Five and Nine

: CATALYST WEST :: APRIL 23-24, 2009 ::

Recently, I went to the CATALYST WEST conference in southern California. The conference was packed with great speakers. I took some notes on what they said and am putting them on my blog so that 1) I can re-evaluate what each speaker said and hopefully gain something from it, and 2) you might be able to gain something from my notes as well.

Here is the second installation.

:: Guy Kawasaki ::

10 Keys to Innovation

1) Make meaning.
2) Make mantra - Are there two or three words that can describe your church/ministry?
3) Jump to the next curve - If you design your [church] around what you (programming), you'll miss the next curve.
4) Roll the DICE
D = Deep
I = Intelligent
C = Complete
E = Elegant
E = Emotive
5) Don't worry, be crappy - get it out there, then perfect it.
6) Polarize people - it is impossible to please everyone. Something great creates controversy.
7) Let 100 flowers blossom
8) Churn baby, churn
9) Niche thyself - what makes our church unique and valuable?
10) Follow 10, 20, 30 rule
10 - optimal number of slides
20 - minutes for presentation
30 - size font
11) Don't let the bozos grind you down
"If you want to see what God thinks of money, look at who He gives it too."


Guy is a Christian who is well-known in the business world, having worked with Apple Computers for years before starting his own company.

Some of his points might not make much sense if you weren't at the conference to hear him elaborate on these points. Others might seem like they fit in a business model, but not a church. What I'll do is just focus on two of the points that I think we apply in a church setting most easily: #5 and #9 (with a little #6 mixed in).

5) Don't worry, be crappy. In ministry we often try to create the "perfect" (insert noun here - program, event, resource, etc). But what about those kids, students, adults who are in our ministry while we our work is still in progress? They miss out. Wouldn't it be better to give them a mediocre product and refine it, than to give them nothing at all?

9) Niche thyself. The value of a church is simple, it is the message of Christ. But in order to draw in outsiders*, our delivery must be unique. If people have avoided church thus far, why wait for them to change? We need to change the delivery to reach them. If we want to see our church be truly effective, we need to reach fewer people more completely, than reach people en masse superficially.



*Kinnaman, David. Unchristian: What a new generation really thinks about Christianity ... and why it matters.