What I realized recently is that I can’t specialize. 

There are a lot of things that I’m interested in, care about, pursue, practice, create, love, learn about…But I can’t specialize. My interests are too broad. I launched a blog about food a couple of months ago, and now it sits dormant…Why? Because some other shiny object was dangled in my face. Life got busy. I got invested in other projects.

I still love to cook and more than cook, experiment in the kitchen, but I can’t specialize.

“Wise people” always say to find the one thing that you love and devote yourself to it.

But you know, I don’t want to be great at one thing. I want to kick ass at a multitude of things. I want to cook, and travel, and read to my kids, and date my wife, and shoot pictures, and design, and study, and build, and program, and solve. And to be honest, I think I’ve been created capable of doing all of that really well.

I can’t specialize.

I’m not going to be a great designer, but I will be really good.

I’m not going to be a great writer, but I will be really good.

I’m not going to be a great cook, but I will be really good.

I’m not going to be a great many things, but I will do really good things.

All props and power to the specialists, but I’m not like you.

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All that being said, I’m resurrecting this little blog. This will once again house my interests. Dropping the specialty sites. Bringing it all under one umbrella. Screw the narrow branding, the SEO, the unified story.

I am who I am and I’ll say what I say to whoever is listening on this channel.

REDESIGN COMING SOON.

Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

Saw this on the Fastcodesign blog…

Times change. Passions grow. Hobbies morph.

I’ve recently started a new blog exploring my love of food and cooking. Have a look at A Knob of Butter.

Do you ever feel like you’re working hard to provide solutions…to the wrong problem? Are you exhausting your energy to make small gains relative to small problems, while the bigger problem is the 800 pound gorilla that no one is acknowledging in the room?

As church leaders we spend so much time trying to figure out how to get more. How to get more volunteers. How to get more people to come to church. How to get more people to give financially. So often we’ve defined the problem incorrectly.

We don’t need more volunteers, but we may need to ask ourselves how can we help people recognize their potential kingdom impact through serving?

We don’t need more people to come to church, but we may need to ask how can we motivate people to become active participants in their relationship with God?

We don’t need more money, but we may need to ask how can we help people see the fruit of giving to God’s mission?

A good question creates value through empowerment.

Asking empowering questions opens people up to dig deep, define nuanced problems and provide accurate solutions. This is critical to successful meetings, successful strategic planning, and successful relationships built on trust. If we’re not asking the right questions, it’s more than likely we’re not going to arrive at the right solutions.

Judith Ross has a great article over at Harvard Business Review that will help leaders ask better questions…in hopes of reaching empowered solutions.

The most effective and empowering questions create value in one or more of the following ways:

1. They create clarity: “Can you explain more about this situation?”
2. They construct better working relations: Instead of “Did you make your sales goal?” ask, “How have sales been going?”
3. They help people think analytically and critically: “What are the consequences of going this route?”
4. They inspire people to reflect and see things in fresh, unpredictable ways: “Why did this work?”
5. They encourage breakthrough thinking: “Can that be done in any other way?”
6. They challenge assumptions: “What do you think you will lose if you start sharing responsibility for the implementation process?”
7. They create ownership of solutions: “Based on your experience, what do you suggest we do here?”

Create a culture that embraces questions

Instead of slums of found objects, what if a simple recycled plastic solution could elevate the health and safety of the worlds large population of people “making a home” where they can?

http://inhabitat.com/portable-and-modular-prefabricated-slum-housing-concept/blocks-slum-housing-1/

This year was one of our best Christmas seasons ever. My wife has a beautiful heart and a compassionate soul. For the last two years, she has helped identify a family that we would help be a blessing to over the Christmas season.

We identified some immediate needs in a family who lives very near us. They have  a total of 6 people (mom, dad +4 boys) living in a two room apartment with two beds. The boys were drastically under-prepared for the winter weather and the family just has some general needs as the mom recently had to spend some time in the hospital.

With the help of family and friends, we pulled together to make sure every member of the family had winter clothes (coat, hat, mittens and boots) as well as providing some household supplies that were much needed.

Helping to make this all happen was the decision to not exchange presents with the adults in my family, and a scaled back Christmas on my wife’s side. Also, we were fortunate to receive several gift cards before Christmas that we were able to turn around and use on for this family.

But we couldn’t do it alone. Awesome friends stepped up and supplied many of the needs. Other friends donated cash…and amazingly, it all came together. There was nothing left on the list left to buy.

