Thinking inside the box can drive innovation

On Thursday and Friday, leaders from around the globe gathered for the 25th annual Global Leadership Summit.

The summit takes place at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, but it's simulcast to host sites to reach a global audience of church leaders, business executives, civic leaders, volunteers and even inmates at 81 prisons, including the one in Charleston, Missouri. In Cape Girardeau, the summit is hosted by LaCroix Church.

Summit champion and Life Church pastor Craig Groeschel gave one of the defining talks of this year's summit. The title was "Bend the Curve," which focused on how value is positively affected by increasing costs up to a certain point. At some point, however, the increased cost (in both time and money) will not justify the marginal increase in value.

Groeschel will give 16 talks over the next two months. He said with about eight hours of preparation, he can get his talk to 90% of full potential. At about the 20-hour mark, he can get it to 95%. At 40 hours, it reverts to 90%. In other words, the increased time brings a diminishing return. Groeschel referred to this as "overcooking the sermon."

The key take-away was the acronym: GETMO. Good Enough To Move On.

"The pursuit of excellence will motivate you," he said, "but the pursuit of perfection will eventually limit you."

So how do you bend the curve?

One example was to think INSIDE the box.

"The problem with outside the box is there are unlimited options," he said. "Constraints drive creativity."

For Groeschel and Life Church this principle is how their video-based sermons first began. In 2001, between the Saturday night and Sunday morning services, Groeschel's first son was born. He would not be able to preach on Sunday morning, and the church had a limited time to determine what to do.

Because the pastor was able to preach on Saturday night and the service was recorded, they used the video of the Saturday night service on Sunday morning.

Today, it's this decision, in part, that has helped lead Life Church to become the largest attended church, using video-based sermons to reach more people in more locations with the Gospel.

Earlier this week my family lost a dear friend, Dorothy Tucker.

Dorothy was 97 years old and legally blind. But you would never know it by how she lived life. One of the sweetest people you will ever meet, Dorothy was an encourager, a prayer warrior and kind to every single person she came in contact with. Over the last four years while living at Saxony Village, she cultivated relationships and invited others living in the retirement community to church. She spoke with people in person and would make calls to check in on others.

Dorothy had numerous constraints. But, whether she realized it or not, she thought inside the box and bent the curve. She used each day, with the resources she had, to bless others with her grace and kindness.

Summit leaders are famous for saying that everyone is a leader because leadership is influence. And everyone has influence.

It's a challenge to each of us: How can we, with the resources we have, use our influence to make a difference?

Lucas Presson is assistant publisher of the Southeast Missourian.