better. I thought that is such a good model. Start with a problem or an opportunity, develop a way of dealing with it effectively, share the solution, let others adjust and adapt and have them come back with improvements. If that's possible, the Body of Christ ought to make the a priority.

One funny borrowing story: I was in Kansas City last fall with my pastor. We have been hosting trunk or treating at our fall festival for the last couple of years. We drove past a church in Kansas City with a sign up for their trunk or treat night. My pastor looks at me in shock and says, 'someone took our idea for trunk or treating'. I had to stop giggling long enough to say, we stole it from someone else too! It would have been fun to take credit for that idea, but I think most good ideas were borrowed so many times, taking credit for the origins is pretty difficult.

I hope we get better at borrowing and giving away. I think it helps us focus on what really matter; reaching out and sharing God more effectively. Ministering to people by inviting and including is vital to developing disciples for Jesus Christ, and ways to do that well ought to be offered to all. We should be taking successful churches up on their offer, lets borrow those ideas and put them to work for us.

This is networking at it's finest.