Crap Hole Weekend

Have you ever had an idea that just made you laugh your head off? Recently during a team meeting that included our youth pastor, small groups pastor, executive pastor and myself an idea just flew out of our youth pastors mouth that made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt. As we were trying to think of new ways to highlight weekend ministries and recruit for those ministries, the idea of "crap hole weekend" was born.

There would be a buzz created that everyone should be ready to be "inconvenienced" for one weekend. During that weekend, there would be no children's ministry, youth ministry or first impressions ministry (greet, distribute worship folder, provide coffee, etc). Babies might cry during the message, okay let's just be real, they WILL cry during the message. No coffee will be available. Preschoolers will forget to use their "inside voices." First and second grade students will wiggle the entire time. Adults might see the youth texting each other. There would be NO COFFEE!

At first we could not stop laughing, and then it just made sense. That would be a really crazy way to get everyone's attention, but isn't that what we want to do? Get the people's attention and inspire them to see the blessings they receive on a weekly basis and to encourage them to be a blessing. We decided right away we needed to be a little more creative on the name of the weekend, but we all thought this would be awesome! We brainstormed for 2 hours and decided to send the idea to the decision makers.

Were we just plain crazy or was this idea innovative? I read on Kem Meyer's blog 2 questions about innovation;

Q: How do you know when an idea is innovative?
A: When it scares the hell out of everybody.
Q: Then where will innovation come from?
A: Most likely from the outside, or from people inside who think outside.

Well, I am guessing you want to know how it went, well, it didn't happen. I think we really scared the heck out of the leadership. Some ideas just don't happen, and that's okay, but it sure was fun brainstorming together. I appreciate the freedom to dream big and share ideas. I guess on this day we were just crazy!! Check out Kem Meyer's blog, it's good stuff.