Sure, being "big" has its advantages, but it's more likely that if you are acting your size, you are holding yourself back from your true potential. Acting smaller enables you to be nimble and flexible. It allows you to get great ideas quicker, work more of them, move on them faster and develop them easier. It's what will allow you to find true innovation vs. incremental line extensions and me-too products.I was thinking of the implications of this for the church. As a church plant, it's easy to bemoan lack of resources, facilities, capital, etc., but there are some real advantages to being small. A church plant is by its nature quick and agile. It also encourages innovation - nothing has 'always been done that way before', so why not experiment with something that is potentially better. The author encourages rewarding ideas that are 80-90% there, rather than waiting for a 100% perfect idea to come along, which is impossible anyway.
This article goes on to say that, "By fostering a culture of fearlessness, you allow more ideas to enter the process from every angle and every position. Shift your paradigm and reward your employees for taking risks instead of punishing them for failures." Certainly risk-taking and a sense of fearlessness are a part of church planting!
I have noticed that a lot of former youth pastors (our own lead pastor among them!) move into church planting. I believe there is definitely something about the fluidity of ministry to students that helps prepare a leader for the challenge of church planting. A healthy youth ministry will look a little different every year and dramatically different in a five to ten year period (or less) due to the rapidly changing youth culture and challenges of reaching teens for Christ. A student ministry pastor needs to be able to adapt and change as necessary.
The real trick for any church is to maintain that culture of fearlessness and God-honoring risk-taking once the church grows out of being a church plant and becomes a 'big' church. It's exciting to me that Pastor Tim's first message at Journey North, titled "Don't Get Comfortable", tackled some of these ideas. One of our core values is that of change and innovation in order to reach people for Jesus!
