Creativity in a Downturn

With all the bad and scary news about the economy - which affects every single ministry I know, including ours - there are a few upsides.  First and foremost, it's apparent that people in general feel more vulnerable and open to spiritual needs and spiritual experiences.  This is tremendously significant for the local church, and if we ever needed to BE THE CHURCH, it's now...
      Another upside is that when resources are scarce, we are propelled to become amazingly creative.  We learn how to do things a different, less expensive way - but often end up being even more effective.  In his terrific book, Organizing Genius, author Warren Bennis describes great groups who uncovered the most remarkable discoveries in garages, dismal basements, and other non-stimulating environments with absolutely no money and very few people.  All they had was their brains and passion and inventive spirits.  And it was more than enough!
      Our team both at my church and also at the Willow Creek Association are in extremely difficult meetings these days, trying to figure out how to do more with less.  But as John Ortberg taught us this past weekend, heaven is not in a downturn!  God is still God, and we can depend on the one who owns the cattle on a thousand hills to provide us with precisely what we need to do ministry another day, even in the midst of potential lay-offs, lower offerings, and weary leaders.  I take heart from Psalm 24 that begins:
 The earth is the Lord's and everything in it,
    the world and all who live in it...
 Lift up your heads, you gates;
    lift them up, you ancient doors,
    that the King of glory may come in.
 Who is he, this King of glory?
 The Lord Almighty -
 He is the King of glory.          (Psalm 24: 1a, 9, 10)
      I am choosing these days to lift up my head to the Lord Almighty - that's where our help will come from.  He is an unlimited supply of creativity, resources, people, ideas, strategies, and transcendent moments to provide for each and every one of his children.  Let us not despair or be downcast.  God is NOT in a downturn!

Published 16 February 2009 05:30 PM by Nancy Beach
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Comments

# Deb Meyer said on 17 February, 2009 08:29 AM
Food for thought: Picture a hillside, covered with thousands of hungry people. What are we going to do, asks one of the disciples? Send them into the villages to buy food replies another. No, Jesus replies, you give them something to eat. All we have are a few loaves of bread and a couple of small fish, they counter. You know the rest of the story. Jesus takes what they have, thanks God the Father for it, blesses it, and puts the disciples to work feeding the hungry crowd. It seems we have a tendency to think we need more, bigger and better to be effective in ministry. We look at our budgets, expenses and offerings and don’t see how we can do it. We see a world of hungry people, starving for God’s love, and needing to know of his grace and mercy. Feeding them seems impossible. Have we forgotten to thank God for what we do have? Have forgotten to ask him to bless our meager supply of loaves and fish? If so, perhaps we need to re-read that story, and remember that they were all filled and had an abundance of leftovers.
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