Constraints

Nov 10, 2019 leadership creativity

If you saw the movie Apollo 13 you may remember how the planned space mission had to be aborted when an oxygen tank on board the craft exploded two days after launch. The commander of the mission, Jim Lovell uttered those famous words, “Houston, we have a problem” and then began the immense challenge of finding a way to get the crew home safely. One of the tasks facing engineers on the ground was to try and find a way to rebuild a damaged component using only the very limited materials onboard and within very specific weight constraints. They succeeded eventually and everyone made it home safely.

Often when we have a significant task to achieve, we feel frustrated by the constraints – it feels like there is not enough time, or money, or skill to get the job done. We want to give up. Another perspective however is to see the constraints as a gift. Pastor Craig Groeschel observes that “constraints drive creativity”. That certainly was the case for the ground engineers supporting the Apollo 13 crew – they produced an amazingly creative solution once it became clear how limited their resources were. Groeschel suggests that if we have a big project due in 6 months, we should shift the deadline to 2 weeks and we will see how the constraints will uncover creativity within us that we didn’t know was there.

That is certainly a different perspective!

In my experience, we are often overwhelmed in the church by what we see as constraints – “we don’t have enough money”, or “we don’t have the right skills”, or “everyone is too busy – there isn’t time”. Like Jim Lovell we want to say “We have a problem”. What if instead the constraints served to produce creativity we never knew existed? As 2019 draws to a close, we’re starting to think ahead to plans for 2020. On 24 November we will share some ideas with you in our combined 08h30 service. What are your big dreams for this church family of ours?