Play Informs Our Work
I just watched this really great TEDS video from the Serious Play Conference where Tim Brown about “the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play – with many examples you can try at home (and one that maybe you shouldn’t)”. In the talk he uses many examples, some of them play, to show how people need to play and have fun to be creative. It was very informing and tells me more about how people are created to play.
I was wondering how much the church does this and how we could incorporate more of this into the church, both in the clergy and the laity. If many large successful corporations use useless seeming things to open up their work force to being more creative, then can the church ignore that.
The most interesting thing is that they create rules at his company Ideo like “defer judgment” or “go for quantity” that limit the creative process. But in some way, the limitations are what spark new ideas and ways of thinking about old ones. I remember in my days as a jazz major when learning to improvise. My professor told me to limit myself to only two notes. It was a hard exercise, but proved very useful in teaching me to be creative.
The church has no shortage on rules, but I wonder if they are the right ones. How have these rules forced church leaders to be creative and are those ways really helpful or even healthy to the church. Well, here I go thinking creatively. Give a listen to the talk if you have time.
