The Creative Brainstorm
Everything we do at Generationscc gets a creative brainstorm (at least our Church wide ministries/events). This means a group of people come together to discuss past experiences and new ideas. The most common and productive brainstorm we have is for each series that we do as a church. I will share how that looks and works for us.
12 weeks (or as close as possible) we have a creative brainstorm. Each person that I invite to this brainstorm gets a outline of the series with my notes and thoughts for two weeks before the meeting. This helps inspire each person and prepare them before we meet.
I try to start each brainstorm with something fun, this may be connected to the theme of the series or maybe something just exciting. Examples are sending the team on a journey to different places across the campus for a series that talks about believers and unbelievers being on a journey. I have also had vision series and chose to do a fun science experiment, pour solution on peoples hand and set on fire (be careful).
I break the group into smaller groups and ask questions depending on the theme and the goal of the series. Each group gets a time limit to discuss first reactions to the questions. Once we go through multiple questions that help set the tone and theme I open it up to discuss thoughts.
Then I steer the conversation to more specific creative elements, what would you like to see for videos? What type of songs would you like to hear? What should the branding look like? What other creative elements should happen? Is there a testimony we should do? etc...
This meeting last 2 hours and is usually broken in half. The first half is for the questions and comments, the second half is for creative elements where we get to the specifics.
How do you run your creative brainstorm?