I’m not saying all this to pat myself on the back…rather, the most amazing thing happened when we returned home from our family trip for Christmas in St. Louis.

We came home to 2 thank you cards.

Not from the family we helped…but from families who got to help. Literally, two people sent us thank you cards, thanking us for inviting them to help make Christmas special for somebody else.

That is Christmas.

That is what means to experience the joy of giving.

It is to be thankful for the opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life.

I hope our tradition of being a blessing to another family will continue for years to come.

Who is waiting to be asked?

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that there is somebody in your life, in your ministry, in your circle of friends, who is sitting on the sidelines, waiting to be asked. They are simply waiting for someone to point at them and ask the question, “Can you help?”

Give people the option to participate in something bigger.

This is a question that I’ve had to wrestle with in my role of leading communications at The Sanctuary over the years. I see many churches struggling with creating an integrated ministry environment, because the communication department is sitting on the sidelines, waiting for instructions from the “real ministries” of the church.

It often happens like this…
A pastor or ministry leader, gets an idea. The idea is talked about with other ministry leaders. The roadmap is written. A plan is put in motion. A few weeks before launch, the discussion arises of how are we going to get the word out….Now bring in the communications department so they can make the bulletin, create graphics, storyboard the video, etc.

While this certainly can be an effective approach, it assumes that the communication department is in a supporting role only. But in my mind, there are only two ministries of the church: Show & Tell. We’re here to Show God’s love and Tell people how they can experience and show it too.

When the Communication department is recognized as a vital ministry area, it can be empowered to both show and tell the story of Jesus in such a way that it inspires and motivates change in people’s lives.

To draw upon another vital kindergarten skill, excellent communicators are simply people who are able to connect the dots for people. As we draw a line from one dot to the next, we begin to see a picture take shape. The story becomes clear. The end result apparent. Great communicators are able to connect a big picture message to a small dot in people’s lives. They connect moments and ideas, to round out the message.

Right after the day of pentecost in Chapter 2 of the book of Acts, we see the first ministry of communication take shape. This unexplainable and perplexing moment happens when men of all languages are speaking in the same tongue. People standby perplexed, wondering if the men are drunk.

Peter steps in to connect the dots. He connects this unexplainable event to the story of scripture. He points people to an understanding of Jesus. And in verse 38 of chapter 2, we find the audience ready to take their next steps, “Brothers, what should we do?” the crowd asks…

Peter was an ordinary man. A fisherman. And now a man with a newfound gift as a communicator. As he retold the story and connected the dots, people became inspired to want more. The audience was ready for life-change. Thousands were motivated to seek Christ that day.

Communications is a forefront ministry in the modern church.

With touch-points reaching into the web and social media networks. Into advertising and marketing strategies. Into the hands of ordinary people with the tools to share the message themselves.

So I wonder where the leverage of communication falls at your church? Is communication in a supporting role only, or is it recognized as a vital and necessary ministry area?

DREAMING of trying to move on to orbital, and then, DREAMING about maybe having hotels in space one day, DREAMING about maybe one day having intercontinental flights…and if you don’t dream, you don’t achieve anything, so from our DREAMS we try to inspire engineers and technicians to make our dreams become realities.
– Richard Branson at the opening of Spaceport America.

Did you know Virgin Galactic is planning commercial flights into space next year? My kids’ generation will be the first to experience travel to space as a form of leisure travel. This is the stuff you dream about when you’re a kid looking up at the stars…and you eventually lose sight of because people expect you to grow up someday.

Richard Branson never stops dreaming. He’s a big dreaming kid in a stale grown up world…and he continues to be one of the most innovative entrepreneurial minds of our time.

Because one man dreams. Because of an attitude that says, dream first, create later.

Too often, we create things out of necessity. You know the old saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

Perhaps Dreams are the mother of innovation. The way we will change the world is by dreaming of what could be, then creating the means to achieve.

As a designer, I so often rush into the creating process. No plan, no foresight, no dreams about the end product. The work I’ve done that has really made an impact has been birthed from a dream first, followed by the execution later.

Take time to dream first and create later.

Jim Lepage is an artist and graphic designer just across the river from me working at Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, MN (Hey, I used to be a volunteer graphic designer there before Sanctuary).

Recently, he’s embarked on a quest called Word.

Word is a series where I create original designs for each book of the Bible. Before each design, I spend time researching the book, finding out the themes, historical context, weirdest stories, etc. I also scan through parts of the book looking for a passage or story that could translate into a cool design. -Jim Lepage

Check out a few of the prints and support his work by picking up a print or two…